Wednesday, April 24

Author: Gauri Singh

Grocery Delivery Major Grofers Aims to Amass $2.5 billion in Revenue by 2020
26Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments
BUSINESS

Grocery Delivery Major Grofers Aims to Amass $2.5 billion in Revenue by 2020

The grocery delivery platform Grofers aims to garner $2.5 billion (around Rs 17,500 crore) in revenue by 2020 as it scales up its private label offerings in the country and focusses on expanding repeat purchases in its platform. The company, which has recently completed five years of its operations, has a revenue run rate of $360 million (about Rs 2,500 crore) currently.  Grofers co-founder and CEO Albinder Dhindsa said Grofers has been witnessing over 30% month-on-month growth.  "While we do not sell gourmet products that usually offer higher margins, we have been able to create a set of dedicated customers that usually promote our brand as well... We will continue to ramp up our business and we aim to clock $2.5 billion revenue by 2020," he said.&n...
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China to Pay an Increasingly Vital Part in US companies’ Growth Plans
26Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments
CHINA

China to Pay an Increasingly Vital Part in US companies’ Growth Plans

China has become an integral part of the growth plans of many US businesses, not just because of its sheer size but also due to its strategic importance. "China is actually becoming the leader in many markets and technologies that we are interested in," said Shafer, referring to digital platforms in China that help companies engage with customers. Huff, a political veteran, made these remarks in an exclusive interview after China's annual Central Economic Work Conference in Beijing. During the meeting China's top leadership reviewed the country's economic work in 2018, analyzed the current economic situation and arranged economic work for the coming year. A former California State Senator, serving from 2008 to 2016, Huff said that periodic review of real-world results from a coun...
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Revenue of PayU India Doubles to Rs 588 Crore in FY18
26Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments
BUSINESS

Revenue of PayU India Doubles to Rs 588 Crore in FY18

PayU India's revenue nearly doubled in fiscal 2018 to Rs 588 crore from Rs 306 crore the year before. It has been reported earlier this month that the Indian subsidiary of the Naspers-backed PayU accounted for more than half the overall business of the financial technology firm, based on Naspers' half-yearly report for fiscal 2019. PayU India is valued at more than $2.5 billion, based on a September Citi report which had pegged Naspers' payments business at around $5.2 billion. PayU India chief executive Amrish Rau said along with revenue for Citrus Payments, which PayU acquired in 2016 but is still a separate entity, the total revenue was about Rs 670 crore, meeting the $100-million revenue target that the company had set for fiscal 2018. "Last year was about scaling the payment...
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China’s Weibo Plans to Boost up Content-driven e-commerce Investment
26Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments
BUSINESS

China’s Weibo Plans to Boost up Content-driven e-commerce Investment

Weibo Corp, a leading social media platform, is investing 2 billion yuan ($290 million) to support content-driven e-commerce, multichannel networks, online celebrities, actors, entertainers and agencies in the next two years, as it attempts to better cater to the tech-savvy younger generation. "By September this year, China had nearly 1.12 billion monthly active mobile internet users, which is close to saturation point," said Wang Gaofei, chief executive officer of Weibo. "The competition has shifted from expanding user scale to increasing the time users spend on app usage. Users will abandon the products that fail to meet their real needs and wants. To consolidate our leading position in the content market, we will continue to improve product functions, enhance content capabilities...
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China Aims to Build up 212 National Logistic Hubs
25Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments
CHINA

China Aims to Build up 212 National Logistic Hubs

China plans to build 212 national logistic hubs and form a national logistics hub network in line with the advanced economic system by 2035. About 30 hubs will be established by 2020 and another 150 will be built by 2025, reducing the ratio of total logistics expenses to GDP to about 12 percent, according the overall arrangement and construction plan for national logistic hubs. The plan released by the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Transport on Monday also named 127 qualified cities to host the project of building six kinds of hubs, including land port, harbor port, airport, service-oriented port, commerce and trade-oriented port and land border port. Air express, high-speed rail express, cold-chain express, e-commerce express and cross-border com...
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China’s Mobike CEO Resigns Due to Uncertain Future for Bike Sharing
25Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments
Automobile, News

China’s Mobike CEO Resigns Due to Uncertain Future for Bike Sharing

Hu Weiwei, co-founder of Beijing Mobike Technology Co Ltd, has stepped down as its CEO, placing more uncertainty on the future of the bike-sharing startup. The move followed shortly after Mobike's cash-strapped rival Ofo Inc came under fire for stalling on deposit refunds. Once touted as investor darlings, the two companies seem to be pedaling toward an unforeseeable future due to overexpansion and struggling to find profitable business models. Mobike said Hu resigned for personal reasons, and Liu Yu, president of Mobike, will take her place. Hu's departure means that most of Mobike's founding team members have now left the three-year-old company. In April, Mobike was acquired by China's largest provider of on-demand online services, Meituan-Dianping. In November, Wang Xing, CEO ...
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JD.com Launches P2P Online Lending Products
25Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments
Tech

