Friday, April 26

Author: Lavina Tolani

A computer engineer turned blogger, she has always been a writer at heart. It was the perfect combination of utilising her research and analytical skills and her enthusiasm for writing that sparked her interest in writing about the Indian startup ecosystem – the latest tech and gadgets and the startups that create them. She is always on the lookout for industry-specific stories in niche areas of interest such as e-commerce, fintech, green tech and more.
One97 invests $8.95 Mn in Paytm Entertainment
26Jun By Lavina TolaniNo Comments
BUSINESS

One97 invests $8.95 Mn in Paytm Entertainment

One97 Communications, the parent company of Paytm has invested $8.95 Mn (approx Rs 61 Cr) into its wholly subsidiary Paytm Entertainment, as per by more than 50% as per company's filings with Ministry of Corporate Affairs. Paytm Entertainment, the entertainment arm of Paytm deals in ticket booking for movies and other channels has increased its online penetration in India by more than 50%, as claimed by the company. It is interesting to note that Paytm Entertainment has collaboration with SPI Cinemas which is the owner of landmark companies such as Sathyam Cinemas, Le Rêve, The Cinema, in Chennai, Hyderabad, and Mumbai. The digital arm of Paytm had entred ticketing segment back in March 2016 in partnership with PVR and today it has its business operations running across 660 cities...
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This is How Reliance Jio Catches and Retains Customers
23Jun By Lavina TolaniNo Comments
Story

This is How Reliance Jio Catches and Retains Customers

Its just been 19 months since Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Jio ventured into the telecom market and bought a new kind of data revolution in the country. Reliance Jio is today India's third largest telecom operator which has widened its revenue market share by 20 percent and has a subscriber share of 15.8 percent. Providing first of its kind "cheap data offers", Jio has not only disrupted the market but has also changed the rules of the game. What is the reason that customers are still flocking to Jio? Broadly speaking, Jio has reinvented mobile phones as a source of mass entertainment. Nearly half of the Jio customers today, use mobile phones primarily to watch television. As per a recent report from Bank of America Merrill Lynch survey cited in Bloomberg, The telecom aggregation...
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State Bank of India appoints Arijit Basu as Managing Director
23Jun By Lavina TolaniNo Comments
News

State Bank of India appoints Arijit Basu as Managing Director

The appointment committee at cabinet has appointed Arijit Basu as the managing director of country's largest lender State Bank of India. Basu will finally fill in the position that was vacant since the elevation of Rajnish Kumar as Chairman. The new appointment will make SBI have four managing directors. As per governemnt's official statement, Arijit Basu has been appointed as the managing director with effect from the date of taking over charge till his superannuation in October 2020. A graduate in in Economics and a Master of Arts in History, Basu joined SBI first in 1983 as a probationary officer. He has handled several key positions in various cicles of SBI including the bank office at Tokyo. Basu has served as Chief Executive Officer at SBI Life Insurance for four years. Mean...
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Indian Railways to Use Drones Developed By IIT-Roorkee
23Jun By Lavina TolaniNo Comments
News

Indian Railways to Use Drones Developed By IIT-Roorkee

Indian Railways is very soon starting deployment of drones to monitor rail tracks, a step that will help national transporter focus on the safety aspect. According to the reports, under an initiative of the telecom industry and the railways, IIT Roorkee has developed drones which are currently being tested on the tracks around the Uttarakhand town. Anurag Vibhuti, deputy director of TCOE India said, The Indian Railways is in the advanced stages of considering deploying unmanned aerial vehicles to monitor rail tracks using the technology developed by IIT-Roorkee. Notably, Telecom Centres of Excellence abbreviated as TCOE is a public-private telecom body under which RailTel Corporation( railways’ broadband services arm) has partnered IIT-Roorkee to develop the drones that will help auto...
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Yatra Online eyeing to raise $50 Mn via 9 Mn Share Sale
23Jun By Lavina TolaniNo Comments
BUSINESS

