Startup Digest: Dream 11 challenges Rs 18,000 cr GST notices, Origin names ex-Amazon executive as CEO and more

The online gaming industry is under fire once again, this time with multiple demand notices and show-cause notices being issued against companies for what the taxman claims are unpaid Goods and Services Tax (GST).

CNBC-TV18 understands that pre-show-cause notices have been served by the Directorate General of Goods and Services Tax Intelligence (DGGI) on at least six online gaming companies. Dream 11 is the recipient of at least 4 such tax demands so far, totalling Rs 18,000 crore. Its parent firm Sporta Technologies Private Limited has challenged these notices by filing a writ petition in the Bombay High Court.  The show-cause notice to the company alleges that it has failed to pay 28 percent GST on the face value of the bets collected by it between July 2017 and March 2022.

Online gaming company Dream 11 has challenged tax notices sent out by GST authorities claiming unpaid dues; but CNBC-TV18 learns that demand notices and show-cause notices totalling over Rs 1 lakh crores are on their way to other companies in the sector.

Online stock broking platform Zerodha’s net profit jumped 39 percent to Rs 2,907 Cr from Rs 2,094.3 Cr in FY22. The company has reported a 38.5 percent growth in revenue for the financial year 2022-23 at Rs 6,875 crore compared with the previous financial year.

The bootstrapped unicorn reported a revenue of Rs 4,964 crore and a profit of Rs 2,094 crore in FY22. In a blog post, Zerodha Founder and CEO Nithin Kamath said “We continued to see phenomenal growth even in FY 22/23. That said, the business has plateaued in terms of revenue and profitability this financial year, until now.”

While the trading activity in futures and options has increased significantly, Kamath said that the total number of people trading F&O is still not that large. The largest retail broking firm in the country has an active client base of around 64 lakh as of August this year. However, the figures have remained same over the last 18 months.

Travel tech giant Oyo has claimed to be on the verge of reporting its first ever profit after tax (PAT) in Q2FY24, sources have confirmed to CNBC-TV18. In a letter to the company’s top management accessed by CNBC-TV18, founder Ritesh Agarwal shared that Q2FY24 will mark the company’s maiden profitable quarter with a projected PAT of over Rs 16 crore.

Congratulating his team, Agarwal added, “As per the current trajectory in this quarter, Q2 FY24 will mark our maiden profitable quarter with a projected profit after tax (PAT) of over ~Rs 16 crore.”

The company’s revenue from operations in FY23 stood at Rs 5,463 crore, up 14 percent from Rs 4,781 crore in FY22 as it losses narrowed to Rs 1,286 crore. The company reduced the number of hotels in FY23 to 12,938 from 18,037 in FY22. Its Adjusted Gross Profit Margin rose to 43 percent of revenue and its Adjusted Gross Profit increased by 23 percent to Rs 2,347 crores in FY23 from Rs 1,915 in FY22.

The Centre has notified rules pertaining to valuation of equity and compulsorily convertible preferable shares issued by startups to resident and non-resident investors based on changes made in the Finance Act 2023.

Angel tax (basically income tax) at the rate of 30.6 per cent will be levied when an unlisted company issues shares to an investor at a price higher than its fair market value (FMV). The new rules will be effective from September 25.

"As Angel Tax comes back into focus again, the startup ecosystem is glad that the tax department has clarified the valuation methodologies for issuance of unlisted shares by Indian startups," said Siddarth Pai, Founding Partner of 3one4 Capital.

Pilgrim, a beauty and personal care brand has raised $20 million in Series B funding round led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India along with existing investors Fireside Ventures & Narotam Sekhsaria Family Office.

According to the firm, the fresh capital will be deployed to increase brand building, R&D, and bolstering offline expansion within India. The company said it currently clocking an annual revenue run-rate (ARR) of Rs 300 crore and aims to hit Rs 1,000 crore in ARR by 2025.

The beauty and personal care brands offers 90+ SKUs across face care, haircare & skincare products, and fragrances in over 25,000 pin codes. It claims to be serving over 5 million customers, with an additional 500,000 being added every month.

