STARTUP DIGEST: Cashfree sacks 60-80 staffers, G.O.A.T acquires Chumbak, Alibaba sells $112 mn stake in Paytm

Cashfree, a payments and API banking solutions firm, has laid off 60-80 employees, citing organisational restructuring as the reason.

In a statement to CNBC-TV18, a company spokesperson said, “Cashfree Payments has been periodically evaluating performances and processes as a standard business practice. The organisation has reevaluated the relevance of certain roles and functions leading to movement of talent within teams and a few employee exits. This process of organisational restructuring has impacted around 6-8 percent of employees."

The news was first reported by the Economic Times which said that the company had fired 100-150 employees as it looks to reduce costs and cash burn. The fintech startup has fired employees across sales and merchant onboarding, the report added.

Roll-up e-commerce startup has acquired five D2C brands, including home and lifestyle brand Chumbak.

The plans to make Chumbak a Rs 500 crore brand by 2025, it said in a statement. It plans to leverage its deep capabilities in brand building, digital marketing, online and offline growth and expansion into international markets.

“Chumbak, since its founding days, has been an Indian homegrown D2C brand that appeals to a global audience. Our vision is to make Indian D2C brands world famous and we have built multiple capabilities for that. This partnership is the perfect recipe to grow the brand exponentially by expanding its global reach, both online and offline, through a tech and data-driven approach,” said Rishi Vasudev, CEO and Co-founder, G.O.A.T Brand Labs.

With these acquisitions, G.O.A.T Brand Labs' portfolio now includes 20 brands including The Label Life, TrueBrowns, Pepe InnerFashion, Abhishti, Neemli Naturals, NutriGlow, Voylla, Pet Crux, among others.

China's Alibaba Group has sold a 3.1% stake in digital payments firm Paytm for a total of $125 million through a block deal, according to a report by Reuters.

Alibaba, which held a 6.26% stake in Paytm as of end-September, sold the stake at 536.95 rupees apiece. Morgan Stanley advised Alibaba on the deal, the report added.

Paytm's stock has risen about 9% this year up to last close, after reporting strong preliminary figures for the third quarter. It closed 2022 with a 60% loss, despite the company announcing a share buyback in December.

B2B wholesale platform Apnaklub has bagged an additional $6 million in funding from TrueScale Capital and ICMG Partners, with participation from Flourish Ventures, Sequoia India’s Surge, Blume Ventures, and Whiteboard Capital.

With this fresh capital, the startup has marked the close of its Series A funding round at $16 million. ApnaKlub had raised $10 million from Tiger Global in 2022.

The funds will be used to enhance a digital platform for Kirana store owners and wholesalers in tier 2 and tier 3 cities to purchase goods and services, the startup said. This is a $100 billion consumption market and ApnaKlub said its approach addresses the pain points of 40 percent of this market.

The company claims to have processed over two lakh orders, onboarded and transacted with more than 33,000 partners, all while keeping burn to a minimal level. The company also announced the elevation of Gourav Das, CPTO and Ashutosh Kumar, Growth and New Initiatives to the position of founding team members.

Electric vehicle component maker Entuple E-Mobility has raised $3 million in a Pre-Series A funding round from Blue Ashva Capital and Capital A.

According to the startup, the fresh capital will be used to further strengthen its R&D capabilities to develop next-generation powertrain technologies. The funding will also enable the company to boost its advanced technology offering to its OEM customers, it said in a statement.

Entuple E-Mobility has developed a product portfolio of 23 variants of integrated motors and controllers. “We are substantially enhancing our R&D capabilities through talent acquisition, investment in design and simulation tools, and advance test setups,” Rakesh Mishra, Founder and CEO of Entuple E-Mobility, said.

House of Brands SuperCluster Pi has raised $2 million in a Pre-Series A funding round led by Bobby Balachandran of Exterro with participation from marquee angel networks such as Inflection Point Ventures, Hyderabad Angels, Faad Network and AngelBay.

Social influencers including Bhuvan Bam, Ranveer Allahbadia of Beer Biceps, PrafulBillore (MBA Chaiwala), Arvind Arora (A2) among others have also participated in the round.

The startup aims to use 70 percent of the fresh funds to make acquisitions and the rest to fuel the growth of the brands, expand its team and enhance its brand marketing activities.

SuperCluster Pi is looking to acquired 6-8 D2C brands over the next 12 months, and aiming to hit $20 million in Annualized Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) run-rate.

