Startup Digest: Meta India head Ajit Mohan quits, Mamaearth clocks Rs 1,000 cr revenue in FY22, & Stripe to lay off 14% of workforce

Ajit Mohan was appointed managing director of Meta India (formerly Facebook) in January 2019, taking over from the previous head, Umang Bedi, who quit in October 2017.

During his tenure, Mohan contributed to the company's app ecosystem — Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp — and helped it gain more than 200 million users in India.

Moreover, under his leadership, the company has made a number of investments in India's internet ecosystem, including a $5.7 billion investment in Jio Platforms, Reliance Industries' digital business, and companies such as Meesho.

Manish Chopra, Director and Head of Partnerships for Facebook India (Meta), will lead the company on an interim basis.

D2C skincare and beauty brand Mamaearth has posted a net profit of close to Rs 20 crore and also saw its revenue surge by 102 percent to Rs 952 crore in  FY22, compared to the year-ago period, as per RoC filings, sourced from Tofler.

In FY22, the company spent Rs 391 crore on advertising, while its cost of materials and employee benefit expenses increased to Rs 281 crore and nearly Rs 79 crore, respectively.

In addition, the firm spent Rs 16.7 crore on ESOPs. The total expense stood at Rs 942 crore and clocked a profit of Rs 14.4 crore. The Tiger Global-backed brand also improved its EBITDA margin to 3.89 percent in FY22 from -280 percent in FY21.

Tech giant Google India's gross sales from the sale of advertisement space increased 21.36 percent to Rs 13,886.7 crore for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021, from Rs 11,442.3 crore in the prior year, as per RoC filings sourced from Tofler.

The firm reported a 70 percent year-on-year increase in its net revenue from rendering information and technology services for the financial year ending in March 2022. With IT services garnering Rs 4,978 crore revenue, which is 52 percent share of its overall revenue of Rs 9,439 crore in FY22.

Google’s net revenue from sales of advertising space increased by 28 percent to Rs 2,081 crore. Overall, Google India revenue jumped 48 percent in FY22 at Rs 9,439 crore, according to its recently released financials.

WhatsApp is globally rolling out a feature called Communities to organise various chat groups in larger structures, as well as other features such as bigger group video calls and in-chat polls, the messaging service owned by Meta Platforms said.

The Communities feature will bring together various chat groups under bigger umbrellas where administrators could send alerts to a community of thousands – a feature that could be used by workplaces or schools.

The app will now also allow chat groups to have up to 1,024 users, much higher than the 256 participants’ restriction it had until recently, according to a company statement.

Electronics recycling firm Attero Recycling will invest Rs 600 crore to set up its second lithium-ion battery recycling plant in the country.

The plant will increase Attero’s battery recycling capacity to 19,500 tonne by the end of 2023 from 4,500 tonne currently, the World Bank-backed company said in a statement. It will be built in the southern state of Telangana.

Attero, whose clients include Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor, intends to recycle 300,000 tonnes of lithium-ion batteries within the next five years. It expects 35 percent of its global capacity to be built in Europe, 35 percent in the United States, 20 percent in India and 10 percent in Indonesia.

The company said in June it would spend $1 billion in the next five years and add plants in Poland, Ohio and Indonesia as part of its global expansion.

The Indian Web3 industry has come together to form a new industry body named the Bharat Web3 Association (BWA), four months after the Blockchain and Crypto Council of India (BACC) was dismantled by its parent entity, the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI).

The association encompasses more verticals than just crypto exchanges as was the case with BACC. Members of BWA span multiple verticals including Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), web3 gaming, infrastructure providers, Virtual Digital Assets (VDAs), and token projects.

Key members of the association will include top crypto exchanges CoinDCX, CoinSwitch, US' Coinbase, WazirX, ZebPay, as well as Hike and blockhain startup Polygon.