Castler, an escrow banking platform, has bagged $6 million in Pre-Series A funding round by Flipkart Ventures, along with participation from Capital 2B (an Info Edge Fund), IIFL Fintech Fund and other key investors.

"Having Flipkart Ventures as an investor is a noteworthy accomplishment that underscores Castler's strong performance and cements our pole position in the escrow banking industry. We have everything in place now to execute and build a large business," said Vineet Singh, Co-Founder & CEO of Castler.

The startup intends to use the fresh funding to bolster its expansion strategy for both domestic and cross-border escrow services. The firm intends to establish partnerships with over 25 banks, targeting substantial growth in the coming years, a statement said.

Data Sutram, an B2B SaaS company has raised $3 million in its latest funding round led by Bharat Fund with participation from Singularity Growth Fund, IIFL, YAN, White Venture and other existing investors also pitched in the funding round.

“Over the last year, we have been focused on acquiring talent and developing deep tech products powered by external intelligence. Senior leaders from the BFSI domains are now leading sales, product development and engineering efforts. This addition of funds coupled with human capital will give us the necessary edge to drive innovation within the fintech space,” said Rajit Bhattacharya, Founder & CEO, Data Sutram.

These funds will be used to further enhance Data Sutram’s product offerings, facilitating customer acquisition, credit underwriting, fraud investigation & collections in financial services, a statement said.

Premium EV motorcycle startup, Raptee has raised $3 million in a Pre Series A round led by deep-tech VC fund Bluehill Capital.

The funds will be allocated towards augmenting the manufacturing facility, acquiring machinery, tooling for the soon to be launched motorcycle, and to scale up the team, a statement said.

The startup’s first motorcycle is expected to debut in early 2024, with two experience centres in Chennai and Bangalore, subsequently expanding to 8 more cities by the end of the first year. Raptee said it has initiated R&D for the next line of products and is planning to expand the team size to 150 in line with the business plan

Flipkart Ventures is investing $500,000 in AI post-production startup Algomage in a Pre-Series A funding round to fuel company’s growth and expansion plans.

According to the startup, the fresh capital will be used to expand its sales and marketing team to expand its reach. The company said is on track to achieve its business objectives along with its strategic roadmap.

Algomage provides professional AI tools and services for digital imaging to enterprises, retail industry and photographers. They use a combination of machine vision and deep learning tech to cut down image delivery time by 8x, boost image visibility by 15x and save thousands of dollars’ worth of human effort while at it.  It has a record of near real time image sharing with 99.2 percent accuracy.

FlexifyMe, a health-tech platform dedicated to chronic pain management, has closed its seed funding round with $1 million investment from Flipkart Ventures. GSF, iHub Anubhuti, Chandigarh Angels (CAN), Venture Catalyst, OneCapital among other prominent angels, also participated in the round.

The funds from this round will be used to further enhance the AI motion coach, making it available in local languages, and expanding the platform's reach in the MENA and North American regions, the firm said in a statement.

The company claims to have grown by almost 5x in the last 12 months.

Peping, a healthcare clinic platform focussing on gut health has secured $400,000 in a fresh funding round led by Better Capital and angel investors including Kunal Shah, Sandeep Kumar Dinodiya, Ganesh Balakrishnan, and Shubham Mishra.

The newly acquired capital will be allocated to advancing the product and technology infrastructure. Additionally, funds will also be used towards building a team with deep industry knowledge, and allocate resources for creative experiments and expanding acquisition channels, a statement said.

“The patient relief rate for functional gastric disorders in India stands at a low 5 percent. Our ambitious goal is to elevate this rate to surpass 30 percent and establish a global benchmark in the field,” said Chirag Maheshwari, Co-Founder of Peping.

Petcare brand Belly Rubs has secured pre-seed funding of Rs 1.5 crore from an undisclosed angel investor. The brand has also expanded into cat product range.

