Startup Digest: Navi Technologies gets SEBI nod for Rs 3,350 cr IPO, Mensa Brands acquires MyFitness, Sebi asks PE, VC funds to share details on startup valuation practices: Report

Sachin Bansal's startup Navi Technologies has received the market regulator's nod for an Initial Public Offering (IPO), giving the Flipkart co-founder a shot in the arm, as he seeks to build a financial services conglomerate.

According to details on the website of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), an observation letter was issued to Navi Technologies in response to its filings on September 5.

Navi Technologies had filed draft papers in March this year with SEBI to raise up to Rs 3,350 crore through a fresh issue of shares. The IPO will have an offer for sale (OFS) by Bansal who holds a 97.39 percent stake in fintech.

The approval comes as a boost for Navi Technologies after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) rejected its application for a banking license through its wholly-owned subsidiary Chaitanya India Fin Credit, along with five other applications.

As per the DRHP, the fintech plans to invest the proceeds of the IPO in subsidiaries Navi Finserv and Navi General Insurance, besides general growth plans. While Navi registered a profit of Rs 71.1 crore in FY21, the company incurred losses to the tune of Rs 206.42 crore in the first nine months of FY22.

Ecommerce roll-up unicorn Mensa Brands has acquired healthfood startup MyFitness for an undisclosed sum, with an aim to make it a Rs 1,000 crore brand in the next three-four years.

MyFitness currently has more than 30 SKUs (stock-keeping units) with an average selling price of Rs 500. The acquisition will help Mensa Brands launch new categories, scale D2C, invest in brand-building, and expand to global markets.

"MyFitness is a fast-growing consumer-loved brand and we will scale the brand to have an omni-channel global presence by leveraging our tech-led playbook. We believe we can build MyFitness into a Rs 1,000 crore brand in the next three-four years," said Ananth Narayanan, founder, and CEO of Mensa Brands.

The Securities & Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is taking a close look at how private equity houses (PE) and venture capital funds (VCF) value the startups and unicorns they bankroll.

The capital market regulator has asked a large number of funds to disclose their valuation practices, any significant change in the valuation methodology in the past three years, and the qualification of the valuer if the valuer hired is an associate of the fund or its manager or sponsor among other things, The Economic Times reported.

Reportedly, as per the Sebi directive dated September 6, the funds have to also share - the date of latest valuation, cost of cumulative investments made, latest valuation of an investment portfolio, and whether the valuation exercise is based on audited or unaudited data of the investee companies, whether the valuation is done by an independent or internal valuer, if additional valuation exercise was carried out during a financial year, details of valuation methodology and if there were any deviations from the said methodology, and whether the scheme has a valuation committee.

WazirX, linked to the world's largest digital currency exchange Binance, said on Monday its bank accounts were unfrozen by India's financial crime-fighting agency after more than a month.

The ED had launched its investigation last year into the company for suspected violations of foreign exchange regulations and froze its assets worth $8.16 million. WazirX said it is now in a position to continue its banking operations as usual.

"After an in-depth internal investigation, WazirX noticed that most of the users whose information was sought by ED were already identified as suspicious by WazirX internally and were blocked in 2020-2021," the company said in a blog.

WazirX said it has cooperated with the investigators by providing all the necessary details, information, and documents of the alleged accused companies who used its platform.

After announcing its acquisition of WazirX in 2019, Binance chief executive Changpeng Zhao last month said the transaction was never completed. Nischal Shetty, co-founder of WazirX, however, has reiterated that WazirX was acquired by Binance.

Alphabet is considering moving some production of Pixel phones to India following disruptions in China from COVID-19 lockdowns and Beijing's rising tensions with the United States, the Information reported.

Alphabet has solicited bids from manufacturers in India to make between 500,000 and 1 million Pixel smartphones, equivalent to 10% to 20% of the estimated annual production for the device, according to the report.

The company's chief executive officer Sundar Pichai previewed a plan to manufacture in India earlier this year but a final decision has not yet been made, the report added. If approved, India's production operations will still require the import of components from China.

Apple, the company's main smartphone rival, already makes at least four models up to iPhone 13 in India through contract manufacturing partners Foxconn (2354.TW) and Wistron. It is reportedly considering making iPhone 14, the latest model unveiled on September 7, also in India.

A Swiggy deliveryman was killed when a minor driving an MG Hector SUV hit his bike at Desh Bandhu Gupta Road on Friday night. Police have apprehended the minor.

According to Delhi Police, after the incident, the boy and his friend, who is a foreign national allegedly left the car on the spot and fled. The accused is a Class 11 student.

The deceased has been identified as Rahul Kumar from Gole Market, who was working with Swiggy. He was travelling with his cousin and was on his way to meet his friends.

Police said they received a PCR call about the accident around 1.20 am. The victim and his cousin were shifted to RML hospital for treatment, where Rahul Kumar succumbed to his injuries during treatment.

Police said, the accused and his friend were returning from Connaught Place, where they had dinner, and allegedly hit the victim's bike. The deceased's cousin Pawan Kumar, who was riding a pillion sustained minor injuries.

Eyewear brand Lenskart and financial services conglomerate Mirae Asset Capital Markets have partnered with Razorpay to enable online transactions on their platforms.

According to a Razorpay report, other than e-commerce, food, and travel sectors, the online transaction volumes of stock trading and mutual funds also grew by 75 and 100 percent respectively in 2022 as compared to the year before.

"Given our fully digital business model, we are happy to have partnered with Razorpay in our journey at offering the best investment solutions to our customers in the most seamless way possible," said Arun Chaudhry, director, and chief business officer at Mirae Asset Capital Markets.

The overall volume of digital payments has gained momentum over the last few years and saw a growth of 33 percent year-on-year during the financial year (FY) 2021-2022, as per a Razorpay report.

"As a brand with a multichannel presence and transactions conducted with D2C and B2B partnerships, we needed a transparent and reliable payment gateway to lead the business transactions in all our retail environments. Today, with partners like Razorpay, we are catering to a customer base of over a million users," said Indranil Chakravarty, the chief business officer at Aqualens and Lenskart.

The e-commerce enablement platform for small retailers and offline stores, Bikayi, has rebranded to BIK and will be targeting large e-commerce direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands for growth.

It will help D2C companies with new marketing channels and help them with personalised customer targeting over WhatsApp, the firm said in a statement. BIK claims that the brands will be able to re-engage with lapsed customers and encourage them to complete their purchases.

"Today, we are much more than a platform for e-commerce brands and as we continue to reinvent ourselves, we have expanded our product portfolio with BIK. The focus towards large e-commerce D2C brands using our marketing tool BIK was an organic choice and an ideal step towards strengthening our footprint," said Sonakshi Nathani, co-founder and CEO of BIK.

Recruitment activity has flattened 3 percent across industry segments as India continued to pursue conscious hiring amid recession fears and inflation concerns. While festive demand is ongoing, jobs in India are expected to rebound in the coming quarter with positive workforce sentiments, as per Monster.com report.

The Index saw a decline this month, with a 2 percent month-on-month dip exhibiting a sluggish growth rate this month. However, several industries continued to post positive growth trends as the Indian economy continues to recover and open up post-pandemic.

Agri-based industries saw a 6 percent incline in hiring activity. Key drivers in the space were revolution with AI, automation, blockchain, and drone tech, the report added. Industries such as BFSI (up 20%), Chemicals (up 14%), Real Estate (9%), Telecom/ISP (9%), and Travel (up 3%) continue to do well. Retail (up 5%) too has fared well with a rise in hiring activity in light of the ongoing festive season.

With a 13 percent increase, Coimbatore led the chart among 13 cities monitored by the Index, followed by Mumbai, 11%. Coimbatore and Mumbai is among the six cities showcased positive job demand during August.

