Sunday, May 19

Author: Gauri Singh

Indiabulls Ventures Secures $210 Million From Foreign Funds
25Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments
FUNDING

Indiabulls Ventures Secures $210 Million From Foreign Funds

Indiabulls Ventures Ltd, a financial services company has secured an amount of Rs 1,539.20 crore ($210 million) in a funding round. The particular round was led by four foreign institutional investors, including a private equity firm. The basic purpose of the funding round is to infuse long-term capital into two of its subsidiaries. Indiabulls Ventures will make a preferential allotment of compulsorily convertible debentures to Tamarind Capital Pte, Hong Kong-based hedge fund Steadview Capital, US-based venture capital fund ABG Capital and DF International Partners. The company is planning to use these funds to capitalize on lending arm Indiabulls Consumer Finance Ltd and Indiabulls Asset Reconstruction Co Ltd. The debentures have been allotted at a 35% premium to the company's share...
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Digging Into the Twists & Turns of Paytm Extortion Case
25Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments
Story

Digging Into the Twists & Turns of Paytm Extortion Case

The case regarding Paytm that got hyped after Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s secretary Sonia Dhawan along with three other Paytm employees blackmailed him for Rs 20 crore against the leak of the confidential information of the company. Sonia Dhawan was the Vice President, Corporations/PR at Paytm and started her career in the company as Vijay Shekhar Sharma's secretary. Being the secretary of the founder, she had access to almost all documents and data of the company. Along with her husband Rupak Jain and Devendra Kumar, who worked as senior manager in the administration department of the company, she planned the extortion and took it forward. These were the allegations because of which they were arrested and taken by the Police, however, the story contains a lot more twist. Let us now know mor...
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Facebook is Building a Video Music App Lasso to take on Tik Tok
25Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments
Tech

Facebook is Building a Video Music App Lasso to take on Tik Tok

The most popular social media platform Facebook is working on a new video app that it hopes could win back the attention of teens. The company is basically building a standalone product where users can record and share videos of themselves lip-syncing or dancing to popular songs, similar to that of the video making app called Tik Tok, previously known as Musically. The app is designed to be a standalone competitor to Musically, which was a hit with teens and even with the pre-teens. The new app is being built by members of Facebook’s video and Watch team under leadership from Facebook’s principal lead product designer Brady Voss. The social media giant has been investigating the teen music app space since 2016. Then earlier this year, Facebook’s music efforts were reinvigorated when ...
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Cab Aggregator Grab Ties up With MasterCard to Offer Virtual Debit Cards
25Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments
BUSINESS

Cab Aggregator Grab Ties up With MasterCard to Offer Virtual Debit Cards

Ride hailing company Grab has reportedly has announced its plans to introduce virtual pre-paid debit in collaboration with Mastercard. This move is the biggest digital payment push in Southeast Asia to date. The particular deal will witness its Grab Pay business offer Grab’s 110 million registered users the option to use a virtual Mastercard to make payments both online and in-person. With this partnership, the users will be able to use physical Grab Pay cards or virtual ones, the latter being a card number, expiry date, and other details that are held within the Grab app. “We see Grab Pay as a glue that goes across all the products we offer, and rewards our users for using them,” Reuben Lai, senior managing director at Grab Financial said. “Grab Pay users spend two times more than ...
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Tesla to Start Model 3 Manufacturing in China from Next Year
25Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments
CHINA

Tesla to Start Model 3 Manufacturing in China from Next Year

The EV giant Tesla is reportedly expecting to extend its earnings streak by bringing its new Model 3 to customers beyond North America. The company’s plan includes accelerating its manufacturing plans in China. Tesla witnessed its revenue increase aggressively to $6.8 billion in the third quarter (and a $312 million profit) after the sales of its new Model 3 vehicle. The company was able to achieve that profitability milestone just through sales in the U.S. and Canada. The company mentioned that it would start to take orders for the Model 3 in Europe and China before the end of 2018. Also, it will begin deliveries of the Model 3 to Europe early next year. “We are aiming to bring portions of Model 3 production to China during 2019 and to progressively increase the level of localizati...
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Satish Kumar Gupta Apponited as the new Paytm Payments Bank CEO
25Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments
News

Satish Kumar Gupta Apponited as the new Paytm Payments Bank CEO

Paytm Payments Bank has appointed veteran banker Satish Kumar Gupta as managing director and CEO. Gupta comes in after Renu Satti stepped down as CEO in July and moved on to head the company’s new retail business. Gupta was former deputy general manager at State Bank of India where he worked for over three decades. “I have been fortunate to experience the disruption and growth that the Indian economy has witnessed in promoting digital payments. I look forward to leveraging my understanding of banking and payments at Paytm Payments Bank and aligning myself to its vision of bringing financial inclusion through digital payments,” Satish Kumar stated. Paytm has been strengthening the compliance structure of its payments bank unit. Last month, it moved Rama Subramaniam Gandhi, an advisor t...
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India Tops Google Play Store Downloads in Last 7 Years
24Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments
INDIA

