Here are the top headlines from the startup space.

Zomato declines 10 percent as 66.6 crore shares change hands in huge block deals

Zomato shares declined nearly 10 percent in early trade on Wednesday as 66.6 crore shares or 8.4 percent equity worth Rs 3,464 crore changed hands in a series of block deals at an average of Rs 53 per share, 4.6 percent lower than the previous close of Rs 55.60 per share.

Uber Technologies reportedly sold its 7.8 percent stake in Zomato for $392 million. Around 20 global and Indian funds, including Fidelity, Franklin Templeton and ICICI Prudential bought the stake, reported Reuters.

CNBC-TV18 had on Tuesday reported that Uber was likely to sell its 7.8 percent stake in the food delivery company via a big block deal.

Sources had told CNBC-TV18 that the offer was for around Rs 2,938 crore or $373 million, with a price range of Rs 48-54 per share. BofA Securities was to be the sole bookrunner for the deal, they said.

Uber made a notional Rs 9,000 crore when Zomato got listed in July 2021. But it didn't sell the shares during the IPO or right after it. Today, the same shares were worth just over a third of that value.

Swiggy launches moonlighting policy for employees to take up gigs outside of work

Hyperlocal delivery decacorn Swiggy has introduced an industry-first moonlighting policy, which allows its full-time employees to pick up gigs outside the company.

Under the new policy, Swiggy employees can take up external projects for pro-bono or economic consideration based on internal approvals. This could encompass activity outside of office hours or on weekends that does not impact their productivity on the full-time job or have a conflict of interest with Swiggy’s business in any way, according to the company statement.

So, the policy prescribes guidelines that employees must adhere to while pursuing moonlighting projects.

"With the Moonlighting Policy, our goal is to encourage employees to pursue their passion without any constraints due to their full-time employment with us," said Girish Menon, Head — Human Resources, Swiggy.

Vedantu lays off another 100 employees: Report

Edtech unicorn Vedantu has laid off another 100 employees in a restructuring exercise, sources told Moneycontrol. This is the third round of layoffs at the company.

Permanent employees from sales and training teams were laid off over the last month. Vedantu will be offering a two-month salary as severance to the affected employees, the report added.

In May, the company had laid off 624 employees, including permanent employees and contractual educators, accounting for over 10 percent of its workforce. The company's co-founder and CEO Vamsi Krishna had then said that he was expecting capital to be scarce in coming quarters.

Y Combinator cuts startup batch size by 40 percent: Report

Silicon Valley-based startup accelerator Y Combinator has slashed its summer startup batch by 40 percent as venture capital money disappeared amid the global economic slowdown.

According to The Information, Y Combinator has "cut the number of startups it is funding and training this summer by about half compared to its winter programme".

The Y Combinator's Summer 2022 cohort now has nearly 250 companies, down 40 percent from the previous class which had 414 startups.

Y Combinator's head of communications, Lindsay Amos, confirmed the reduction over text message, saying that the batch is still large "relative to the last five years of batches."

FUNDING NEWS

Twid raises $12 million in Series A round from Rakuten Capital, Google and others

Twid, a reward point-based payment solutions startup has raised $12 million in Series A funding round led by Rakuten Capital. The round also saw participation from Google, ICMG Partners, JAFCO Asia, January Capital and Reddy Futures Fund.

Existing investors BEENEXT and Sequoia India's Surge, also pitched in. Sunil Gopinath, chief executive officer of Rakuten India, will join Twid’s board of directors on behalf of Rakuten Capital, the corporate venture capital arm of Rakuten Group.

The startup said it will use the funds for expanding its merchant network, product rollout, technology and hiring. The firm claims to have more than 40 million registered users and 50,000 live merchants. The company works with partners such as JioMart, NetMeds, Yatra, Gaana, Wakefit, ConfirmTKT, Ixigo, PAYBACK, InterMiles, and IndusInd Bank.

Jify raises $10 million in Series A round from Accel and Nexus Venture Partners

Earned wage access and employee financial benefit startup, Jify has bagged $10 million in its Series A funding round led by Accel and Nexus Venture Partners.

