Startup Digest: Physicswallah acquires UAE-based Knowledge Planet & Good Glamm Group acquires Bulbul

The only profitable edtech unicorn Physicswallah has acquired UAE-based company Knowledge Planet. With this acquisition, the firm aims to expand to the MENA (Middle East and North African) region.

This is the startup’s first international acquisition. The deal will also help Physiwallah to offer 1:1 STEM courses and SAT preparation for students looking towards the West for higher education, a statement said.

While it will leverage Knowledge Planet’s school partnership machinery to reach students in UAE, Knowledge Planet will benefit from PW’s tech stack to strengthen its online and hybrid offerings, the company added.

Content-to-commerce platform The Good Glamm Group has acquired video commerce company Bulbul in a bid to deepen the group’s understanding of the creator ecosystem.

With the acquisition, Bulbul’s founder Sachin Bhatia will take over as CEO, Good Creator Co. The core functionality of Bulbul has been added to the Good Creator Co., technology and product stack, a statement said.

Along with this, The Good Glamm Group also launched its creator ecosystem app The Good Creator Co (GCC). The startup said that GCC currently has over 1.5 million influencers and creators.

Magellanic Cloud, a publicly listed company has acquired a 70 percent stake in drone manufacturer Scandron for an undisclosed sum.

While Magellanic Cloud will now have majority ownership of the company, the current management team of Scandron will continue to lead the company's operations, a statement said.

Post the deal, Scandron’s focus will now be on enhancing Drone and Robotics performance in industries like Aerospace, aviation, Logistics, Defense, Agriculture industries, the firm said.

Contract execution SaaS platform Doqfy has raised Rs 7.5 crore in a Pre Series A round led by Turbostart and Pentathlon VC.

Other investors who participated in the round include Lead Angels, SilverNeedle VC, LetsVenture, Angel.co led by Archana Priyadarshini.

The funds raised will be used for tech enhancements of the platform and business growth through building partnerships, said the company in a statement.

E-commerce platform Snapdeal announced has begun receiving orders through Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC). This move will allow buyers using ONDC seamless access to Snapdeal's broad selection of value merchandise, the company said in a statement.

Snapdeal added that its initial orders via ONDC have been from cities like Ajmer, Gurdaspur, Aligarh, Indore, Kakinada, and Amravati, with a focus on home and kitchen products, including bedsheets, towels, utensils, storage and serving sets, and kitchen tools. The company plans to expand its offering to include fashion and beauty and personal care categories.

As part of the collaboration, buyers coming via ONDC will be able to access a large catalogue covering home and kitchen products. Snapdeal also said that it is in the process of expanding access to the Fashion, and Beauty & Personal Care categories.

The NCLAT has concluded its hearing over the petition filed by Google, in which the tech giant challenged the Competition Commission's order imposing a Rs 1,337.76 crore penalty for anti-competitive practices in relation to Android mobile devices.

A two-member bench of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) was conducting the hearing on a day-to-day basis for over a month.

"Heard Learned Counsel for the parties. Hearing is completed. Judgment Reserved," said the NCLAT bench comprising Chairperson Justice Ashok Bhushan and Member Alok Srivastava.

Following the CCI order, Google had filed a plea with NCLAT, which had declined to give an interim stay. The company had then approached the Supreme Court, which had also declined to stay the CCI order. It had, however, directed the NCLAT to decide on Google’s appeal by March 31.

Crypto exchange WazirX said that it has blacklisted more than 2,431 accounts before verifying transactions that were deemed unlawful from October last year to March 2023. The company in its report mentioned that it had received 431 requests from Law Enforcement agencies (LEA), against a total transaction volume of $390 million on the platform between October 2022 and March 2023,

As many as 46 requests were from foreign LEAs and 385 requests from Indian LEAs, it said. All of these requests pertained to matters related to account blocking, suspected criminal proceedings, investigation, and information was sought from WazirX as to whether such accused had dealt in Crypto through our platform.

Between October-March, WazirX had 3,96,126 user interactions. The crypto exchange said it promptly provided all information as sought, and added, "our compliance rate in record timeliness and accuracy was 100 per cent". Apart from that, blocking of over 2,431 accounts was also initiated based on our internal transaction monitoring process and/or directives from the LEAs.

Entrepreneur First, an early-stage talent investing firm has announced the launch of its ‘Graduate program’ for Indian students and recent graduates.

This programme is focused on promoting entrepreneurship among young Indians by backing them even before they have an idea or a co-founder and providing them with the necessary tools including the capital, mentorship, and network to build successful businesses, a statement said.

Entrepreneur First said that through its programs in London, Paris, Berlin, and Bangalore, it has enabled over 3000 individuals to build more than 600 companies that are now worth over $10 billion. With its Graduate programme, EF India will invest in people with zero to two years of industry experience.

Hyderabad based startup BookMyChef has announced the launch of a new mobile platform for on-demand chef and hospitality services.

The app is designed to solve the catering industry struggles to meet the needs of food lovers and small event hosts, resulting in limited options for consumers, a statement said.

With this app, the startup is looking to also cut down on ecological footprint, and support hospitality professionals who are vulnerable to market situations.

WorkIndia’s revenue grows from Rs 3.3 crore to Rs 54.1 crore between FY19-23.

WorkIndia, a blue and grey-collared hiring platform, said it has recorded a revenue growth from Rs 3.3 crore to Rs 54.1 crore at a CAGR of 100.3 percent over the past four financial years (FY19-FY23).

The company added that its revenue growth can be attributed to factors like employer acquisition, launch of a corporate vertical, geographical expansion into new cities, and delivery of services resulting in business retention from existing employers.

The company clocked 99 percent year-on-year growth in FY22 and an estimated growth of 91 percent in FY23. “Having achieved this, profitability at the Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortisation (EBITDA) level is primarily a leveraged game through revenue growth,” said Nilesh Dungarwal, Co-Founder & COO, WorkIndia.

Adobe has rolled out a tool aimed at helping marketing departments at e-commerce stores generate product images without having to pay for as many photo shoots.

The tool, called Project Sunrise, will let marketing teams generate fresh variations of images from a three-dimensional model of products such as shoes, kitchen gadgets or furniture. It is designed to allowing marketing professionals to come up with the images they need for web pages and marketing emails.

The product straddles San Jose, California-based Adobe's longtime business of generating and editing images and its newer business of supplying technology tools for marketing and e-commerce.

IndiGG, a Web3 gaming DAO, has announced the ‘IndiGG Web3 Championship’ and launched an esports athlete reputation program alongside.

The championship commenced in Bengaluru and will cover cities including Kolkata, Pune, Chennai, NCR, Dhaka, with finals to be held at Hyderabad in November, 2023.

The total prize pool will be $200,000 across all legs. It’s believed that the championship was hosted and managed by the community itself with IndiGG clan chiefs managing the entire execution, along with games ‘EV.io’ and ‘Thetan Arena’ being chosen by the community for the championship with ‘Venture X Gaming’ as title sponsor for the event, a statement said.