Startup Digest: Zomato comes to Blinkit's rescue with $150 million loan, IDAM acquires 40% stake in Bevzilla, ReshaMandi acqui-hires Hashtaag

Zomato's rescuing act comes amid reports of its merger deal with cash-strapped Blinkit, which is feeling the heat in the intensely-competitive quick commerce delivery space. The firm is said to have laid off employees, shuttered dark stores, and delayed some vendor payments.

Besides, Zomato’s board has also approved the acquisition of 16.66 percent of the share capital of food robotics company Mukunda for an aggregate cash consideration of $5 million. The acquisition will be done by way of a subscription of 13,289 Series B1 compulsorily convertible preference shares and 10 equity shares of Mukunda, the filings showed.

Munish Varma, the managing partner of Japanese investment behemoth SoftBank, is preparing to step down from the boards of Paytm parent One97 communication and PB Fintech, less than six months after the companies went public in India, Moneycontrol reported.

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The report added that an announcement to this effect will be made shortly to stock exchanges. The action is consistent with Softbank's move globally—it steps away from board positions after its portfolio companies get listed. Softbank will remain as an investor and retain its shareholding in both these firms, sources told Moneycontrol.

SoftBank has invested over $10 billion in Indian new-age companies, with two of its large portfolio companies PB Fintech and Paytm listing on the markets last year. Softbank owns a 17.4 percent stake in Paytm and around 12.4 percent stake in Policybazaar. "They will not be selling their shares, they are stepping away from the board as they are less involved in public companies," one of the persons cited above said.

IDAM House of Brands has acquired a 40% stake in coffee brand Bevzilla for an undisclosed sum. IDAM plans to invest $1 million in Bevzilla's new product development, marketing and team building at the start, it said in a statement.

Currently, Bevzilla is present in 100+ retail outlets, Amazon, its own website, and other leading retail stores like Foodhall, Nilgiris, The New Shop and more.

“Bevzilla has carved a niche in the beverage industry and attained expertise, making it a potential brand for acquisition. We’re delighted to be working together and hope to achieve the 100 Cr. ARR target in the coming two years,” said Aakash Anand and Saahil Nayar Founders of IDAM House of Brands.

FarMart, a SaaS-led B2B food supply platform, has acqui-hired fruits and vegetables logistics platform, Subjimandi.app. The acquisition will enable FarMart to optimize its logistics and expand its product portfolio by entering into the F&V categories.

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"Subjimandi.app team have solved complex problems in F&V logistics space through their unique insights. We are excited to have them on board and work towards achieving our common mission of changing the way food is sold and purchased in India,” said Alekh Sanghera, co-founder and CEO at FarMart. Subjimandi.app has designed a marketplace with a product-first approach, ensuring standardized trade of graded produce.

Silk B2B startup ReshaMandi has acquihired Hashtaag in a bid to harness the latter’s tech talent pool. With this, ReshaMandi further strengthens its objective of enabling and empowering stakeholders through innovative technology that will have a profound impact on the natural fiber ecosystem, it said in a statement.

Hashtaag is a custom software development company that offers exclusive services to innovate products that enhance business growth. Its expertise in application development in addition to the Internet of things(IoT), DevOps and network security solutions will help Reshamandi enhance the processes set-up for digitizing the natural fibre supply chain.

"Hashtaag will power several critical systems like the rearing shed IoT, helping ReshaMandi to support several farmers and chawki rearing centers. Hashtaag’s talent pool will bring into action Reshamandi's vision of creating a data pipeline for all the IoT data coming from platforms such as Rearing-Shed and Fasal. In future, this platform will power real-time streaming Analytics based on AI/ML” said Shiv Khillar, VP Engineering at Reshamandi.

Edtech platform Career Launcher has acqui-hired its franchisee Knowledge Tree. Knowledge Tree will be leading Career Launcher’s Delhi-NCR team, aimed at driving its business growth via a blended model approach, it said in a statement.

Founded in 2007, Knowledge Tree is a CL Educate franchisee that operates three centres across Faridabad and Gurgaon. The platform claims to have helped over 15,000 students to appear in various competitive exams. It has a team of over 40 members.

"We are looking to double revenues in Delhi NCR through aggressive product and distribution expansion in the next 36 months,” said Sujatha Kshirsagar, President and Chief Business Officer, Career Launcher.

Battery Smart, a battery-swapping network for electric two and three-wheelers, in partnership with Tata Power Delhi Distribution will set up Swap Stations at various locations across North Delhi in 2022.

Tata Power Delhi Distribution’s power capacity and extensive infrastructure will allow Battery Smart to establish more high-capacity Swap Stations at key locations to cater to the growing electric two and three-wheeler market. The first swap station is live and operational at Azadpur, the firm said in a statement.

