One quick thing: AWS India head Puneet Chandok resigns weeks after announcing a $12 billion commitment.

In today’s newsletter:

• How Rahul Yadav tried to play Info Edge
• NestAway's fire sale
• Tata 1mg plans rapid offline foray

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It’s been quite the week for proptech startups — and not the good kind. 

Yesterday, Info Edge informed exchanges that it was initiating a forensic audit into 4B Networks — run by the infamous Rahul Yadav, who previously started Housing.com and was then ousted.

• The clamour around 4B Networks has been growing, especially since Info Edge announced in February 2023 that it had written down its investment in the company.

Now, turns out, Yadav tried to diminish Info Edge's shareholding in the company in exchange for a paltry sum, sources told us. 

Yadav offered to bring in Rs 50 crore of fresh funds from a Dubai-based property dealer earlier this year. 

The kicker? The valuation was 99% lower than its last funding round.

• The company had drained Rs 192 crore of investor money in the last 14 months

After its last fundraising round in September 2022, 4B Networks had a post-money valuation of Rs 1,500 crore.

• However, Yadav's first offer was for a much lower valuation of Rs 2 crore, with a primary capital infusion of Rs 4 crore.

Sources say that Yadav made multiple such offers via email, but none of them ever came close to a legal agreement.

After the company ran out of money, Info Edge gave them a loan of Rs 12 crore to pay their vendors and employees. 

• However, the money never actually reached its intended recipients

Go deeper

Our second story today is again about a fallen proptech startup.

Home rental startup NestAway has been acquired by Aurum, a software maker for the real estate sector, in a fire sale. It valued the firm at Rs 90 crore — a 95% discount to its last funding round.

• NestAway has raised $110 million (Rs 905 crore) in funding over the years  

• It was backed by blue chip investors like Goldman Sachs, Tiger Global, Flipkart, Yuri Milner, Ratan Tata and the University of California

Evidently, none of the big names could muster the courage to support their investee company at a time when startup funding in India has dropped to a fifth of last year.

Interestingly, NestAway sold one of its subsidiaries to Aurum last year. However, things took a turn for the worse, and eventually, NestAway had to sell itself to the same buyer.

• Aurum has said that it will infuse a fresh corpus of Rs 30 crore into NestAway to help it get back on its feet
  
  
• Nestaway struggled to recover from the pandemic, with its current annualised revenue standing at Rs 30 crore, which is less than a third of its pre-Covid revenue of Rs 100 crore

Go deeper

Lately, we have been witnessing an increasing number of online-only startups open offline stores as customers return to physical shopping.

Tata 1mg, the e-pharmacy player, has set an ambitious goal of opening 200-300 stores across cities like Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Hyderabad by the end of this year. 

• This comes after a successful pilot of around 50 stores in Gurugram, Noida and Delhi

Tata 1mg wants patients to walk in, get tests done, consult experts, and walk out with the required medicines, all under one roof, almost like a mini-hospital.

• To do this, it will spend around Rs 10-15 lakh on one store and position these as a premium offering 
  
  
• For comparison, it costs around Rs 6.5 lakh to set up a traditional mom-and-pop pharmacy

The Gurugram-based company plans to turn profitable in about 24 months. 

• COO Tanmay Saksena told us in an interview that the company could turn profitable even earlier, in about a year, if the business does well.

Find out more

Over the past five fiscal years, three out of the top five IT companies have reported a decline in aggregate revenue per employee on a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) basis. Revenue per employee is a metric used to estimate the revenue earned by a firm per employee. 

With the exception of Infosys and Tech Mahindra, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, and HCLTech saw a decrease of 3.8-11% on a 5-year CAGR basis in FY23, according to data sourced from UnearthInsight.

Find out more

In recent months, there has been an explosion of AI tools, with one of the most prominent being OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT. While ChatGPT has garnered significant attention, it represents only a fraction of the impressive AI technologies available.

This week, instead of our weekly wrap, we thought we would highlight some AI tools that might make your life easier.

• CapeChat: This tool is designed to help you keep sensitive data private while using ChatGPT. It automatically encrypts your documents and redacts any sensitive information. Check it out
  
  
• Tyles: It is a magical AI-driven note app that serves as the assistant we all need. It's a research app that helps you capture information and acquire knowledge more efficiently compared to other apps. Check it out
  
  
• Synthesia: With Synthesia, creating AI-generated videos becomes incredibly easy. Simply type in the text, and Synthesia will generate engaging videos for various purposes. Check it out
  
  
• Imagica: If you want to develop AI applications without writing a single line of code, Imagica is the perfect tool for you. It's a no-code AI app development platform that allows users to create functional AI applications within minutes. Check it out
  
  
• Tabnine: is an AI autocomplete tool designed for coding. It suggests code completions, helping you write code more efficiently. Just like GitHub Co-Pilot, Tabnine is not limited to a specific programming language and can understand your coding patterns. Check it out

• Elon Musk has been accused of insider trading in a proposed class action lawsuit filed by investors who claim the Tesla CEO manipulated the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, costing them billions of dollars.

• The Federal Reserve has ordered Silvergate Bank to file a self-liquidation plan with California financial regulators within 10 days.

Looking for a suspenseful thriller to binge on this weekend? Look no further than School of Lies! 

Inspired by true events, the series tells the story of a young boy who disappears from a boarding school. As the investigation into his disappearance unfolds, dark secrets about the school and the boy's family are revealed. 

With its gripping plot, School of Lies is sure to keep you hooked from beginning to end.

Stream it on Disney+Hotstar

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