The capital raised through this round of funding will be used to strengthen its fintech product offering, ramp up customer acquisition across sectors and cities, while also driving adoption among the workforce, the firm said in a statement.

“This round of funding will provide Jify with the capabilities to scale within the Indian market. We will be able to build our teams nationally, offer the best in technology and create an innovative product experience for both employers and employees. The funding will also help us to enhance our client acquisition capabilities,” added Anusha Ramakrishnan, Co-Founder and COO, Jify.

Bluecopa gets $2.3 million from Blume Ventures, Titan Capital and others

Finance operations automation platform Bluecopa has raised $2.3 million in seed round of funding led by Blume Ventures with participation from Titan Capital, T-Fund, Speciale Invest, Bharat Founders Fund, T2D3, Amplify, and Force Ventures.

The round also saw participation from founders Krish Subramanian, Rajaraman Santhanam (Chargebee), Rohit Chennamaneni (Darwinbox), Asad Khan and Jay Singh (Lambdatest).

According to the firm, the capital raised will be used to enhance the platform’s capabilities, hire talent and grow the company’s consumer base.

Omnivio raises $400,000 in an angel round

Omnivio, an ecommerce and omni-logistics platform for enterprises that offers control towers enabled logistics marketplace, has secure $400,000 in an angel funding round led by Supermorpheus, Dexter Angels, and 91 Ventures.

The round also saw participation from angel investors including - Deepak Jain (Partner, Bain), Pranay Gupta (91 Springboard, 91 Ventures), Nikhil Bhandarkar (Founding Partner, Panthera Peak Ventures), Kushal Nahata & Gautam Kumar (Co-founders, FarEye), Mihin Shah (ex-Chief Supply Chain Officer, Landmark Group), Gaurang Jhunjhunwala (Partner, Mckinsey Dubai), Ashish Chitravanshi (Supply Chain Leader, ex-Myntra, Flipkart, Snapdeal) among others.

The firm will use the investment to enhance its Control Tower product, and enhance its technology infrastructure, build partnerships and hiring, a statement said.

“This investment will enable us to boost our Control Tower effectiveness and build deeper product features; to solve our client's most pressing challenges with respect to supply chain visibility and logistics control. With the right mentorship and advice of seasoned angels, we intend to scale up quickly and grow our client base by 5x by the end of this financial year,” said Sidhartha Kumar Bhimania, Co-founder, Omnivio.

IAN invests Rs 3 crore Brevistay’s seed round

Brevistay, a pay-for-hour room booking startup, has raised Rs 3 crore in its seed funding round led by Indian Angel Network. The round saw participation from IAN investors Uday Chattarjeee, Hari Balasubramniam, and Sri Prakash.

The firm said that the fresh funds will be utilised to strengthen its team and invest in marketing strategies.

The company claims to have presence in more than 70 cities with over 2,800 hotels and having 8 lakh app downloads. As per a statement, it saw 1.5x growth in the nine months after the first lockdown and recorded a 250 percent spike in the numbers in the next nine months after the second wave of COVID-19.

OTHER STARTUP NEWS

Amazon India increases inter-city transportation with Indian Railways

Amazon is strengthening its engagement with the Indian Railways for moving customer packages on 325 inter-city routes. This is a five-fold increase in routes since the e-commerce firm began working with the Indian Railways in 2019, a statement said.

The company is looking to offer one-day and two-day delivery promises to customers, especially in the distant areas of the country. With this, Amazon India is now carrying customer packages with the Indian Railways to cities like Harsuguda, Ratnagiri, Kurnool, Nanded, Bareilly, Bokaro and Rudrapur among others.

“Working with the Indian Railways helps us further that commitment. We will continue to engage with the Indian Railways and create more opportunities to use the strong network and infrastructure built by them,” said Venkatesh Tiwari, director at Amazon Transportation, India.

BharatPe onboards former SBI Cards finance head Nalin Negi as CFO

Fintech unicorn BharatPe has hired former SBI Cards top executive Nalin Negi as Chief Financial Officer (CFO), as part of its efforts to become profitable and list on the public markets

Negi will work towards making the company EBITDA positive by March 2023, said BharatPe in a statement. Negi will also lead BharatPe through its path to an initial public offering (IPO) which the company earlier said it plans in the coming 18 to 24 months.

