Startup Digest: PhonePe officially announces Smart Speaker, AWE Funds launches Rs 350 crore maiden India fund, Northern Arc Capital gets $25 million

Digital payments giant PhonePe has officially launched its Smart Speaker for reliable and convenient payment tracking at stores. The Smart Speaker has been launched in 8 cities, and over 100,000 devices are already being used by PhonePe merchant partners, as per a statement.

The device provides payment notifications in 11 Indian languages and comes with up to 4 days of battery life, doorstep installation at just Rs 50 as an initial set-up cost, and a low monthly rental of Rs 50 per month, the firm added.

Paytm was the first fintech company to launch its Soundbox in 2020, during the first wave of the pandemic. Following that, BharatPe launched its speaker device in February and claims to have onboarded 300,000 merchant partners.

Moneycontrol had reported earlier that Paytm's Soundbox, which announces receipt of payments for shopkeepers, is seeing tough competition from rival PhonePe.

On August 1, PhonePe approached the police alleging that Paytm employees set a pile of its QR code sheets ablaze in Greater Noida. The complaint dated July 29 identified three Paytm employees who are allegedly in the video, one of them a former PhonePe employee, the report added.

Gender-focused investment platform Achieving Women Equity (AWE) Funds has launched its maiden India fund amounting to Rs 350 crore. The fund will invest in approximately 15 startups over the next five years, spanning across sectors like healthcare, clean energy, food and agriculture, and fintech, as per a statement.

AWE Funds said it has set itself up a goal to empower 30 million women by 2030 through a “quantitative threshold-based gender lens gating criteria to invest in women-owned, led or influenced companies."

The company claims to have invested close to Rs 2,800 crore and houses four portfolio companies from sectors like fintech, agritech, and healthtech.

Northern Arc Capital, a non-banking finance company, has raised $25 million in external commercial borrowing (ECB) from Proparco, the private sector financing subsidiary of Agence Française de Développement Group.

The NBFC will use the proceeds to serve micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and women entrepreneurs, a statement said. The capital will be used to provide differentiated credit solutions to these customers both directly and through partners.

The funding from Proparco will improve access to financing for around 21,000 micro-borrowers and MSMEs in India. It is estimated that the project will help the retention of 34,000 jobs, it added.

"The usage of proceeds will be towards enabling the next billion customers to access financial services directly through digital channels as well as serving them through partnerships," said Ashish Mehrotra, MD, and CEO of Northern Arc Capital.

Fintech startup CredAble has raised fresh funding of $9 million through an equity infusion from Axis Bank and its existing investor Oaks Asset Management to accelerate its growth plans. Axis Bank said it will acquire over 5 percent stake in CredAble for Rs 55 crore and the deal is expected to be completed by September.

The bank will acquire 8,921 equity shares, equivalent to 5.09 percent, of the face value of Rs 10 each for Rs 55 crore in CredAble. The acquisition is expected to be completed by September 30, 2022, Axis Bank said in a regulatory filing.

Fabrication Bazar, a manufacturing and engineering company, has raised more than Rs 7 crore in a seed round led by Inflection Point Ventures. The company intends to use the fresh capital for expanding the team, technology enhancement, and scaling the operations to the export market. The firm claims to have grown 165 percent in FY22 with a confirmed order booking of Rs 130 crore for FY23.

"This unique platform, which aims to serve end customers and streamline the sector in every possible way, has already grown 165 percent in FY 22 with a confirmed order booking 0f Rs 130 crore for FY 23. Such high-quality standards and impeccable solutions have led IPV to invest in the company and support them in their future endeavors," said Ankur Mittal, co-founder, Inflection Point Ventures.

GoKwik has partnered with global caller identification platform Truecaller for instant verification of customers to provide a seamless shopping experience and reduce returns for e-commerce and digital-first brands in India.

The collaboration between GoKwik and Truecaller aims to improve conversions and reduce RTOs (return to origin) by identifying and verifying users conveniently.

"With this partnership, shoppers will have a new wave of convenience shopping, resulting in higher conversions, and profitability for merchants as well along with robust RTO fraud prevention,” said Chirag Taneja, co-founder, and CEO at GoKwik.

With this partnership, GoKwik will further be able to optimize its existing dynamic product models with Truecaller SDK and ensure unique, intelligent, and secure shopping solutions for everyone in the GoKwik network.

Battery Smart, a battery swapping network for electric two and three-wheelers, announced a partnership with Park+, an app for car owners to provide smart parking solutions, car health and maintenance, car insurance, loans, FASTag, traffic challans, and other car-related services.