"This is a significant milestone for us as we have been growing at 10X since last July, and this association will provide us access to existing infrastructure and power requirements to scale our business further,” said Battery Smart’s co-founder, Siddharth Sikka.

Raasta Autotech, a startup focused on automotive service and compliance solution, has expanded its footprint into Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, and Bengaluru.

The startup seeks to develop a robust aftermarket ecosystem in these three locations with services including vehicle maintenance, lubricant consumables, spare parts, accessories and more. The company's service network now spans over 20 garages across these cities, it said in statement.

Indian women account for 28 percent of the country's total app consumption, with rural users accounting for 16.4 percent, according to a study by retention cloud platform CleverTap.

The study showed that recognizing the importance of women in household finances is a powerful marketing opportunity as they drive over 70% of purchasing decisions in key categories of app usage including social media apps, which increasingly convert sales, and e-commerce.

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According to the report, providers of Edtech, Social Media and Fintech apps, in particular, should consider marketing their apps to women. Women currently account for 37%, 32.5% and 31% of usage, respectively, and are major consumers of products and services in these sectors. Indian women outpace men in e-commerce app usage, accounting for 54% of all usage, it added.

Meanwhile, as per the report, rural India is an underserved market on the cusp of seismic change. While app usage is currently 16.4%, the split across verticals, CleverTap data shows consumers across cities and areas outside metropolitan centers gravitate to apps that can help them improve their education and quality of life.

Edtech (19.2%), Media and Entertainment (17.7%) and Fintech (17%) stand out as verticals that attract a disproportionately large number of rural users. Adoption rates for Health and Fitness (13.2%) are at the low end of the scale, but personalized strategies -- such as goal setting and reminder functionality -- can increase these numbers, it added.

Innovation, inclusive growth and empowering tech talent will be the key enablers for technology to truly shape India’s Techade. Speaking at Microsoft ExpertSpeak, Debjani Ghosh, President, NASSCOM, Abhishek Singh, President and CEO, NeGD and Dr. Rohini Srivathsa, National Technology Officer, Microsoft India, called out the foundational role technology will play in giving India a competitive advantage at the global stage.

“Partnerships will be important. It has to be about the industry, startups, government, academia, everyone coming together to make it happen. The design principles of the techade has to be human-centric innovation. It has to be security. It has to be inclusion, and it has to be scale, built into the start, built into the design of technology rather than an afterthought,” said Gosh.

Ghosh also called out for need for creating the mindset of an entrepreneur. “While our education system has plus points when you look at the STEM talent that we create, we will need to move the focus a bit more, to creating character, to creating attitude,” she added.

The speakers emphasized India’s opportunity to be a global innovation and tech talent hub, evident from the entrepreneurial momentum in the last few years. Startups, SMBs, and homegrown Indian companies are playing a key role in driving the next decade of growth and innovation for India with technology as the backbone.

"When we talk of inclusive growth, especially in designing anything for the digital platform, we need to consider if it will it create a digital divide, if everybody will get equal access, or if it will create a realm of digital haves and digital have-nots. 90% Indians access services through mobile phones, making services available in vernacular languages and designing in a very simple, easy-to-use approach so that everybody can use it,” said Abhishek Singh, President and CEO, NeGD.

"We have been the hub for a lot of the global capability centers and our tech industry has been the center but now we are really becoming the startup capital of the world with the third largest startup ecosystem in the world. And more and more companies are looking at India to really do innovation in deep tech. So, it's not just about talent to volume, but quality of talent and the kind of deep tech talent that we are looking to and to me, that is super, super exciting,” added Rohini Srivathsa, National Technology Officer, Microsoft India.

The Enforcement Directorate is investigating seven cases in which cryptocurrency has been used for money laundering and has so far attached proceeds of crime worth Rs 135 crore, Parliament was informed on Monday.

Law enforcement agencies have flagged usage of cryptocurrency by cybercriminals and cases investigated by the ED under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA)reveals that the accused have laundered proceeds of crime (PoC) through the virtual currency, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

"Directorate of Enforcement (ED) is investigating 07 cases under PMLA, 2002, in which cryptocurrency has been used for Money Laundering," he said. So far, the ED has attached PoC amounting to Rs 135 crore under the PMLA in these cases, the minister added.

To a query on whether the government has identified people involved in such activities in the country, Chaudhary said investigations conducted by the ED so far, revealed that some foreign nationals and their Indian associates have laundered the PoC through cryptocurrency accounts at certain exchange platforms.

As Google prepares to bring most employees back to the office, the company is facing a workforce that’s increasingly unhappy when it comes to key issues such as compensation and an ability to meet career goals.