Badhaan.com, a foodtech platform has secured an undisclosed amount in its seed funding round led by India Accelerator. The round also saw participation from HNIs and industry veterans.

Baadhan provides a state-of-the-art smart inventory management platform that tracks and predicts restaurant inventory needs. The platform said it has helped its clients reduce stockouts and wastages by 15%, along with a 10% - 15% improvement in procurement costs.

The startup intends to utilize the funds for business expansion, launching private label brands, and platform development. It claims to have delivered 1000+ orders to more than 100 trusted customers. Currently, it serves two cities, Hyderabad and Chennai and plans to expand its presence in 2 more cities by the end of FY23.

In a setback for Google, an appellate tribunal has refused an interim stay on the competition regulator imposing a Rs 936-crore penalty on the US tech giant for abusing its dominant position in the market.

The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) directed Google to deposit 10 per cent of the fine that was slapped by the Competition Commission of India in a case related to its Play Store policies.

A week back, Google failed to get relief from the NCLAT on a separate Rs 1,337.76 crore fine imposed by CCI on alleged abuse of the dominant position that the US tech giant has in the Android smartphone operating system in the country. It was asked to deposit 10 percent of the fine within four weeks.

Google challenged that order before the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear it on Monday.

A two-member bench of NCLAT comprising Justice Rakesh Kumar and Alok Srivastava on Wednesday issued notices to CCI and posted the matter for hearing on April 17, 2023. Google will, in the hearings before the NCLAT, endeavour to establish that the CCU's directions put in peril technology, security and the choice that Play and Android provide.

Avinash Shekhar, former CEO of ZebPay, a crypto exchange, has announced the launch of his own Web3 startup ‘TaxNodes,’ aimed at simplify the tax computing process and assess individual tax compliance

As per a statement, the platform will enable retail investors to automate crypto taxation by bringing all of their crypto transactions across multiple exchanges, P2P, private wallets and different blockchains under one roof.

The platform also plans to offer tax planning and year-end tax reports through which users can file their returns. The company is working towards increasing internal controls and adherence to compliances related to taxation and regulations in the Crypto and Web 3 space.

“I am really excited to embark on my entrepreneurial journey with the launch of TaxNodes. While the crypto industry has witnessed rapid growth in India, investors have been feeling overwhelmed due to lack of clarity on the taxes levied on their investments. A majority of them are facing challenges while calculating taxes on their investments. TaxNodes aims to address these challenges by identifying and offering end-to-end solutions to pain-points through comprehensive auditing tools to all stakeholders in the crypto ecosystem,” said Shekhar.

Spending management platform EnKash said it has received in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India to operate as a payment aggregator (PA).

The licence by the central bank will enable the platform to broaden its product offerings to more number of businesses.

“We are excited to get in-principle approval from RBI for our payment aggregator license. This will help EnKash offer innovative products and solutions not only to our existing business ecosystem but also to bring about path-breaking and leading technological solutions to the market covering the entire payments flow,” said Yadvendra Tyagi, Co-founder of EnKash.

EnKash now looks forward to bringing product offerings around corporate payments such as forex collections, cross-border payments, and Software-as-a-service collections.

Edtech startup Creative Galileo has launched Toondemy, an educational learning app for kids aged 3-10 years.

The app offers comprehensive learning journeys in line with CBSE, NEP and NCERT syllabi to build strong foundational concepts and cognitive capabilities, learn phonics, and develop critical 21st-century skills.

The app offers both digital and physical features. To reinforce concepts and for a hands-on learning experience, the company will provide kids with a kit of personalized worksheets and books as part of its subscription model. Parents can monitor their children’s progress and plan their learning journey, according to the company.

“We soon plan to introduce Toondemy Academy- a collaboration with schools to share, develop and implement modules to enhance and help reduce learning gaps,” said Prerna Jhunjhunwala, Founder, Creative Galileo.

Creative Galileo had earlier launched Little Singham, a Kids Early Learn App.

Drone startup Garuda Aerospace has announced its partnership with the Union Bank of India under which 150 Garuda Kisan Drones have received sanction for drone loans under the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF).

The drone loans will help farmers to digitise land record operations for crop production, and spraying of fertilisers, chemicals, growth promotors and pesticides with the help of drones. The partnership will enable lead generation, customer acquisition, sourcing of applications, and due diligence of customers for credit deployment, a statement said.

Garuda Kisan Drone is the first to receive the Agri Drone loan in July 2022 from Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Narendra Singh Tomar. Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF) has about Rs 1 lakh crore out of which Rs 1,000 crores have been allocated to drones.

