Startup Digest: Hubilo lays off 35% staff: Reports, Microsoft to cut 10,000 jobs & Crypto lender Genesis to file for bankruptcy

The Supreme Court of India has rejected Google's request to stay a fine of Rs 1,337 crore (approximately $180 million) imposed by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for alleged anti-competitive practices related to its Android operating system. The court has ordered Google to deposit 10 percent of the fine, or Rs 133.7 crore (approximately $18 million), within a week.

The Supreme Court has now asked the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) to decide on Google's appeal by March 31, 2023. This means that the fate of the fine, which is one of the largest ever imposed by the CCI, will be determined by the NCLAT in the coming months.

India's competition regulator on Thursday denied allegations by Google that investigators copied parts of a European order while ruling against the US firm for abusing the market dominance of its Android platform.

"We have not cut, copy and paste," N Venkataraman, a government lawyer representing the Competition Commission of India (CCI), told the top court.

The comments came at a hearing in India's Supreme Court, where Google is seeking to block the CCI ruling.

Home-grown startup founders hailed the Supreme Court’s order. Rohan Verma, CEO and ED at homegrown MapmyIndia said that they are extremely grateful to the Supreme Court for their order against Google’s appeal.

“MapmyIndia was mentioned and spoken of multiple times in the Supreme court today by multiple parties, who said that MapmyIndia pioneered digital mapping in India since 1995, far before the birth of Google, and offer an alternative in terms of MapmyIndia’s ‘Mappls’ app versus the force pre-installed Google Maps,” Verma added.

Verma hoped that after the SC ruling, consumers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) will now use ‘Mappls’ app, which “offers far better maps, navigation and safety features than Google Maps”.

Rakesh Deshmukh, Co-founder, CEO, Indus OS, had said that in its ruling, the CCI categorically demonstrated multiple anti-competitive actions carried out by Google in the last decade.

“In fact, it scuttled Indian entrepreneurs in the Android ecosystem with unfair and restrictive Google policies. The CCI ruling against Google is a step towards ushering in the next phase of digital revolution in the country,” he said.

Major investors of car service and repair firm GoMechanic have ordered a probe after they were made aware of serious inaccuracies in the startup's financial reporting.

The investors — Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital and Chiratae Ventures — have jointly appointed a third-party firm to investigate the matter in detail, they said in a statement to Reuters.

"We are deeply distressed by the fact that the founders knowingly misstated facts, including but not limited to the inflation of revenue, which the founders have acknowledged," the investors said in the joint statement. "We will be working together to determine next steps for the company," they added.

GoMechanic's co-founder Amit Bhasin, on Wednesday, admitted errors in the company's financial reporting in a LinkedIn post. Bhasin had also said that it would lay off 70 percent of its workforce

Venture capital firm Sequoia capital India and Southeast Asia has launched second cohort of the Sequoia Spark Fellowship, a $100,000 equity-free grant and mentorship programme to support women entrepreneurs.

The cohort includes eight India-based and four Southeast Asia-based women entrepreneurs working in diverse sectors including climate tech, healthtech, SaaS, B2B, Web3, consumer internet and direct-to-consumer (D2C). Some of the cohort are second time founders, some have scaled businesses before, and many have deep domain expertise, the VC firm said in a statement.

The 12 startup founders who are part of the Spark 02 comprises Saumya Misra, the founder of Avataar; Ketaki Ogale, the co-founder of BHyve; Twinkle Uppal, founder of Hoop; Akriti Gupta, founder of Jollee; Kriti Arora, founder of Mantys; Eisha Srivastava, co-founder of Plodo; Nikita Dresswala, founder of Teleport; Neha Jain, founder of Zerocircle; Fannie Lin, co-founder of Ailiverse; Natalia Rialucky Marsudi, founder of Fairatmos; Inez Wihardjo, founder of Gigit.ai and Carina Lukito, founder of Little Joy.

As of December 2022, 10 of 15 startups have raised their seed and Series A rounds from venture capital firms and angels across the region, and one has been acquired by Wipro, totalling $51 million of capital post-Spark, Sequoia added.