The fresh funds will help the startup cater to its loyal customer base of over 8000 pet owners, while strengthening its e-commerce presence. It will also fuel the company’s expansion plans, including onboarding new verticals by launching Cat product range, new dog products - winter clothing and treats; alongside unveiling an updated website, BellyRubs said in a statement.

Founded in 2020, the brand claims to have reported an annual turnover of 50 lakhs and aims to have a flagship store in Delhi NCR by next year.

Edtech unicorn Physics Wallah has opened its first physical centre for coaching in Engineering Services Examination (ESE), Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) and State Engineering Services (SES) in Saket, Delhi.

With the new centre, PW is extending its services to cater to aspiring engineers seeking success in ESE, GATE and SES—examinations highly coveted by engineering aspirants, the firm said in a statement.

PW has launched two specialised courses - GATE 2025 one-year foundation course and ESE + GATE + SES 2025 one-year foundation course.

The chief executive officer of Jeff Bezos's space company Blue Origin, Bob Smith, will step down at the end of the year to be replaced by former Amazon executive Dave Limp, who ran products such as Kindle, according to emails seen by Reuters.

Limp, a former senior vice president at Amazon who led the company's consumer devices unit, will become Blue Origin's CEO on Dec 4, an email from Bezos, Blue Origin's founder, said.

At Blue Origin, Limp will oversee the long-delayed start of the company's orbital launch business, a potentially crucial source of revenue, and its lunar lander business, which plans to put humans on the moon for NASA by the end of the decade.

A lawsuit by the US Federal Trade Commission against Amazon, expected to be filed as soon as this week, adds to a slew of legal challenges exposing the retail giant to billions of dollars in potential damages.

US regulators have been probing Amazon.com and other Big Tech companies for antitrust violations and the FTC has long been expected to take formal action against the online retailer.

US state and federal courts are grappling with cases relating to competition law that focus on Amazon's pricing practices, fulfilment centers and the company's relationships with major book sellers.

Yelp and a coalition of news organizations have asked a US judge to disqualify a prominent US law firm from defending Google in the Justice Department's ad tech lawsuit, saying the firm has a conflict of interest because it previously was their advocate on matters related to the case.

Yelp and News/Media Alliance, which are not defendants in the litigation but are targets of Google's subpoenas, argue that law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison should be disqualified.

Google has subpoenaed service-recommendation site Yelp and the alliance for information to challenge claims it has abused its market dominance for web advertising.

French authorities have received a software update from Apple for its iPhone 12 and are reviewing it as a fix for a radiation issue, a source at the French digital ministry told Reuters.

Apple pledged to update the software to defuse a row over radiation levels from iPhone 12 handsets, after France suspended sales of the phones earlier this month following tests it said found breaches of radiation exposure limits.

France had threatened to seek a product recall if Apple had refused to do a software update. Apple had earlier contested the French findings, saying the iPhone 12 was certified by multiple international bodies as compliant with global standards, but said on September15 it would issue a software update to accommodate the testing methods used in France.

British Land has said Meta Platforms surrendered one of the two buildings it had leased at London's Regent's Place, as tech companies turn cautious about office real estate due to prevailing macroeconomic uncertainties.

The property firm said the lease surrender would lead to an earnings per share dilution of about 0.6 pence for its half-year period ending September 30.

The FTSE midcap firm said it was "comfortable" with current market expectations for the 2024 fiscal year despite the move by the Facebook-owner, as it saw a better-than-anticipated collection of historic COVID-19 arrears.

In US prosecutors' telling, Sam Bankman-Fried embezzled money from depositors in his FTX cryptocurrency exchange ever since he launched it in 2019, and the resulting shortfall led directly to its collapse as crypto prices swooned last year.

But in his own version and in explanations put forth by his lawyers, Bankman-Fried thought FTX, like a bank, could make investments with customers' money as long as they were able to withdraw it - and he did not know that actions taken by his closest colleagues had jeopardized the availability of funds.

Over the course of six weeks starting on October 3, a federal jury in Manhattan is due to weigh these duelling narratives during Bankman-Fried's criminal trial on fraud charges, before determining whether the 31-year-old former billionaire is guilty on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy.