Here are the top headlines from the startup space.
Unicorn Gupshup acquires Sequoia-backed OneDirect
Conversational engagement startup Gupshup has acquired OneDirect, an omnichannel, AI-enabled, customer service platform for an undisclosed amount.
The acquisition strengthens Gupshup’s service and enables conversational engagement with a powerful and flexible live Agent Assist solution. OneDirect enables businesses to manage customer conversations, like on SMS, WhatsApp, Instagram, Google Business Messenger, RCS, Voice, and email, using a simple and unified interface.
“OneDirect, with their proven leadership in helping leading brands transform omni-channel customer service, is a valuable addition to our Conversational Engagement Platform,” said Beerud Sheth, co-founder and CEO, Gupshup.
Last year in April, Gupshup became a unicorn after it raised $100 million in funding from Tiger Global Management, at a valuation of $1.4 billion.
FUNDING NEWS
Cloud kitchen startup Curefoods closes its $50M Series C round
Cloud kitchen firm Curefoods has raised $50 million in its Series C funding round from a mix of new and existing investors.
With this round, the company has so far raised over $120 million in equity and venture debt. Ambit acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Curefoods.
The funds raised from the current round will be used towards the expansion of existing brands into newer geographies and the acquisition of newer brands, a statement said.
BigBasket raises Rs 350 Cr from its holding company
Tata Digital-owned Innovative Retail Concepts, which runs online grocery platform BigBasket, has received a capital infusion of Rs 350 crore from holding company Supermarket Grocery Supplies.
The capital was raised against 3.5 crore shares with each shared priced Rs 100, regulatory filings sourced from business intelligence platform Tofler showed. Last month, BigBasket had raised Rs 1,000 crore from its holding company.
Innovative Retail Concepts was made a subsidiary of Supermarket Grocery after Tata Digital acquired BigBasket in 2021. Tata owns 4 percent stake in Supermarket Grocery Supplies that owns BigBasket. Apart from its own app and website, BigBasket now sells via super app Tata Neu also.
KB Investments, Kalaari Capital lead $13M Series A round in Eloelo
Eloelo, a creator-led social gaming and live streaming platform, has raised $13 million in Series A funding round co-led by KB Investments, Kalaari Capital, and existing investors Waterbridge Ventures and Lumikai Fund.
The round also saw participation from Convivialité Ventures and Rocket Capital.
The new capital will be used to expand the firm's tech, product, and content teams, as well as to foster new partnerships with creators and help them reach millions of consumers, according to the company.
“We have been growing at 40 percent month-on-month (MoM) with a vision to build the future of interactive entertainment. Our Series A fundraise demonstrates the belief our current and new investors have in what we are building,'' said Saurabh Pandey, Co-founder and CEO, Eloelo.
Ruraltech startup Hesa raises $2.3M in Pre-Series A round
Ruraltech startup Hesa has raised $2.3 million in its pre-Series A round led by Venture Catalysts. The round also saw participation from Venture Catalysts USA Chapter, Faad, IPV, WFC and other angel investors.
“Our primary objective is to provide a connection between financial services providers with their last-mile target consumers using a phygital approach. We will continue to expand and empower businesses to ride the rural value chain for buying and selling, leveraging our technology and human capabilities,” said Vamsi Udayagiri, Founder and CEO, Hesa.
The startup claims to have connected over 65 brands to 600,000 rural customers through 8000 partners in around 5000 Indian villages. It has tied up with brands like Wycool, BigHaat, Walmart, HDFC Life, Reliance General Insurance and Apollo Hospitals.
PumPumPum raises $2M equity after clocking 1000% growth in FY21-22
PumPumPum, a used car leasing company, has raised $2 million equity from LC Nueva Investment Partners, Founder’s room capital and Lets Venture. The round also saw participatin from Manish Agarwal, Founder and CEO, Nazara Group, and Uday Sodhi, Ex Business Head Sony Liv.
The fresh capital will help the firm accelerate its plans and vision to become India’s largest mobility leasing company.
The company claims to have recorded a 1000 percent growth in the auto segment in FY 2021-22. It is currently only present in Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru and manages and services its fleet in over 55 cities.
Indeanta bags $150K from IvyGrowth Associates and others
Electric mobility startup Indeanta has raised $150,000 in its ongoing Pre-Series A funding round from IvyGrowth Associates and a network of angel investors.
The round was led by Prateek Toshniwal, Mehul Shah, Nine Spar and others. Indeanta said it is in the process of signing MoUs to provide upwards of 15,000 three-wheelers and light commercial trucks used for deliveries across multiple cities in India over the next 3 Years.