Microsoft said it would eliminate 10,000 jobs and take a $1.2 billion charge to earnings, as its cloud-computing customers reassess their spending and the company braces for potential recession.

The layoffs add to the tens of thousands announced in recent months across the technology sector, which has downshifted following a strong growth period during the pandemic.

The news comes even as the software maker is set to ramp up spending in generative artificial intelligence that the industry sees as the new bright spot.

In a note to employees, CEO Satya Nadella attempted to address the divergent outlook for different parts of the business. Customers wanted to "optimize their digital spend to do more with less" and "exercise caution as some parts of the world are in a recession and other parts are anticipating one," he said.

"At the same time, the next major wave of computing is being born with advances in AI."

Nadella said the layoffs, affecting less than 5 percent of Microsoft's workforce, would conclude by the end of March.

Amazon is cutting some jobs in the United States, Canada and Costa Rica as part of its plan to lay off 18,000 employees, the e-commerce giant said in a memo to staff seen by Reuters.

The company is terminating 2,300 employees in Seattle and Bellevue, according to an update on the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) site. The US labor law requires companies planning a mass layoff to inform employees 60 days before the closure.

Amazon Chief Executive Andy Jassy said earlier this month the cuts, about 6% of the company's roughly 300,000 corporate employees, would mostly impact the e-commerce and human resources divisions.

Twitter plans to lay off 50 workers in the social media site's product division in the coming weeks, news site Insider reported.

The layoffs, which come six weeks after top boss Elon Musk reportedly told staff that there would not be further retrenchment, could reduce the company's headcount to under 2,000, according to the report.

Musk took over Twitter in October and swiftly moved through a number of product and organizational changes. The company rolled out Twitter-verified Blue check-mark as a paid service and also laid off about 50% staff.

Twitter prices Blue for Android at $11 per month

Twitter said it would price Twitter Blue subscription for Android at $11 per month — the same as for iOS subscribers — while offering a cheaper annual plan for web users when compared to monthly charges.

The blue check mark — previously free for verified accounts of politicians, famous personalities, journalists and other public figures — will now be open to anyone prepared to pay.

It was rolled out last year to help Twitter grow revenue as owner Elon Musk fights to retain advertisers. Google's Android users will be able to purchase Twitter Blue's monthly subscription for $11, the same price as for Apple's iOS users, Twitter said on its website.

Cryptocurrency lender Genesis Global Capital is planning to file for bankruptcy as soon as this week, Bloomberg News reported.

A bankruptcy filing has been expected for weeks, after the company froze customer redemptions on Nov. 16 following the downfall of major cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

The collapse of FTX in November has claimed several victims including crypto lender BlockFi and Core Scientific, one of the biggest publicly traded crypto mining companies in the United States, both of which filed for bankruptcy protection in the following months.

Genesis, its parent Digital Currency Group and creditors have exchanged several proposals, but have so far failed to come to an agreement, the Bloomberg report said, adding that Kirkland & Ellis and Proskauer Rose have been advising groups of creditors.

Genesis is also locked in a dispute with Gemini, founded by the identical twin crypto pioneers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.

Spotify joins media firms to urge EU action against Apple's 'unfair' practices

Music streaming service Spotify along with other media firms such as Deezer, urged the European Commission to take action against Apple for anticompetitive and unfair practices, in a joint industry letter.

The letter, addressed to the European Union antitrust regulator's Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager, demanded the Commission to act fast for the welfare of European consumers.

Spotify has for years accused Apple of abusing its market position using its App Store rules to stifle competition. It has previously submitted antitrust complaints against Apple in various countries, alleging the 30% charge Apple requires developers to pay on its App Store has forced Spotify to "artificially inflate" its own prices.

"We are writing to you to call for swift and decisive action by the European Commission against anticompetitive and unfair practices by certain global digital gatekeepers, and Apple in particular," read the letter, which was signed by chief executives of media firms Schibsted, Proton and Basecamp.