Startup Digest: Spinny fires 300 employees, Zomato posts first ever profit, Dunzo integrates its seller app with ONDC & more

Online food delivery platform Zomato turned profitable for the first time during the June quarter of this fiscal. The profitability has been aided largely by operational improvement in the company's food business. Zomato's food delivery margins sored to 13.6 percent.

The food delivery platform reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 2 crore for the June quarter against a net loss of Rs 186 crore in the year-ago quarter. The consolidated revenue from operations surged 71 percent year-on-year to Rs 2,416 crore, compared to Rs 1,414 crore in the corresponding quarter of last fiscal.

The online food delivery giant said its quick commerce (Blinkit) business turned contributive positive for the first time ever in the month of June 2023. The food delivery platform said it can deliver adjusted EBITDA breakout in the quick commerce business in the next four quarters.

AI chip maker Tenstorrent has raised $100 million from Hyundai Motor Group and a Samsung investment fund. The round saw participation from Fidelity Ventures, Eclipse Ventures, Epiq Capital and Maverick Capital, among others.

Tenstorrent sells AI processors and licenses AI and RISC-V IP to customers that want to own and customise their silicon. Funding will be used to accelerate the company’s product development, the design and development of AI chiplets, and its ML software roadmap, the company said.

Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, the company has offices in Austin, Texas, and Silicon Valley, and global offices in Belgrade, Tokyo, and Bengaluru.

Early-stage venture capital fund pi Ventures, which invests in artificial intelligence and deeptech startups, has marked the final close of its second fund at Rs 702 crore ($82 million). The VC had exercised the green shoe option by raising Rs 137 crore more than the base target of Rs 565 crore.

The fund will invest in startups focused on AI and other forms of deeptech across sectors, but not limited to Spacetech, Biotech, Blockchain and Material Science among others. The fund is targeting to invest in 20-25 such startups in the coming two to three years.

pi Ventures will continue to focus on early stage investments through this fund and so far has invested in seven startups - ImmunitoAI, Ottonomy.IO, Silence Laboratories, Preimage, Zero Cow Factory and two other ventures.

UcliQ, a B2B Marketplace for Chicken and Seafood, has raised Rs 70 lakh in an angel funding round led by EvolveX Accelerator in its second cohort. The round also witnessed the participation of HESA founder Vamsi Udayagiri.

According to the startup, the funds will be used for reaching 20,000-25,000 businesses across Delhi/NCR, Bangalore, and Hyderabad in the next 12 months. The firm is aiming to achieve a revenue of Rs 15 crore.

UcliQ provides meat supply chains by providing transparent and secure digital platform that connects buyers and sellers, including HoReCa (hotels, restaurants and cafes), manufacturers, wholesalers, brands, and other businesses.

Space saving furniture brand Wallter Systems has raised an undisclosed amount in a seed funding round led by Inflection Point Ventures.

The funds will be utilized for brand building and scaling up the operations, the company said in a statement.

Wallter Systems said it has added over 50,000 net usable square feet to homes at a cost that is only 1/10th of the typical expenses.

Ayurvedic wellness startup Dr Mantra has raised a bridge round from Deep Bajaj and Mohit Bajaj, founders of femtech Brand, Sirona.

The brand intends to utilize the funds for business growth, aiming to double its operations before pursuing a Series A funding round.

The company claims to have tripled its revenues while maintaining positive unit economics at Rs 60 Lakhs in the last six months.

Quick commerce player Dunzo has announced the integration of its seller app with the government's Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) network, which will enable thousands of India’s small and medium merchants to access new customers online.

Over 1,500 local merchants will be onboarded through the Dunzo seller app in Week 1, with a target to onboard a total of 20,000 merchants across food, grocery, pharma, and other essentials in the next 45 days, according to the company.

“It’s been less than two weeks since we’ve been live on the network, and we’ve already hit peak order volumes of more than 3,000 a day for groceries and other essential items through our local merchants. We have merchant partners who’ve also seen a 3X increase in their daily orders,” Dalvir Suri, Dunzo co-founder and Head of Dunzo Merchant Services.

Merchant commerce omnichannel platform, Pine Labs today has appointed former OnePlus India CEO Navnit Nakra as their chief revenue officer.

As per the company, Nakra will be responsible for developing and executing growth strategies, new business generation, streamlining processes to attain efficiencies and maximising revenue streams for the payments business in India.

He has also worked for Apple where he was heading the Affordability business for India. He started his career with Citibank where he spent more than 14 years across consumer and institutional banking.

Healthcare delivery startup Pristyn Care has commenced operations in Bangladesh and will invest Rs 100 crore over the next two years to expand operations in the neighbouring country.

The company plans to have five patient care centres in Dhaka and Chattogram(Chittagong) by March 2024. It also aims to hire 200 employees across various departments as part of the expansion plans.

"With the country's (Bangladesh) healthcare market expected to reach USD 14 billion by the end of 2023, we are committed to the growth of healthcare in Bangladesh. Over the next two years, we'll invest Rs 100 crore to establish a robust healthcare infrastructure," Pristyn Care Co-Founder Harsimarbir Singh said. The investment would be utilised to set up patient care centres, he added.