TeamLease HRtech has announced a strategic partnership with Mastercard, a global payments and technology company, to provide a SaaS-based, end-to-end HCM platform to SMEs and Enterprise businesses.

The platform will digitalize the entire employee lifecycle from pre-hire to post-retire, including regulatory compliance, a statement said.

The partnership will enable Business Mastercard holders to avail discounts on monthly and yearly subscriptions to TeamLease HRtech products.

Keeping layoffs amid the funding winter in mind, startups being created in 2023 in India will have a more cash-conservative attitude and will be revenue and growth-focused, a report by 100X.VC, a homegrown venture fund investing in early-stage startups, showed.

The report said that due to layoffs at some large corporations, well-funded startups now have access to a new pool of brilliant people.

"In 2023, we will be experiencing India where new startups will be unlimited in supply. For investors, this will have brutal investment selection through the process of elimination," said Sanjay Mehta, Founder & Partner, 100X.VC.

Investors, who can apply quality filters while investing in 2023 will be able to see their portfolio shine with outlier returns by 2030, he added.

The early-stage startup funding momentum in India continues in an accelerated mode. According to the report, the enterprise software market is highly competitive, but startups can enter the market and compete with the established companies.

Supply chain software startup Flexport is laying off 20% of its global workforce, or roughly 640 employees, according to a memo from co-CEOs Ryan Petersen and Dave Clark, seen by CNBC.

The co-CEOs cited the global macroeconomic downturn and softening trade volumes, but wrote, “As the economy recovers ... we’re going to need to be nimble, fiscally responsible and focused on building fast with operational excellence.”

The company said layoff packages will vary by geography, but for US employees will include 12 weeks severance, 6 months extended health care, 2022 bonus payment, equity vesting acceleration including dropping the vesting cliff for those with 6 months or more of tenure, immigration support, and ability to opt into an alumni talent directory to help with future job opportunities.

Workers at Twitter’s Singapore office were told to empty out their desks and vacate the premises, as Elon Musk continues to pare expenses around the globe, Bloomberg News reported.

Twitter staff were informed via email Wednesday that they had until 5pm to leave the CapitaGreen building and resume their duties remotely from Thursday. Singapore-based staffers have now been reassigned as remote workers in Twitter’s internal system until further notice, the report added.

Musk’s cost-cutting efforts have included not paying rent on its global headquarters, and it was sued over that issue last month by the landlord of its San Francisco offices.

Twitter has considered selling user names to generate new revenue as its owner, Elon Musk, tries to resuscitate the company's business, New York Times reported.

Twitter employees have held conversations about selling some user names for the service since at least December. Engineers have discussed running online auctions where people can bid for the user names, which are the words, numbers or string of characters that follow the @ sign by which accounts are identified on the platform, the report added.

It's unclear if the project will move forward and if the plan affects all user names or only a subset. But Musk said last month that he wanted to start eliminating inactive accounts on Twitter and free up 1.5 billion user names. Only certain user names - such as those of well-known people, brands and popular names - may have value.

Google parent Alphabet has argued that a court should toss out a government antitrust lawsuit against it, saying that agreements it made with Apple and others to make Google the default search engine do not bar smartphone makers from promoting rivals.

The statements, which were revealed in a redacted version of a motion filed last month asking the judge to toss out the lawsuit, preview the tech giant's arguments for a high-stakes court case expected to go to trial in September.

In December, Google asked Judge Amit Mehta of the US District Court for the District of Columbia to throw out both the antitrust case that the Justice Department filed in 2020 along with 11 states as well as a related complaint brought by 35 states led by Colorado.

Crypto exchange FTX has recovered more than $5 billion in liquid assets but the extent of customer losses in the collapse of the company founded by Sam Bankman-Fried is still unknown, an attorney for the company told a US bankruptcy court.

The company, which was valued a year ago at $32 billion, filed for bankruptcy protection in November and US prosecutors accused Bankman-Fried of orchestrating an "epic" fraud that may have cost investors, customers and lenders billions of dollars.

"We have located over $5 billion of cash, liquid cryptocurrency and liquid investment securities," Andy Dietderich, an attorney for FTX, told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey in Delaware at the start of Wednesday's hearing.

Dietderich also said the company plans to sell nonstrategic investments that had a book value of $4.6 billion. However, Dietderich said the legal team is still working to create accurate internal records and the actual customer shortfall remains unknown. The US Commodities Futures Trading Commission has estimated missing customer funds at more than $8 billion.