Former CFO of SBI Cards, Negi led its IPO in March 2020. SBI Cards, in May, said Negi has resigned from his post as CFO. According to a regulatory filing, his last working day with the company was July 31.

India now home to 75,000 startups: Piyush Goyal

India, in its 75th year of Independence, is now home to as many as 75,000 startups, union minister Piyush Goyal said on Wednesday. In a tweet, the Commerce and Industry Minister said, "These numbers tell the power of a vision. A vision to see innovation & enterprise drive growth."

"India is now home to 75,000 startups in the 75th year of Independence, and this is only the beginning," Goyal said in the tweet.

The minister had recently said the country aspires to become the largest startup ecosystem in the world. On another occasion, Goyal had appealed to startups to get incorporated and listed in India and not leave the country "just for a few dollars more".

Credgenics launches digital collections technology platform in Indonesia

Credgenics, a provider of loan collections and debt resolution SaaS-based technology solutions to banks, non-banking finance, and FinTech lenders worldwide, announced its expansion into Indonesia as part of its next phase of growth.

Indonesia marks the firm’s foray into Southeast Asia (SEA) with a proven product and a deep understanding of the debt collections business beyond the Indian demographic. Credgenics is focused to work closely with lending firms in Indonesia and help them digitize and automate their end-to-end collections processes, a statement said.

The firm is already working with over 75 companies in India to improve their collection rates by 20 percent and recover up to 80 percent across delinquent accounts. The firm has a local team in place and will be further hiring and expanding its team based in Indonesia, it added.

GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY & STARTUP NEWS

Tinder CEO quits after disappointing results, company stops metaverse plans

Dating app Tinder CEO Renate Nyborg has moved on after less than a year in the job, after the company posted disappointing second-quarter results.

Match Group, which is the parent company of Tinder, also announced to stop plans to adopt virtual currencies and metaverse-based dating.

"Given uncertainty about the ultimate contours of the metaverse and what will or won't work, as well as the more challenging operating environment, I've instructed the Hyperconnect team to iterate but not invest heavily in metaverse at this time," said Match Group CEO Bernard Kim.

Kim admitted in a shareholder letter late on Tuesday that the dating app has not been able to realise its typical monetization success over the past few quarters.

Meta sued for using tracking tool to access patients' data for ads

Meta (formerly Facebook) has been sued in the US for violating patient privacy with a data tracking tool.

Two proposed class-action lawsuits alleged that Meta and major US hospitals used a Meta Pixel tracking tool that sends health information to Facebook, reports The Verge.

In June, an investigation by The Markup found that several hospital websites have a tracking tool that sends sensitive medical information to Facebook when people schedule appointments.

Twitter queries banks on Musk's attempts to undermine $44 billion deal

Twitter is attempting to find evidence that Elon Musk tried to torpedo the financing of his $44 billion takeover deal for the social media company while also looking into his motivation for backing out of the deal, legal experts said.

Twitter sent dozens of civil subpoenas this week to global banks such as units of Morgan Stanley, co-investors in the deal including an affiliate of Brookfield Asset Management, and Musk advisers, according to filings seen by Reuters over the past two days in the Delaware Court of Chancery.

The subpoenas seek documents and communications concerning the deal, its financing, any information on "bot," or fake, Twitter accounts. They also seek information that the recipients may have about potential impact on the deal from changes in the stock price of electric car maker Tesla, of which Musk is chief executive.

PayPal shares jump on Elliott's $2 billion stake, annual profit guidance raise

PayPal has said activist investor Elliott Management has an over $2 billion stake in the fintech company and the firm raised its annual profit guidance, as per a Reuters report.

PayPal shares shot up nearly 12 percent after it also announced a slew of moves including appointing Blake Jorgensen as new chief financial officer and a $15 billion repurchase programme.

The fintech company has "an unmatched and industry-leading footprint across its payments businesses," said Jesse Cohn, a managing partner at Elliott, a day after the investment firm disclosed a similar stake in Pinterest.

First Published:Aug 3, 2022 8:28 PM IST