The association said in a statement that it will focus on driving awareness through research to help keep pace with this evolving technology, promoting dialogue between key stakeholders, setting standardised principles in the Web3 industry, encouraging and promoting Web3 and blockchain innovation and nurturing India's talent pool.

D2C home and sleep solutions platform Wakefit.co has launched a ‘No Questions Asked’ wellness leave policy for its employees. The policy extends a no-questions asked leave to all the employees once a month.

These wellness leaves can be availed by the workforce to support their physical, mental, or emotional wellbeing by taking time off to unwind and rejuvenate themselves, the platform said in a statement.

The employees can also utilise their wellness leaves to opt for leisurely activities. “With this policy, we hope to encourage our employees to unwind, focus on their health, and spend time with their loved ones by taking their wellness leave with no questions asked,” said Umanath Nayak, Head of HR, Wakefit.co.

Weber Drivetrain, a tech-driven EV startup for sustainability, has launched its state-of-the-art automated manufacturing facility to produce BLDC Hub Motors and Controllersfor electric vehicles (EVs) in accordance with the Indian market regulatory standards, in Pune, Maharashtra.

It has invested Rs 35 crore for the establishment of the manufacturing facility. The plant will deploy automation integration, including the latest semi-robotics and manufacturing machinery to indigenously produce BLDC HUB Motors and controllers for electric vehicles, the company said in a statement.

The firm will be manufacturing EV motors ranging in capacity from 0.25 kW to 4 kW, suited for multiple segments such as e-bicycles, e-scooters, and electric motorcycles. It expects to launch its product line and solutions by December.

IntrCity SmartBus, a tech-enabled fleet of inter-city buses estimates that Inter-city mobility will cross pre-COVID levels of 50 million daily travellers by the end of 2022.

The company said that it witnessed approximately 20-25 percent higher bookings during this festive season than the same timeline across functional travel and leisure travel.

The firm claims to have grown 1.8x in the first half of 2022, with revenues nearing $45 million annualised run rate and business achieving operational profitability.

While, the overall inter-city bus industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 15%+, the company is expecting a 60-70 percent growth from the same time last year in 2021, the statement added.

Stripe, the digital payments giant which was valued at $95 billion in its last funding round, is cutting its headcount by about 14 percent as startups trying to navigate a tough investment market rush to rein in costs,

After the job cuts, Stripe will have about 7,000 employees, according to an email to employees from founders Patrick and John Collison which was seen by Reuters.

The layoffs come months after Stripe cut its internal valuation by 28 percent, according to a report. "We were much too optimistic about the internet economy's near-term growth in 2022 and 2023 and underestimated both the likelihood and impact of a broader slowdown," Stripe's founders said in the email, adding that they had overhired and grew operating costs too quickly.

The European Commission will propose light-touch rules for Airbnb and other short-term home rental companies, sources told Reuters.

Under the draft rules, short-term home rental companies will have to provide data on numbers using their services and how many nights they stay to national authorities, they said.

The data will be stored at a single digital entry point available to all public authorities, the report added.

The proposal, which the EU executive will announce next week, marks an effort to tackle the patchwork of different national laws across the 27-country zone regulating Airbnb and its peers.

"We want Airbnb to be part of the solution to challenges facing cities, which is why we have consistently championed the EU’s work to update its rules for technology platforms," a spokesperson for the company said.

Microsoft said it would extend technology support for Ukraine free of charge through 2023, as Russia's invasion of the country drags on.

Microsoft said it would provide additional technology aid of nearly $100 million, bringing its total support for Ukraine to more than $400 million since the crisis started in February.

The company's support "will ensure that government agencies, critical infrastructure and other sectors in Ukraine can continue to run their digital infrastructure and serve citizens through the Microsoft Cloud," Microsoft Corp President Brad Smith wrote in a blog post.

Earlier in June, Microsoft also said it was making substantial cuts to its business in Russia, joining a list of companies that had reduced their exposure or pulled out of the country in response to the invasion.