India Tops Google Play Store Downloads in Last 7 Years

With the growing number of Android users in India, the country saw 36.9 billion app downloads from Google Play Store between January 2012 and August 2018 which marks as the highest among all countries, according to mobile app analytics firm App Annie. This study was done on the 10th anniversary of the Google Play Store. India accounted for 11.2% of the Google Play Store pie worldwide, given that global downloads for the period were 330 billion. Following India, the US was in second position with 35.1 billion downloads. The further positions were held by Brazil (25.2 billion), Russia (15.9 billion), Indonesia (14.6 billion) and Mexico (12.7 billion). On an annual basis, India became the No. 1 downloader from Google Play Store in 2016. Taking into account both Google Play Store and Apple ...
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Mobile Banking Startup Neat Secures $3 Million in Fresh Funding
24Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments
FUNDING

Mobile Banking Startup Neat Secures $3 Million in Fresh Funding

A Hong Kong-based startup Neat that offers startups and SMEs access to credit cards and banking services has secured funds amounting to $3 million in a fresh funding round. The particular round was led by China-based VC Linear Capital. The round also saw participation from Hong Kong’s Sagamore investments and existing backers Dymon Asia Ventures and Portag3 Ventures. Prior to this, the company raised $2 million seed round earlier this year. The company basically provides quick access to prepaid Mastercard-based cards and basic banking services. Cards are charged at around $7.50 per month, with varying prices on incoming, outgoing and international payments. Along with this, there is also a consumer option, which is much like European startups Monzo, Starling and Revolut, but Neat ...
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Ebix Acquires 67% Stake in Delhi-based B2B Marketplace
24Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments
ACQUISITION

Ebix Acquires 67% Stake in Delhi-based B2B Marketplace

Ebix Inc has reportedly acquired 67% stake in a Delhi-based B2B marketplace called Routier for trucking logistics. Routier is the first start-up where Ebix has made a strategic investment. Ebix is basically a Nasdaq listed international supplier of On-Demand software and E-commerce services to the insurance, financial, healthcare and e-learning industries. On the other hand, Routier is a cloud-based technology to change the way people move and receive inland goods in India. This particular deal has been taken forward by one of its India-based EbixCash subsidiaries. Routier was founded by Ankur Dahiya and Adwait Vikram Singh who are the first generation entrepreneurs and operating team senior executives. The company expects to revolutionize trucking logistics in the same way taxi logi...
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E-commerce Giant Amazon Sets Up Captive Call Centers in India
24Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments
BUSINESS

E-commerce Giant Amazon Sets Up Captive Call Centers in India

The e-commerce player Amazon has set up captive call centres in India to handle some of its international and domestic customer and seller services. The company has taken a departure from its previous strategy of working purely with business process outsourcing companies. The e-commerce giant is expecting to expand more and more in India. The company has been looking at its customer service strategy over the past year. It was in January that Amazon acquired a warrant in US company StarTek that is tied to the amount of revenue Amazon generates for the US BPO company. “Amazon has looked at this very strategically. If they are giving you business then they want part of that upside or, in some cases, they think they can generate and keep the efficiencies for themselves. They have a long ...
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Uber Aims to Go Fully-Electric in London in 2025
24Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments
News

Uber Aims to Go Fully-Electric in London in 2025

The cab aggregator Uber has planned for every car on its taxi app in London to be fully electric in 2025, It would also add a clean air fee to each trip from early next year. The rapidly-expanding firm is simultaneously trying to appease regulators in key markets such as London, with initiatives such as on environmentally-friendly vehicles, as well as expanding into new areas ahead of a flotation. "It's going to be part of the family and how the capitalization looks like is something that we are ultimately open to but it is not an area of focus right now." Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi, who pulled out of a Saudi conference after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, also said the firm would wait for answers about the incident before deciding how that might affect Saudi investm...
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US Based Startup Cloudflare to Launch a $3.5 billion IPO
24Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments
Market

US Based Startup Cloudflare to Launch a $3.5 billion IPO

US startup Cloudflare whose software makes websites load faster and with greater security is planning to launch its initial public offering (IPO) that could value it at more than $3.5 billion. The company is expecting to go public in the first half of next year, joining a string of software and internet firms seeking to tap the stock market and capitalize on strong investor appetite and rich valuations. The IPO will be led by investment bank Goldman Sachs, however, the exact timing of the IPO has not been finalized. Founded in 2009 by Lee Holloway, Matthew Prince, and Michelle Zatlyn, Cloudflare as of now, has raised a total of $182.1 million. Cloudflare’s services help websites load faster and prevent security breaches. The company claims to have more than 154 data centers and se...
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