Startup Digest: Dream11 posts Rs 181 cr in profits, Mobikwik reserves 7% of its equity for ESOPs, 10Club buys My NewBorn & Bezos pledges $1 bn to conservation efforts

Fintech major MobiKwik which has filed its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP), on Tuesday said the listing should provide bountiful rewards to its employees through the ESOPs issued to them. The company has reserved 4.5 million equity shares for creating a pool of ESOPs for the benefit of the eligible employees. The current value of ESOPs granted stands at Rs 460 crore. MobiKwik chairperson, co-founder and COO Upasana Taku said the number of equity shares that would arise from the full exercise of options granted implies 7 percent of the fully diluted outstanding shares.

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"This 7 percent compares to less than 2 percent holding for most other internet companies that are coming up for listing... Over the last decade, MobiKwik has grown on the strength of its employees to become a leading fintech player in India. As we cement our presence and leadership further, we wanted to acknowledge and reward our employees for their efforts," Taku added. MobiKwik had raised a series G round of $20 million from Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) at a per-share value of Rs 895.80 per share.

At the series G funding round valuation of $720 million, seven employees are worth more than Rs 10 crore and 31 are worth more than Rs 1 crore each.

"This implies a 600 percent gain on average for the employees on their ESOPs," Taku said. Mobikwik which has about 470 employees plans to offer shares aggregating to Rs 1,900 crore in its IPO. "The cumulative wealth creation for the employees currently stands at Rs 3 billion. With the company's upcoming IPO, these employees are set to reap in a windfall," Taku added.

Car sharing marketplace Zoomcar on Tuesday announced the launch of its operations in Indonesia and Vietnam. The expansion follows Zoomcar’s recent entry into the Philippines and Egypt. Zoomcar has appointed Leo Wibisono Arifin as the vice president and country head of Indonesia operations, the company said in a statement.

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Meanwhile, Kiet Pham joins Zoomcar as the vice president and country head for the company's expansion into Vietnam. "Leo and Kiet come with over a decade’s experience and their expertise in startup management will prove vital in establishing Zoomcar as the first-to-market car-sharing platform in Indonesia and Vietnam," the company said.

Greg Moran, CEO and co-founder of Zoomcar, said the company has always been focused on personal mobility. Zoomcar launched India’s first personal mobility platform in 2013 and now has over 7,000 cars on its platform with a presence across five countries. It allows users to rent cars on an hourly, daily, weekly or monthly basis. The company operates in over 50 cities across India.

Thrasio-style venture 10club has made its first acquisition, My NewBorn, an e-commerce online business in the baby products category. As a part of this deal, My NewBorn’s founders Rakesh and Abhishek Jain will join 10club as entrepreneurs in residence for a minimum of 24 months. Along with the 10Club team, MyNewBorn will focus on growing the business 10X and better serve the needs of the 150 million Indian households that form the core of its primary target audience, the company said in a statement.

"At 10Club, we have set out to build high velocity digital native brands by partnering with entrepreneurs who have built strong businesses on market places and have the potential to become category leaders. Rakesh and Abhishek are new generation entrepreneurs who are extremely passionate, with a great understanding of the consumer and have been able to achieve a high growth trajectory for My NewBorn over the years. We are extremely delighted to have Rakesh and Abhishek join us on this exciting journey,” said Deepak Nair, co-founder and chief operating officer of 10club. This development comes in after 10Clubs raised $40 million in seed funding earlier in June.

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Founded last year, 10club acquired e-commerce merchants who have built sustainable businesses on e-commerce marketplaces such as Amazon and Flipkart and accelerate their growth. It focuses on sports, home accessories, and the baby and pet category. My NewBorn brand claimed that three of its products are among the top 10 on Amazon and it is position second in the baby blanket category.

Edtech platform Oliveboard has announced the acquisition of SSCTube, an online test preparation platform for SSC and railway exams. The acquisition will reinforce Oliveboard’s commitment to providing quality education to the learners from India’s top educators across exam categories. As part of this deal, SSCtube's 500,000+ users will be moved to the Oliveboard platform with an aim to grow this exam segment to over 2 million in the next six months, the company said in a statement. Through this acquisition, subscribers will now get all the benefits of SSCTube's personalised content for assessments, timely exam information along with Oliveboard's tech platform and its qualified teachers all on one app.

With this, Oliveboard will ensure a complete offering for users including live courses, assessments, analytics and a strong user community. "With its strong presence in the SSC & railways segment, this acquihire will complement our efforts in providing holistic, comprehensive, up-to-date and personalised examination and course material on a single platform,’’ said Abhishek Patil, founder and CEO, Oliveboard.

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Oliveboard claims to have over 9 million users spanning over 2,500+ cities and towns in India. The company is also ramping up to reach the 20 million milestones over the next 20 months. The platform currently supports 50 government exams and has plans to add 100+ national and state-level exams to its bouquet of offerings.

M2P fintech, an API infrastructure company has acquired Wizi, a credit card focussed fintech to better serve banks and businesses with new-age onboarding and digital originations. The deal was a mix of cash and stock, and values Wizi at around $5 million, sources told Economic Times. However, M2P founders declined to comment on the deal specifics.

Madhusudanan R, cofounder at M2P Fintech said the company rolled out the programable credit card stack in March this year and in the first 6 months it signed up over half a dozen banks. As a part of the acquisition, the co-founders of Wizi Venkatesan, Abishek, and Rajesh will take up product leadership roles at M2P and will bolster the credit cards stack, the report added.

Raise Financial Services, the fintech startup founded by Paytm Money's former chief executive officer Pravin Jadhav, has launched its Dhan app for traders and investors on Android and iOS. Dhan's focus is on long-term investors and traders who have a few years of experience in the market. According to a Moneycontrol report, Jadhav is eyeing scale with a target of onboarding a million customers soon. The company is also in the process of migrating the 7,000 customers of Moneylicious Securities, which it acquired on August 10, onto the online platform Dhan.

"Currently we are trying to stabilise the app and enhance user experience ahead of the full-fledged launch. Around 40 percent of our current users have joined the app through referrals from acquaintances. Our ambition is to acquire a million customers within the first 18 months from the launch," Jadhav told Moneycontrol. Through the acquisition of offline broker Moneylicious Securities, Raise Financial secured the requisite licenses to become an integrated online stock broker offering trading on all exchanges (BSE, NSE, MCX) and across segments (equity, exchange-traded funds, futures, options, currency, commodities), the report added.

Currently, the Dhan app offers 24 features for traders and investors and the company plans to unveil more every few weeks over the next two to six months. Further use cases will be built on the investing platform, Jadhav said.

Taking on companies like Zerodha, Groww and Upstox, Dhan is also focusing on ETFs and will be open to venturing into mutual funds later. Incorporated in January, Raise announced its seed round funding in February led by Mirae Asset Venture Investments.

Mobility startup, Yulu, has partnered with Adani Electricity to install over 500 charging stations across Mumbai. The company plans to install over 500 charging stations at AEML premises in the next 18 months across Mumbai. In this collaboration, Adani Electricity will provide electricity to Yulu to power its Electric bikes at multiple locations spread across Mumbai, the company said in a statement.

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"Adani Electricity is committed to establishing infrastructure for electrifying mobility in Mumbai and supporting Yulu in its journey for providing a sustainable mobility solution to Mumbaikars. Adani Electricity Mumbai Ltd is committed to supporting the nation in its goals of achieving a reduction in greenhouse gases (GHG) emission,” and Adani Electricity spokesperson said.

Yulu e-bikes are currently deployed in the BKC area and Navi Mumbai with plans to expand to more areas across Mumbai. AEML will facilitate the installation of battery swapping stations at BKC and will scale up across Mumbai as per Yulu’s requirements. "This is a great opportunity as AEML and we have a common vision of building a sustainable future with greener commuting solutions," Amit Gupta, co-founder, Yulu Bike said.

Mumbai Angels Network, a startup investment platform has launched Multiplier to help startup founders focus on their core business. The specialised marketplace exclusive to its 170+ portfolio companies, Multiplier will bring a hoard of services such as bookkeeping, cloud storage, marketing solutions, etc., under a single umbrella, the company said in a statement.

To enable this, Mumbai Angels Network is collaborating with 17 high-performing and reliable service providers who will offer these services to its portfolio companies at a special discount, it said.

Acting as a one-stop-shop, Multiplier will offer diverse solutions including Cloud Services, GRM Services, Accounting Services, Payment Gateways, HR Services, Legal Advisory, incubation, Due Diligence, Global Expansion, IB Services, Debt Financing, Marketing Services, Invoice Financing, and Management Consultancy.

The startup investment platform will partner with myriad service providers.

"With Multiplier, we aim to offer unrelenting support at specially discounted prices through our partner service providers whom we have carefully chosen, enabling founders to focus solely on innovation and scaling the business. The multiplier is an all-encompassing solution that will further drive the rapid growth of our portfolio companies," said Nandini Mansinghka, co-founder and CEO- Mumbai Angels Network.

Dating platform Aisle has launched its vernacular dating app ‘Neetho’, for Telugu singles residing in and out of India. Neetho which means ‘With You’ in Telugu, will offer personalised dating experience for Telugu singles. All features on 'Neetho' are tailored to the likes of Telugu singles including fun icebreakers that have Telugu pop culture references. On Neetho, users can also send audio Invites in addition to the text Invites to express their interest in other members, the company said in a statement.

