One important thing: Zomato saw losses widen even as its revenue grew by almost a fifth in the third quarter of FY23.

• It reported Rs 347 crore in losses, up from Rs 251 crore last quarter 
  
  
• Its revenue increased 17% sequentially to Rs 1,948 crore

Also read what Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal said on the spate of top-level exits

Side note: Ant Group’s nominee to the company’s board, Douglas Feagin, has resigned. This is the second board that Alibaba-owned Ant Group is exiting after Paytm, and comes just weeks after it sold its shares in Zomato.

In today’s newsletter:

• Freshworks' fresh start
• BharatPe fight gets uglier
• Twitter's Thursday blues

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2023 seems like a very SaaSy year for Nasdaq-listed Freshworks, as the company is looking to break even by Q3 and turn operationally profitable. 

• This is significant because software companies, including Salesforce, are cautious about growth due to tight macroeconomic pressures.

The SaaS giant reported consolidated revenue from operations of $498 million for the full year 2022, up around 26% year-on-year, with its annual recurring revenue (ARR) for 2022 exceeding $500 million, owing primarily to new business wins. This is a big milestone for Freshworks!

"In this environment, as companies are seeking greater value for their IT spend, we are seeing that Freshworks' value proposition resonates more than ever. In Q4, we added approximately 1,800 new customers to our growing base," Freshworks founder and CEO Girish Mathrubootham said.

• For the full year of 2022, Freshworks' non-GAAP loss from operations widened nearly 21% to $22.3 million, compared to $18.3 million in 2021

• Free cash flow was at a negative $14.8 million, compared to $2.3 million in 2021. This means that the company's operating expenses are more than the cash generated

• During the fourth quarter, the company's net dollar retention rate was 108%. This measures the changes in recurring revenue caused by fluctuations in revenue from the existing customer base

Amid challenging economic conditions where companies are being careful with their spending, Freshworks expects it will become profitable by the end of the year and reach break even by Q3 of 2023.

• It forecasts revenue of $575-$590 million for 2023, a 15-18% increase from 2022
  
  
• Freshworks expects revenue of $133 million to $135 million in the first quarter of 2023, up 16% to 18% YoY
  
  
• It also expects to generate about $10 million of free cash flow for the year with approximately $3 million in Q1

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Ashneer Grover has levelled new allegations against BharatPe and fellow cofounder Bhavik Koladiya! Before you decide to skip this because you're sick of the trio's ugly fights, you should know that this time, it might involve you and me as well!

Grover has written an email to the National Payments Council of India (NPCI) and BharatPe's independent director Kaushik Dutta alleging data theft of around 150 million Unified Payments Interface (UPI) users of the fintech startup by fellow cofounder and current CEO of OTPLess Koladiya. Most of us use UPI on a daily basis and this is concerning!

"BharatPe has so far processed billions of UPI transactions at merchants and in turn was privy to data of more than 150 million UPI users in the country...Koladiya transferred all the privileged and confidential data of BharatPe to this company OTPLess," Grover said.

OTPLess is a platform that allows users to sign in to any website or platform using WhatsApp instead of traditional SMS OTPs, providing users with a seamless and secure experience when signing in to websites.

Now, what could have prompted Grover to send this email regarding data theft?

• The timing of Grover's email comes against the backdrop of Koladiya filing legal cases against the former

• Within a few months of its launch, the startup was able to sign up around 2,000 clients, including BharartPe

• Koladiya founded OTPLess along with Tanmay Sagar and Satyam Nathani who were also founding members of BharatPe. Three other former senior BharatPe executives, Sagar Satija, Manas Poddar, and Chirag Bhadiyadra, have also joined OTPLess

BharatPe and Koladiya have denied the allegations and called them baseless. Read to know more.

If you were unable to tweet or use other Twitter features today, you were not alone.

Ever since Elon Musk slashed Twitter's workforce by more than half, including cutting some crucial teams, speculation has been rife of a widespread breakdown of the service. While there have been a few minor outages in recent months, a number of prominent features appear to have started facing major glitches on the platform.

• Since Thursday morning, some users have encountered problems with following new accounts and accessing their direct messages. Some were not even able to tweet, instead got an error that they were "over the daily limit for sending Tweets". (P.S. Did you know Twitter has a daily tweet limit of 2,400 tweets)
  

Hours later, Musk said they were facing multiple "internal and external issues simultaneously" and they hope to be fully back later today.

Twitter also announced its new API pricing and an extension of its current free API access through February 13. However, the developer community website of the company appears to be behind a login page now.

It's not clear if this was intended or yet another bug. Unlike regular tech CEOs or founders, you usually know of Musk’s intentions only several days after the deed has been done.

Unfortunately, these glitches came on the same day Twitter extended its subscription service, Twitter Blue, to India, Brazil, and Indonesia, as the company looks to shore up its revenues. 

• In India, the service costs Rs 650 per month on the web and Rs 900 per month on mobile devices. Why is it costly on mobile devices? Read here. 

Given the high price, it will be interesting to see if Twitter Blue finds any takers here.

Twitter Blue subscribers in the US can now send long-form tweets of up to 4,000 characters. Would you read these super-sized tweets? Many people are saying no way!

Also read: Twitter access restored in Turkey after talks

On this day in 1963, the Boeing 727 took flight for the first time, forever changing the face of air travel. 

This iconic aircraft was the first tri-jet to be produced by the company, and quickly became one of the most popular commercial airliners of its time.

The 727 was designed to serve smaller airports with shorter runways, making air travel more accessible to a wider range of passengers.

• Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong claims to have heard rumours that the US Securities and Exchange Commission wants to prohibit retail investors from participating in cryptocurrency staking, the revenue-generating strategy at the heart of operating blockchains like Ethereum.
  
  
• Robinhood's board has approved a plan to buy back the $578 million stake in the company purchased last year by former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and co-founder Gary Wang.

Amidst the storm of job cuts and economic uncertainty, Nintendo stands tall as a beacon of hope. 

As major video game companies like Microsoft, EA, and Take-Two trim their workforce, Nintendo has made a bold move in the opposite direction by offering its employees in Japan a generous 10% pay raise. 

This comes despite a dip in profit and sales forecasts.

"It's important for our long-term growth to secure our workforce," Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa said.

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