“We are glad the investors have extended their trust, financial support and mentorship towards us. This certainly will help us achieve our ambitious plans in the pipeline," said Aaron D'souza, founder, Indeanta.
EzeRx Health secures undisclosed sum in seed funding round
Medtech startup EzeRx Health has received an undisclosed sum in seed funding round from promoters of Mankind Pharma, including Sheetal Arora, the CEO of Mankind Pharma Limited.
The startup intends to use the fresh capital for scaling up its operations and marketing along with boosting its sales in various markets across India, Africa, and South East Asia, seeking global certifications and boosting its R&D efforts.
“This funding will help our company in securing partnerships with healthcare providers to integrate our products into their platform and partnering with hospitals and small clinics for the deployment of our products,” said Partha, Founder, EzeRx.
OTHER STARTUP NEWS
Info Edge-backed Yojak lays off over 60 full-time employees: Report
Yojak, a B2B e-commerce platform backed by Info Edge Ventures, has laid off more than 60 full-time employees over the last two months as the company scaled down its India business, according to a report by Moneycontrol.
Yojak has also laid off around 75-80 contractual workers, the report added. The company counts KAE Capital Management, and Shaadi.com’s founder Anupam Mittal among others as its backers.
Inc42 reported the development first, saying that Yojak has laid off 140 employees amid a funding crunch and that the Info Edge-backed company is looking to shut down its India operations.
Yojak joins the growing list of tech startups to lay off hundreds of employees amid a funding crunch. However, Yojak’s co-founder Rachit Garg, reportedly said that Yojak’s layoffs had nothing to do with a funding crunch and that the company is well-capitalised.
Govt lines up banks for e-commerce effort to take on Amazon, Walmart: Report
India's effort to break Amazon and Walmart dominance of its e-commerce sector, by establishing its own open network, has begun lining up banks and other key players needed to move it forward, sources told Reuters.
Some of India's biggest banks are in discussions about setting up "buyer platforms" to let their customers place orders for goods and services over the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), which the Central government soft-launched in April, the sources told Reuters.
ONDC Chief Executive T. Koshy said he had held talks with banks, venture capitalists and telecoms companies, but declined to name them or to comment on how far the discussions had progressed.
Sourav Ganguly joins hands with edtech startup Classplus
Ending all speculations after sending a cryptic tweet, BCCI President Sourav Ganguly has joined hands with edtech startup Classplus to promote thousands of educators and content creators.
Ganguly also took to social media to announce this initiative, upon completing 30 years in Indian cricket. In the 30-second clip, Ganguly is heard saying, "The first step towards achieving your dreams is having the right coach."
Classplus has claimed to have digitised over one lakh educators and content creators across more than 3,000 cities serving 30 million students, assisting them in building their online presence and selling their online courses.
"With Dada (Ganguly) himself by their side, we hope to help these edupreneurs further grow their reach and take their business to newer heights," said Mukul Rustagi, CEO and Co-Founder, Classplus.
Velocity and Adyogi launch Growth Accelerator Program for D2C brand
Velocity, a revenue based financier, has partnered with Adyogi, one of the India’s leading marketing agencies, to launch a Growth Accelerator Program which aims to solve the growth capital and digital marketing pain points for D2C businesses.
D2C brands selected for the program will receive support in the form of growth capital financing, inventory planning and optimised marketplace listings from Velocity while AdYogi will leverage its performance marketing expertise to increase marketing efficiency, a statement said.
Velocity and AdYogi have committed to 2X growth in revenues within 6 months for participants in the program, failing which both will waive their respective financing and marketing fees. As per the firm, specific focus will be on improving returns on advertising across Facebook and Google as well as marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart and Myntra.
Stanza Living launches fully managed apartments
Stanza Living, a full-stack co-living destination, has marked its foray into fully-managed apartment space across six cities in the country, including Delhi, Gurugram, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai.
Starting with an investment of $10 million, the new business category has been launched with an initial inventory of 5000 rooms. The company plans to grow this new portfolio to 1,20,000 rooms by 2026, capitalising on the $9.8 billion market opportunity, a statement said.
“After establishing a strong brand value with our fully-serviced living solutions for students and working professionals, we are excited to foray into a high-potential category like managed apartments. As India’s leading operator in this space, we have always focused on understanding the nuanced needs of diverse consumers and deploying intelligent technology to craft their living experiences. With this vertical, we will continue to set new benchmarks in consumer experience,” said Sahil Ludhani, Senior Vice President, Revenue and Growth, Stanza Living.