Mumbai (up 11%) was the strongest annual gainer among major metro markets while Ahmedabad (up 9%) reflected a relatively encouraging trend driven by major sectors like Retail, BFSI and Advertising. Hyderabad (up 3%) witnessed positive annual growth while hiring in Delhi-NCR and Pune stayed status-quo in August 2022.

Twitter has said that payments made to a whistleblower did not breach any terms of its $44 billion buyout by Elon Musk after the world's richest man cited the move as another reason to scrap the deal, Reuters reported.

In a letter to Twitter, lawyers for Musk said Twitter's failure to seek his consent before paying $7.75 million to whistleblower Peiter Zatko and his lawyers violated the merger agreement, which restricts when Twitter could make such payments.

Zatko, who was fired by Twitter in January as the company's security head, last month accused the social media firm of falsely claiming it had a solid security plan and making misleading statements about its defenses against hackers and spam accounts.

The whistleblower will meet the US Senate Judiciary Committee on September 13 to discuss the allegations. Separately, Twitter is holding a special meeting on Tuesday for shareholders to vote on the merger.

Amazon's proposal to halt certain online selling and marketing practices in a bid to avert possible hefty EU antitrust fines should be rejected because it is weak and full of loopholes, a group of 11 non-governmental bodies have told EU regulators, Reuters reported.

The criticism from the group, which includes LobbyControl, the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO), the Austrian Federal Chamber of Labour and the European Public Services Union, echoed those from pan-European consumer group BEUC last week.

"They are weak, vague and full of loopholes, leaving too much room for evasion and abuse by Amazon. Moreover, the proposed limitation of these commitments to five years, or indeed any time horizon at all, is unjustifiable," the group said in a statement.

The NGO group urged the European Commission to force Amazon to split its marketplace from its retail and logistics operations in order to address concerns about its dominance and control over interrelated services.

Amazon should agree not to access sellers' data and not just to stop using it while the effectiveness of a second buy box on its website should be tested by independent researchers, BEUC legal and economic affairs director Agustin Reyna told Reuters.

A long-awaited software upgrade to the Ethereum blockchain aimed at slashing its huge energy consumption is expected this week, a move proponents say may widen the technology's use and support the price of the ether token.

As per a Reuters report, the upgrade, known as the "Merge," will mark a radical change to how transactions on the Ethereum blockchain occur and ether tokens are created. The new system will consume 99.95 percent less energy, according to the Ethereum Foundation, a body that acts as a spokesperson for the network.

The exact timing for the Merge is unknown, but Google and other sites tracking the blockchain were on Monday predicting it would take place in the early hours of Thursday. The Ethereum Foundation has said it will take place on September10-20. The event has been delayed several times previously.

If successful, Ethereum will move from a "proof of work" system - in which energy-hungry computers validate transactions by solving complex mathematical problems - to a "proof of stake" protocol, in which individuals and companies act as validators, using their ether as collateral, in a bid to win fresh tokens.

A Moscow court has accepted a bankruptcy application by Google's Russian subsidiary and started initial bankruptcy proceedings, placing the company under supervision, Russian news agencies reported.

Alphabet’s Russian unit filed for bankruptcy this summer after authorities seized its bank account, making it impossible to pay staff and vendors. Free services, including search and YouTube, have continued operating.

Ubisoft, France's biggest video games maker, is still open to other partners after a deal in which China's Tencent will raise its stake in the company, its co-founder and CEO Yves Guillemot said.

Guillemot's comments, made at a closed press event whose content the company asked not to be made public before a showcase event online on Saturday, came on the heels of a rough day for Ubisoft's stock, which tumbled 17 percent after the group announced Tencent would become its single biggest shareholder with an overall stake of 11 percent. The deal values the "Assassin's Creed" maker at about $10 billion.

"We remain totally independent and we can act with any outside company if we want to," said Guillemot, who along his four brothers founded Ubisoft in 1986. "That was a big negotiation with Tencent," he added. "We can do whatever we want."