JD.com Launches P2P Online Lending Products

E-commerce giant JD.com has become the first Chinese tech tycoon to launch peer-to-peer online lending products. "Hefeng online lending" or literally "Hefeng Wangdai", a platform providing information service on P2P online lending under JD.com, sold out all the products within seconds after it started operation on Sunday. This made JD the first BATJ or Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and JD, to enter peer-to-peer online lending market. The P2P online lending platform provide one-month, three-month, six-month and 12-month products with 5 percent, 5.5 percent, 6 percent and 6.5 percent annual return rates. The lending benchmark was 1,000 yuan ($144.96) and almost all the borrowed money was expected to be used for daily consumption. Peer-to-peer online lending has experienced serious ...
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Credit Info Firms Sharing Data with Fintechs irks Lenders
25Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments
News

Credit Info Firms Sharing Data with Fintechs irks Lenders

Banks have sought indemnity from credit information companies (CICs) for any legal issue that might arise over the latter sharing bank customer information with fintech firms. This is understood to have been conveyed to the four CICs — TU Cibil, Equifax, Experian and Highmark — by a senior official of the Indian Banks Association (IBA) in a meeting on Thursday. Earlier this month, representatives of banks had a meeting to discuss the issue of fintechs getting unbridled access to bank borrower information. Lenders had raised their concerns at the IBA and some wanted to take this up with the RBI. However, it was decided that a formal view would be sought from CICs through the IBA. In Thursday’s meeting, the CICs are understood to have conveyed to the IBA representative that laws do no...
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Facebook India’s Net Profit Surges 40% in FY 2017-18
25Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments
BUSINESS

Facebook India’s Net Profit Surges 40% in FY 2017-18

Facebook India’s profit jumped about 40% to Rs 57 crore in the year ended March 2018, reflecting the increasing adoption of social media in a country where data costs have reduced drastically. The company’s total revenue in India surged 53%. The social media major in a financial statement said that the services it provided to the US parent company helped drive growth. Revenues also represent the money Facebook earned from WhatsApp, the messaging application. The company’s total revenues stood at Rs 521 crore for FY18, compared with Rs 407 crore in the corresponding period a year before. The financial statement said the company faces several tax issues in India. The company has pending disputes related to income tax, VAT, sales tax, customs and excise and ...
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Reliance Industries Acquires Stake in Blockchain Startup for $5 million
25Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments
ACQUISITION

Reliance Industries Acquires Stake in Blockchain Startup for $5 million

Reliance Industries has acquired 5.56 per cent equity stake in technology startup Vakt Holdings Ltd, UK (VHL), for $5 million (approx Rs 35 crore).  In a regulator filing, the company said it has acquired the equity stake in VHL, a closely held startup entity which is expected to run its energy-focused blockchain startup early next year.  VHL is a consortium of leading global energy majors, commodity traders and banks with a vision to digitise the global commodities trading industry, creating a secure, trusted ecosystem, powered by blockchain.  "The strategic investment accelerates Reliance's digital journey, through active participation in an emerging and evolving, yet promising, block chain enabled technology solution for energy markets," the company sa...
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SpaceX Completes Last Mission of 2018, Launch a Military GPS Satellite
24Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments
USA

SpaceX Completes Last Mission of 2018, Launch a Military GPS Satellite

SpaceX has successfully launched the United States Air Force’s first Global Positioning System (GPS) III satellite, nicknamed Vespucci, from Cape Canaveral, Florida this morning in what was the aerospace company’s first U.S. national security mission to date. The company had planned to complete the launch, its last of the year, earlier this week but heavy winds imposed delays. SpaceX won the National Security Space (NSS) contract with the Air Force in 2016 and intends to launch an additional four GPS III missions on Falcon 9, a two-stage rocket manufactured by the company. The GPS is owned by the U.S. military and operated by the Air Force. Built during the Cold War, it’s been used for commercial purposes since the ...
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Venture Catalysts Closes 57 deals in 2018
24Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments
BUSINESS

Venture Catalysts Closes 57 deals in 2018

Venture Catalysts, a startup incubator, closed 57 deals in 2018, helping raise Rs 125 crore for startups in its portfolio, as per data from startup-tracking firm Tracxn. The deals ranged from Rs 3 crore to Rs 13 crore. During the year, its portfolio firms raised Rs 380 crore in total. Founder and president Apoorv Ranjan Sharma stated that the investors were primarily frontier-II towns, which is what Venture Catalysts focuses on.  The number of deals it closed in 2018 was more that of its peers like Blume Ventures (30), Lets Venture (12), Orios Venture Partners (11), and Kae Capital and Indian Angel Network (10 each). Venture Catalysts had closed the highest number of investments in 2017 as well. “We are focusing on sectors like FMCG, h...
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