Google’s annual employee surveys, internally called “Googlegeist,” show that a growing number of staffers don’t view their pay packages as fair or competitive with what they could make in a similar role elsewhere. They are also questioning their employer’s ability to execute.

Only 46 percent of survey respondents said their total compensation is competitive compared to similar jobs at other companies. That’s down 12 points from a year earlier. A modestly higher number, 56 percent, say their pay is “fair and equitable,” a drop of eight points from the prior year. Some 64% of employees said their performance is reflected in their pay, down three points.

The surveys were taken in January and released to employees last week. CNBC viewed results from the company overall as well as individual groups such as cloud, search and ads. The lowest scores across the board were in compensation and execution. The highest scores were in Google’s mission and values.

CEO Sundar Pichai told employees in a brief email announcing the results that the survey is “one of the most important ways” the company measures how much people like working at the company.

Retention and employee satisfaction are more critical than ever to Google and others in the tech sector as record numbers of people in the US are quitting their jobs and exploring new opportunities. Google is also about to begin bringing most of its employees back to physical offices at least three days a week. After two years of remote work because of the pandemic, Google’s reopening is scheduled for April 4.

Lyft is adding a temporary surcharge on its rides to help drivers deal with surging gas prices, CNBC reported. Lyft said the fees will go to drivers, who are in charge of filling up their own tanks. The company did not provide further details on how much more riders can expect to pay.

But rideshare drivers have become upset with the rising gas prices, which take away from their earnings. Some have called on Uber and Lyft to ease the burden, while others have threatened to quit.

The fees come in response to rapidly elevating gas prices across the nation due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The national average for a gallon of gas on Monday was $4.325, according to data from AAA. At the same time a year ago, the average was $2.859.

Lyft follows Uber, which announced last week it would add a surcharge on fares and deliveries in the U.S. and Canada for at least two months. Riders taking Uber trips will pay a fee of $0.45 to $0.55 per trip, the company said. Uber Eats deliveries will include a $0.35 to $0.45 surcharge.

The world's largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance has been given a crypto-asset service provider licence by Bahrain's central bank, its first such licence in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Reuters reported.

"The licence from Bahrain is a milestone in our journey to being fully licensed and regulated around the world," said Binance chief executive officer CEO Changpeng Zhao in a joint statement with Bahraini authorities. The regulatory requirements will "protect users with strong anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing policies," he added.

The licence permits crypto-asset trading, custodial services, and portfolio management, the statement said. Binance is also building its presence in the Gulf neighbour the United Arab Emirates. In December it said it was working with Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) to help set up an international virtual asset ecosystem there and assist with the development of virtual asset regulations.

Global investors are scooping up stakes in cryptocurrency funds and companies, as they seek exposure to a sector many believe could withstand the fallout from the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Research firm Fundstrat, in its latest note to clients, said venture capital (VC) buyers invested around $4 billion in the crypto space in the last three weeks of February. VCs poured in another $400 million to start-ups in the sector last week, data showed.

The VC investment is consistent with broad weekly inflows. Since the beginning of the year, weekly investments in the industry have been averaging anywhere between $800 million to about $2 billion, Fundstrat data showed.

New crypto funds also raised nearly $3 billion over the last two weeks as of Friday, the most so far this year.

"The conflict in Ukraine has weaponized our financial and digital economy and really accelerated blockchain adoption," said Paul Hsu, founder and chief executive officer of Decasonic, a $50-million hybrid fund investing in both digital assets and venture capital. He added that there's demand of up to $200 million to invest in his fund.

Refinitiv Lipper data showed that US investors pulled a net $7.8 billion out of bond funds in the week to March 9. Real estate funds saw net outflows of $707 million in the same period, after posting outflows worth $1.15 billion the previous week.

Luxury carmaker Bentley unveiled plans to build a new electric model annually for five years from 2025 after its annual profit skyrocketed, as the British firm builds on parent Volkswagen's push to broaden electric offerings.

As per Reuters, Crewe, England-based Bentley posted a profit of 389 million euros ($427.1 million) for 2021, compared with a profit of 20 million euros in the previous year, after deliveries jumped 31% to 14,659 cars on strong demand for new hybrid models.

Bentley is targeting to be end-to-end carbon-neutral by 2030, having invested 3 billion euros at its Crewe factory over a period of 10 years to aid this transition.

"Increasing demand for our hybridised models, supported by (3 billion euros) of sustainable investment in our Crewe factory, will ensure we remain the benchmark manufacturer in sustainable luxury mobility," said Jan-Henrik Lafrentz, member of the Board for Finance and IT at Bentley.