Here are the top headlines from the startup space.

MPL to lay off 100 employees, exits Indonesia market: Report

E-sports and skill-gaming app Mobile Premier League (MPL) is laying off 100 people, which represents about 10 percent of its workforce, according to a report by Moneycontrol.

The company is also exiting Indonesia market and is doing away with its streaming product on the MPL app.

"The last few months have been insane. The philosophy of growth at all costs is now reversed. The market is now rewarding profitable growth over growth at all costs," MPL co-founders Sai Srinivas and Shubh Malhotra said in an email to employees, a copy of which was viewed by Moneycontrol.

People who are being let go will receive complete severance along with other benefits. ESOP holders will be given an opportunity to hold onto their options for an additional 10 years, as per the email.

In the email, the founders said they are exiting Indonesia since the "return profile has been several multiples lower" than what they were and are seeing in India, or even in their nascent US business, despite investing significant resources and capital over the last three years into Indonesian operations.

The founders said they plan to "use the ample cash reserves" that they have to grow their core business while achieving EBITDA neutrality; continue to invest in high conviction bets such as its US operations and its recently launched gaming studio Mayhem Studios; and wind up businesses that are not working.

Gaurav Munjal-backed Frontrow lays-off 150 employees: Report

Frontrow, a learning and community platform for creative arts and sports, has laid off 150 employees over an email, citing a funding crunch, according to a report by Moneycontrol.

Another 150 tendered their resignations following the layoffs, bringing the company’s total employee count down to about 100 from 450 in three days, sources said.

The edtech startup is backed by Unacademy CEO Gaurav Munjal. At least four employees told Moneycontrol that the lower-than-average quality of Frontrow’s products dragged its revenue down, compelling the company to cut salaries and lay off employees, especially of those working in the sales department.

Many employees resigned from the organisation because their salaries were lowered by about 50 percent, the report added.

No funding winter for startups with real business models: Ronnie Screwvala

There is no funding winter for startups and unicorns with great and real business models and for those building organisations to outlast all others, according to Ronnie Screwvala, Co-Founder and Chairperson of higher education platform upGrad

In an interaction with IANS, Screwvala said that even today, there are investments being closed daily across multiple sectors, as the world faces a great deal of uncertainty over multiple macro-economic factors.

On the edtech sector witnessing layoffs due to funding being dried up, Screwvala added that, “there is absolutely no 'dry spell'. Just because a few handful of start-ups got crazily funded, made them lose all focus, pushed to grow and diversify are now being forced by those same investors to wake up and smell the coffee, does not mean there is any dry spell.”

“They were misguided by themselves and their board and now are correcting themselves, unfortunately at the cost of valued working colleagues, but they are the exception, not the trend at all,” he stated.

Byju’s COO likely to head India operations: Report

Edtech giant Byju's is preparing to elevate Chief Operating Officer Mrinal Mohit to a larger role, sources told Moneycontrol. This comes as Byju Raveendran, the founder and chief executive officer of the startup, shifts focus to global operations, the report added.

Mohit, who has been heading Byju’s’ offline forays, has also been looking after India operations for almost two months. Discussions are still on and Mohit’s designation is yet to be finalised, the report added.

Following Mohit’s promotion, Raveendran may step away from routine India operations and he will focus entirely on the global businesses, especially in the US. Sources told Moneycontrol that Raveendran has been out of India over the last few months and has been meeting investors in the UAE and the US. He will focus on integrating the company’s global acquisitions with the brand Byju’s as the company’s India business is pretty much saturated.

Google, Temasek lead $300 mn in Sharechat’s parent $5 bn valuation: Report

ShareChat’s parent company Mohalla Tech has raised nearly $300 million in fresh funding from Google, Times Group and Temasek Holdings, valuing the social media firm at nearly $5 billion, sources told Reuters.

A deal is set to be announced as early as next week, the report added.

This is Google's second key investment in India's short video space, having previously backed Josh, which competes with ShareChat's sister firm Moj.

ShareChat was last valued at $3.7 billion in a $266 million funding round from investors including Alkeon Capital and Temasek. The firm also counts Twitter and Snap among its investors.

As per the report, if the bid by Tesla CEO Elon Musk to buy Twitter goes through, Musk will have potentially a stake of between 6% and 8% in ShareChat.

JITO Angel Network invests in observability platform KloudMate

JITO Angel Network has invested an undisclosed amount in observability platform KloudMate in a pre-seed funding round.

The round also saw participation from 2 am VC, LetsVenture, KRS Jamwal, Executive Director, Tata Industries, Founder’s Room Capital, Quattro Ventures, Anoop Mathur, Founder, CORE Media Group, Jaydeep Deshpande, Head of Enterprise Marketing, Google Cloud, Mayur Zanwar (TruScholar.io) and Yagnesh Sanghrajka (100X.VC).

“The company will use the funds to further develop the platform and rapidly scale it, over the next few months”, said Pranab Buragohain, Co-Founder, KloudMate.

Policybazaar’s parent net loss widens to Rs 219.60 crore, revenue jumps 100%

Policybazaar’s parent company PB Fintech has reported a consolidated loss of Rs 219.60 crore for the quarter ended March 2022. The company had posted a loss of Rs 64.38 crore in the year-ago period.

The revenue for the period came in at Rs 540.29 crore, up 99.5 percent against Rs 270.76 crore registered in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal.