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The launch of Neetho is in line with Aisle’s vision of building customised regional dating and creating a native dating experience. Aisle’s portfolio of apps currently includes high intent dating app Aisle and vernacular apps ‘Arike’, ‘Anbe’ and ‘Neetho’. Over the last two years, the company said its revenue has grown by 70 percent, while the revenue from newly launched vernacular apps is growing 30 percent month on month.

The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) have called for a relook of the Karnataka Police Act (Amendment) Bill, tabled in the State Legislative Assembly, which calls for a ban on online gaming. The Karnataka Police (Amendment) Bill, 2021, was tabled in the state legislative assembly on September 17 to ban online gaming or betting by amending the Karnataka Police Act of 1963, with a maximum prison term of three years and a penalty up to Rs 1 lakh.

IAMAI said the bill introduced in the assembly appears to have been drafted without considering the various legal and constitutional positions by including a wide definition of "gaming" in amendments against various Supreme Court and High Court judgments. The CAIT on Sunday wrote to chief minister Basavaraj Bommai urging him to reconsider the bill. National secretary-general of CAIT, Praveen Khandelwal said the bill does not distinguish between "game of skills" and "game of chance".

"A game of chance is pure gambling, which is addictive and should be dealt with adequate legal procedures. On the other hand, a game of skill enables gamers to monetize their gaming talents and finesse. Once the bill bans online skill games, the law-abiding Indian companies will exit the market and the users will turn to harmful offshore and betting apps, which are harmful and dangerous," Khandelwal said. The bill has been introduced in the backdrop of a PIL filed in Karnataka High Court to ban online gambling.

IAMAI said the bill may hurt Karnataka's position as the country's startup hub and lead to the loss of jobs and revenue for the state. There are 92 gaming companies registered in Bengaluru which employ over 4,000 people. In the past three years, international investors have invested around Rs 3,000 crore in gaming and animation startups in the state, as per IAMAI.

Khandelwal added, "The bill to ostensibly ban online gambling or betting also makes all online games of skill, which charge a small entry or registration fee, illegal. The bill only affects the Indian companies, which mostly charge a small registration fee to play their games, and will not affect other foreign games, where children spend thousands of rupees on in-app purchases. The bill will also prohibit Indian games like Chess, Carrom, Archery, Hockey and digital versions of traditional sports." IAMAI said it is hopeful that the State government will continue to take a progressive stand and relook at the bill to bring it in line with the Supreme Court and various High Court's judgments.

Cryptocurrency prices recovered from one-and-half-month lows on Tuesday, as sell-off triggered due to a possible loan default by property developer China Evergrande eased slightly. Bitcoin traded around $43,000, recovering from a fall to $40,192 earlier in the session. It hit a four-month high of $52,000 on September 6. Ethereum, another popular virtual currency, rose 1 percent to $3,012 after falling below $3,000 for the first time since early August.

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Global markets started the week on a turbulent note after fears that Evergrande's troubles could lead to fallout for the Chinese and global economies prompted a selloff in riskier assets. "We can't take a very positive view just as yet until we get through the next few days," said Matthew Dibb, chief operating officer at crypto index fund provider Singapore-based Stack Funds. Dibb, according to the Reuters report, said it would be better to wait on the sidelines as crypto markets will continue to be affected by the contagion.

Universal Music Group shares surged in its stock market debut Tuesday, in Europe’s largest listing of the year so far. The company behind platinum-selling artists including Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift traded just above 25 euros ($29.32) per share, more than 35 percent above the reference price of 18.5 euros per share, as per CNBC. It gives UMG, which is listed on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange, a valuation of over 45 billion euros.

60 percent of UMG’s shares will go to Vivendi shareholders — with controlling shareholder Vincent Bollore receiving a stake worth around 5.9 billion euros. UMG is the largest music company in the world, and dominates the music industry as part of the "Big Three" record labels, alongside Warner Music Group and Sony Music. It owns and runs businesses in more than 60 countries, and is behind other household names in music including Ariana Grande and Queen. Its back catalogue also includes iconic artists like Bob Dylan and the Beatles, which were major attraction points for investors.

Jeff Bezos has pledged to give away $1 billion in grants this year with a focus on conservation efforts, according to CNBC. The pledge comes through the Bezos Earth Fund, which the Amazon founder and chairman started in 2020 to execute his $10 billion commitment to fight climate change. The Bezos Earth Fund has pledged to donate about $1 billion a year to activists, scientists and other groups working to address the globe’s climate crisis, with a goal of spending $10 billion by 2030.

Following this year’s focus on conservation, the fund said in the coming years it intends to support efforts around landscape restoration and food system transportation. The latest round of grants will be used to "create, expand, manage and monitor protected and conserved areas," the Bezos Earth Fund said. To start, the fund plans to focus on Central Africa's Congo Basin, the tropical Andes region and the tropical Pacific Ocean, all of which are key areas for biodiversity and carbon stocks, or the amount of carbon stored in things such as vegetation, soils and oceans.