CoinSwitch launches crypto rupee Index CRE8
Crypto investing app CoinSwitch has launched the cryptocurrency rupee Index (CRE8), a benchmark index to measure the performance of the Indian rupee-based crypto market.
CRE8 tracks the performance of eight crypto assets representing over 85 percent of the total market capitalisation of cryptos traded in Indian rupee. The index is based on real trades on the CoinSwitch app.
Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Binance Coin (BNB), Ripple (XRP), Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL), Polkadot (DOT) and Dogecoin (DOGE) will be the eight tokens constituting the index.
“CRE8 is a demonstration of our commitment to bring more transparency to the Crypto market and equip users with a simple, easy-to-understand measure of the Indian market. The index provides a trustworthy, real-time view of the Indian Rupee-denominated Crypto market based on actual trades, enabling Indian users to make informed investment decisions,” said Ashish Singhal, Co-founder and CEO, CoinSwitch.
GLOBAL STARTUP AND TECHNOLOGY NEWS
Facebook sees 38 percent jump in hate speech; violent content rises 86 percent on Instagram in April
There has been a rise of around 37.82 percent in hate speech on social media platform Facebook and 86 percent jump in violent and inciting content on Instagram in April, according to a monthly report released by Meta.
The majority of the content in the report is based on detection by social media platforms before users reported to them.
According to the report released on May 31, Facebook detected 53,200 hate speech in April, which is 37.82 percent higher compared to 38,600 detected in March, on which the platform took action.
The report showed that Instagram acted on 77,000 violence and incitement-related content in April compared to 41,300 in March.
Meta Platforms' Sheryl Sandberg to leave after 14 years
Meta Platforms’ Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, whose close partnership with Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg powered the growth of the world's biggest social network, is leaving the company after 14 years, she said in a Facebook post.
"When I took this job in 2008, I hoped I would be in this role for five years. Fourteen years later, it is time for me to write the next chapter of my life," she wrote.
Chief Growth Officer Javier Olivan will take over as chief operating officer, Zuckerberg said in a separate Facebook post, although he added that he did not plan to replace Sandberg's role directly within the company's existing structure.
"I think Meta has reached the point where it makes sense for our product and business groups to be more closely integrated, rather than having all the business and operations functions organized separately from our products," he said.
Olivan has worked at Meta for more than 14 years and has led teams handling Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger.
Sandberg's departure marks an end of an era for Meta, which is shifting focus toward hardware products and the "metaverse" after years of scandals over privacy abuses and the spread of conspiratorial content on its platforms, as well as plateauing user growth on its flagship app Facebook.
Sandberg said in her post that she will continue to serve on Meta's board after leaving the company in the fall. When asked about her next steps, she told Reuters she was focusing on philanthropy at a "critical moment for women."
Amazon to pull Kindle out of China, other businesses to remain
Amazon said it will stop supplying retailers in China with its Kindle e-readers from Thursday and will shut its Kindle e-bookstore there next year, in the latest pullback by a US tech firm from the restrictive Chinese market.
Amazon announced the decision on its official WeChat account, saying it was adjusting the strategic focus of its operations and that its other business lines in China would continue, as per a Reuters report.
The Kindle China e-bookstore will stop selling ebooks from June 30 next year, it said, though customers will be able to continue downloading any purchased books for a year beyond that. It will also remove the Kindle app from Chinese app stores in 2024, it added.
The company said the closure of Kindle's China business was not due to government pressure or censorship. "We remain committed to our customers in China. As a global business, we periodically evaluate our offerings and make adjustments, wherever we operate," a spokesperson for Amazon said in an emailed statement.
"With our portfolio of businesses in China, we will continue to innovate and invest where we can provide value to our customers."
YouTube could be liable for unauthorised uploads if slow to act, German court rules
YouTube and other platforms could have to pay copyright damages over unauthorised uploads even if the content was put online by a third party, Germany's top court ruled.
The platforms would be liable only if they did not act quickly to block access once they had learned of illegal uploads, the court said in its ruling on Thursday.
As per a Reuters report, the case comes amid a long-running battle between Europe's $1 trillion creative industry and online platforms, with the former seeking redress for unauthorised uploads.
Thursday's decision involves a lawsuit filed by a music producer after video and audio recordings of an artist he owned the rights to were still available on YouTube even after the producer's lawyer had sent a letter asking them to be removed.
No final decision was taken by the court over whether YouTube was liable, which means the case will return to the lower courts for re-examination based on the new guidelines.
YouTube said it was confident in the systems it had built to fight copyright infringement and ensure rights holders would receive their fair share.
(Edited by : Anand Singha)