The company's insurance premium rose 70 percent year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 2,176 crore, while its credit disbursal came in at Rs 2,189 crore, up 72 percent YoY.

The company said that its core business is now adjusted EBITDA positive and it expects that to improve further. "Within this, insurance core business delivered Rs 28 crore adjusted EBITDA in Q4. Credit core business is decidedly moving towards profitability. Both these businesses will grow profitably as category leaders. Going forward, investment in new initiatives will likely be covered by interest income," the statement said.

Glamyo Health to hire over 300 professionals within next two months

Healthtech startup Glamyo Health has announced that it will increase its employee strength to 2X within the next two months.

The company plans to freshly enroll over 300 new talents, taking the current employees number to over 600. Most of the hiring will be for the NCR location where the brand is headquartered.

“We are growing 20% every month, and with the rigorous expansion on cards, we are on a lookout for a lot of talent. In the current times when many startups are laying off, we are aggressively hiring quality talent and looking to support deserving professionals,” said Archit Garg, Co-founder of Glamyo Health.

EnKash launches banking infra API for startups and SMEs

B2B fintech startup EnKash has launched a card API suite, “CardX” which will come with “plug-and-play” integration that will enable non-fintech or fintech companies and banks or NBFCs to launch their own Card/BNPL/Reward programs.

“We are thrilled to enter the “Banking Infra Services” space with the launch of “CardX”. India is poised to see accelerated growth of card & financial products as the customer adoption increases and new regulations allow more players like NBFC to issue cards,” said Naveen Bindal, Co-founder, EnKash.

With this launch, EnKash is eyeing 20 partnerships by the end of this year, to further bolster its market presence.

Jupiter Meta launches NFTs for social change

NFT based Web3 marketplace Jupiter Meta has launched its art non-fungible tokens (NFT) for contributing towards social upliftment.

The marketplace has curated a list of NFTs in collaboration with four artists. There are 22 digital art pieces to choose from on the Jupiter Meta marketplace priced between Rs 6,000-12,000.

As per the company, 50% of proceeds from each NFT sale will go towards the non-profit organisation Akshaya Patra Foundation.

Vyapar partners with FinBox to offer credit to over 9 lakh MSMEs

Accounting app Vyapar has partnered with FinBox to offer credit to more than 9 lakh businesses that actively use the platform every month and others as they get onboarded on the platform.

Vyapar is now looking to offer credit to its merchant ecosystem by embedding loan products in its app itself. This will allow MSMEs to apply and access formal credit while helping it become a focal point for managing business finances for small and medium enterprises, a statement said.

Through FinBox’s proprietary Embedded Finance Stack, Vyapar has started offering business loans to the merchants in its ecosystem.

GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY & STARTUP NEWS

Billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Larry Page lose $140 bn: Report

Tech moguls Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Larry Page have collectively lost $140 billion in net worth between January to May this year in the backdrop of a tech rout in the public market, according to Bloomberg Billionaires' Index.

According to the report, Tesla’s founder and CEO, Musk’s net worth fell $46 billion in the past five months, while Amazon’s founder Bezos lost more than $53 billion.

Microsoft’s founder Gates, the fourth richest person in the world, shed $15 billion in net worth since January while Google cofounder Page lost more than $26 billion of his net worth. Meta’s chief executive officer (CEO), Mark Zuckerberg, has lost a whopping $53 billion after the company’s stock plunged nearly 40% year-to-date.

SoftBank executive pay slashed: Report

SoftBank Group’s top executives saw steep cuts in their paychecks as the Japanese conglomerate marked a historic loss for its Vision Fund unit.

According to Bloomberg News, the company’s founder and CEO Masayoshi Son kept his pay unchanged at 100 million yen (roughly $785,000), however four of the top six executives whose salary was made public through a company filing on Monday saw their compensation drop following a record $20.5 billion loss.

The world’s largest tech fund reported its biggest loss ever for the year ended March 31 as a selloff in tech shares deflated the value of its portfolio companies, including public holdings like Coupang and Didi Global.

Tesla's Shanghai plant restores weekly output to 70% of pre-lockdown level

Tesla has restored weekly output at its Shanghai plant to nearly 70% of the level which it had operated at before the city's COVID-19 lockdown, sources told Reuters.

The US automaker, which added a second shift of workers in the middle of last week, is expected to increase output further this week.

The move came after Premier Li Keqiang held a key meeting last week during which he urged local authorities to take measures to spur economic growth in the second quarter and stem rising unemployment after the country's stringent zero-COVID movement restrictions disrupted production and damped consumption in many parts of the country.

US judge gives Apple 21 days to respond to Cydia's amended lawsuit

A US judge has denied Apple's appeal to dismiss an amended antitrust lawsuit filed by the creator of Cydia, an app store for jailbroken iPhones, giving the iPhone maker 21 days to respond to the complaint, the media reported.

California District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers denied Apple's motion to dismiss the case, The Verge reported.

Cydia developer Jay Freeman first filed a lawsuit against Apple in 2020, alleging that Apple "has wrongfully acquired and maintained monopoly power" in iOS app distribution and payments.

Apple "deprived" third-party app stores of "the ability to compete with the App Store."

Meanwhile, Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite game, has challenged Apple for its stand that third-party app stores would compromise the iPhone's security. In a fresh court filing, Epic said if Apple can allow sideloading on Mac devices and still call those computers secure, then surely it could do the same for iPhone.

First Published:May 31, 2022 12:31 PM IST