According to the company, "Through this partnership, Battery Smart’s users will have access to its swap stations set up across Park+ powered real estate in 25 cities by the end of 2025."

This partnership will allow Battery Smart users to capitalise on Park+’s robust network of solutions present in corporate parks, shopping malls, residential apartments, as well as at hotels, and restaurants on the highways.

Innoviti, a collaborative commerce platform has signed up to join the ONDC Network and is in the process of completing the technical integration. Innoviti helps businesses to grow faster with lesser efforts by turning payment transactions into new and unique purchase tools that urge their consumers to buy better products and more products. Innoviti processes digital purchases of Rs 75,000 crore annually across 2000+ cities.

Through its seller app integrated with the ONDC Network, Innoviti will help the sellers not only publish their products onto the Network to be visible to all buyer apps, but also help sellers associate with products with attractive purchase tools co-funded by banks and brands that can help them sell more. This will help to create a level playing field for small sellers, enhancing the chances of conversion while reducing the conversion cost, a statement said.

Walmart is laying off 200 corporate workers, one week after the company slashed its profit outlook saying inflation was pressuring customers to make fewer purchases, according to NYT.

In a statement, Anne Hatfield, a company spokesperson, said Walmart was "updating our structure and evolving select roles to provide clarity and better position the company for a strong future." She added that the company was investing in other areas, including e-commerce and technology. The corporate layoffs were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Twitter and Elon Musk, who are suing each other over the world's richest person's effort to exit their $44 billion merger, couldn't even agree on how much to tell the public about their dispute, Reuters reported.

The presiding judge, Chancellor Kathleen McCormick of Delaware Chancery Court, ruled on Wednesday that Musk's countersuit shall be made public by the afternoon of August 5, two days later than Musk wanted. Musk's countersuit may be released as soon as Thursday, sources told Reuters.

McCormick ruled after San Francisco-based Twitter accused Musk of trying to release his 163-page countersuit on Wednesday without giving it a chance to redact, or blackout, confidential information about the company.

Hours later, Musk's lawyers shot back, accusing Twitter of trying to bury "the side of the story it does not want publicly disclosed" and undermine the public's First Amendment constitutional right to know what both sides are arguing about.

Tencent plans to raise its stake in French video game group Ubisoft Entertainment as the Chinese gaming giant pivots to the global gaming market, four sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

China's largest social network and gaming firm, which bought a 5 percent stake in Ubisoft in 2018, has reached out to the French firm's founding Guillemot family and expressed interest in increasing its stake in the firm, the sources said.

It is not clear how much more Tencent wants to own Ubisoft, valued at $5.3 billion, but Tencent aims to become the single largest shareholder of the French company with an additional stake purchase, two of the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Tencent is hoping to buy a part of the additional stake in Ubisoft, the maker of the blockbuster "Assassin's Creed" video game franchise, from the Guillemot family, which owns 15 percent of the firm, three of the sources said.

Tencent could offer up to 100 euros ($101.84) per share to acquire the additional stake, two of the sources with knowledge of the internal discussions, said. It paid 66 euros per share for the 5 percent stake in 2018.

Alibaba Group has reported flat quarterly revenue growth for the first time in its history, showing how China's COVID lockdowns have hit its business. The slowdown adds to challenges facing China’s e-commerce giant, which has enjoyed double-digit revenue growth almost every quarter since it went public in 2014, as it navigates Beijing’s crackdown on tech companies as well as its scrutiny of founder Jack Ma.

Revenue stood at 205.56 billion yuan ($30.43 billion) in the quarter to the end of June but beat analyst expectations. Customer management revenue, which tracks how much money merchants provide Alibaba for placements and promotions, fell a whopping 10 percent to 80.4 billion yuan.

The revenue segment is Alibaba's bread and butter, routinely making up roughly one-third of its total revenue. Cloud computing revenue, its main growth driver outside of e-commerce, grew 10 percent.

Hundreds of Amazon workers at a warehouse in Tilbury in southeast England have walked out in protest over pay, the trade union GMB said, the latest sign of labour force discontent as the rising cost-of-living sparks strikes across sectors.

Amazon, which dominates the online retail marketplace, has faced criticism from workers in many countries over pay and conditions, as per a Reuters report.

"Amazon continues to reject working with trade unions to deliver better working conditions and fair pay. Their repeated use of short-term contracts is designed to undermine worker’s rights," the union said.

GMB said 800 workers walked out of the warehouse and Thursday over a 35 pence per hour pay increase, with the union seeking a two pound ($2.44) rise to cope with the higher cost of living and to better match the demands of the role.