"The natural world is not better today than it was 500 years ago when we enjoyed unspoiled forests, clean rivers and the pristine air of the pre-industrial age,” Bezos said in a statement. “We can and must reverse this anomaly."

It is not yet known which organizations will receive the grants. The gifts will be prioritized in areas where local communities and indigenous peoples are the main focus of conservation programs, among other considerations, the Bezos Earth Fund said. Earlier this month, the fund said it would give away $203.7 million by the end of the year to organisations advancing climate justice, among other causes.

British financial technology firm Wise debuted an investments feature that lets users invest in stocks through multiple currencies and spend their holdings, CNBC reported. The new feature, called Assets, allows customers to invest in BlackRock’s iShares World Equity Index Fund, which tracks a basket of 1,557 of the world’s biggest public companies. The fund’s holdings include Apple, Amazon and Alphabet.

Users will also be able to instantly spend up to 97 percent of the invested money in their accounts with a Wise debit card, or send funds overseas. The idea is that customers can hold their funds in stocks, but also still spend and send the money in real-time. Wise said it is holding back 3 percent of users’ invested cash as a “buffer” in case of any large market fluctuations, to prevent customers’ balances from dipping into negative territory. The company is initially launching Assets for personal and business customers in the UK but plans to roll out the product in Europe at a later date.

Uber could post its first profit on an adjusted basis in the current quarter, its chief financial officer said on Tuesday, sending the ride-hailing company's shares up nearly 7 percent in premarket trading. "With positive adjusted EBITDA in July and August, we believe Uber is now tracking towards adjusted EBITDA breakeven in Q3, well ahead of our prior guidance," chief financial officer Nelson Chai told Reuters. The company said last month riders returned to its platform in greater numbers in July, and that it expects the trend to continue in the coming months, together with strong food delivery orders.

Uber now expects third-quarter adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization - a metric that excludes one-time costs such as stock-based compensation - between loss of $25 million and profit of $25 million, compared to the prior forecast of a loss of $100 million. For the fourth quarter, Uber expects to post adjusted EBITDA between $0 and $100 million, it said. Uber on Tuesday also raised its forecast for third-quarter gross bookings and now expects it between $22.8 billion and $23.2 billion from $22 billion to $24 billion earlier.

Food delivery firm DoorDash will launch alcohol delivery across 20 US states, Australia and Canada, facing up to rivals Uber and GoPuff in the sector's key growth market, according to Reuters. DoorDash said customers, who are legally permissible, can toggle to the alcohol tab of its app to order drinks from restaurants, local retailers and convenience stores in markets that permit alcohol delivery.

The move could drive a 30 percent surge in average order values of restaurants and grocers while boosting those of convenience stores by more than 50 percent, it said. Rival Uber earlier this year entered the alcohol delivery space with its $1.1 billion purchase of Drizly. Uber has also teamed up with GoPuff, which delivers items such as food, alcohol and medicines in more than 650 US cities.

Robinhood Markets is testing new crypto wallet and cryptocurrency transfer features for its app which would allow customers to send and receive digital currencies such as bitcoin, Bloomberg News reported. A beta version of its iPhone app showed the company's work on such features.

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There was also a hidden image showing a waitlist page for users signing up for a crypto wallet feature, the report added. The trading app operator has bet big on the retail investor interest in the digital currency space. Earlier this month, the company said it would roll out crypto recurring investments, allowing users to buy digital coins commission-free and with as little as $1 on a schedule of their choice.

Didi Global co-founder and president Jean Liu has told some close associates that she intends to step down as the Chinese ride-hailing giant faces intense regulatory scrutiny following its New York listing earlier this year, sources told Reuters. Liu has in recent weeks told some associates that she expected the government to eventually take control of Didi and appoint new management.

Liu, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc banker, told a couple of executives close to her in recent weeks - including those who had followed her to join Didi from the Wall Street bank - that she planned to leave and encouraged them to start looking for new opportunities as well, Reuters reported. Didi said it is "actively and fully cooperating with the cybersecurity review. Reuters' rumours about management changes are untrue and unsubstantiated." Didi has come under intense scrutiny since early July by Chinese authorities over its collection and use of personal data of users of its service, pricing mechanisms and competitive practices.

Twitter said on Monday it would pay $809.5 million to settle a shareholder class-action lawsuit from 2016 that alleged the company misled investors about its daily and monthly user engagement numbers. The individual defendants and Twitter continue to deny any wrongdoing or any other improper actions, Reuters reported.

The micro-blogging site expects to pay the settlement amount with cash on hand, it said, adding that the amount would be paid in the fourth quarter of this year. Twitter also said it expects to record a charge for this settlement during the third quarter. The case commenced in 2016 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.