Yatra Online eyeing to raise $50 Mn via 9 Mn Share Sale

Yatra Online, country's second largest travel aggregator is eyeing to raise an estimated $50 Mn (approx Rs 332.6 crores) via share sale, as revealed by its SEC filings. The company has plans to share 9 million shares, where it is also offering additional 1.35 Mn shares to underwriters, which if exercised to full will lead total proceeds to 57 Mn. As per filings with US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Nasdaq listed OTA said that company has plans to use the proceeds from the public market sale of shares towards "general corporate and business purpose". The offering is being managed jointly by Citigroup and Jefferies. The company has said in its official statement, that shares are expected to close around June 26, 2018 subject to customary conditions. Interestingly, th...
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Bike Rental Platform WickedRide raises $9.1 Mn Funding
22Jun By Lavina TolaniNo Comments
FUNDING

Bike Rental Platform WickedRide raises $9.1 Mn Funding

Online Bike and Scooter Rental Platform Wickedride Adventures Services Pvt Ltd have raised Rs. 62.13 crore ( $9.1 million) in a funding round led by Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital. With the latest round in place, company's valuation has roughly reached Rs. 130-132 crore. As per Bengaluru based filings with Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Raghunandan Gangappa- co-founder of TaxiForSure that later got acquired by Ola also participated in the round. Founded in 2014 by Vivekanand Hallekere along with Varun Agni and Anil G, WickedRide has two different entities for its online scooter and bike rental ventures. It focuses in on bringing the best of motorcycling on one platform and make it easily accessible. The platform currently offers services in 10 cities including Bengaluru, Ja...
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Youtube Brings a ‘New Way to Earn’ for Creators
22Jun By Lavina TolaniNo Comments
Tech

Youtube Brings a ‘New Way to Earn’ for Creators

World's largest video repository, Youtube has announced to allow creators to set up paid channel memberships, a move helping itself and its users diversify revenue after a turbulent year. Presently, the vast majority of revenue at Google's owned service comes from advertising and it will remain a focus informed Neal Mohan, YouTube's chief products officer. Viewers will have to pay US $4.99 a month for channel membership that will allow them to access premium content including live streams, extra videos or shout-outs on channels with more than 100,000 subscribers. In addition, video creators will be able to sell merchandise like phone cases, shirts, directly on their channels said the company. Rohit Dhawan, senior director of product management at YouTube said, YouTube is keeping ...
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Govt to Launch National Skills Portal to tally jobs in India
22Jun By Lavina TolaniNo Comments
INDIA

Govt to Launch National Skills Portal to tally jobs in India

The government of India is collecting the rise in the number of skilled persons in the country since the launch of its flagship Skill India Programme, in an effort to tally jobs in India. The launch of national skills portal planned by the government is an initiative that will have skilling data from all central ministries, states and corporates. Earlier in January, the cabinet secretary, PK Sinha had conducted review meetings to track the number of skilled personnel bringing all central ministries on board to converge their skilling programmes. Since the launch of Skill India programme in 2015, the government had targeted training over 400 million people in different skills by 2022. However, coming to statistics only 40 million have been trained so far out of which 25 million of ...
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China’s Baidu Tests Self-Driving Cars on Expressway
22Jun By Lavina TolaniNo Comments
CHINA

China’s Baidu Tests Self-Driving Cars on Expressway

China’s search engine major, Baidu Inc. on Thursday tested its two self-driving cars on an unused expressway in north China's Tianjin City. As informed by the company, this was the very first time for Baidu's automated cars to be tested on the Tangshan-Langfang expressway which is scheduled to open later this year. The trial run conducted will enable developers to collect data on the car's performance in sensing the environment and self-control and positioning, a senior engineer with within the road test team said. Meanwhile, the Chinese giants have been quietly testing vehicles in China and trying to take over Silicon Valley tech giants. The companies battling a head-on competition with each other include Baidu, Tencent and Alibaba, all of which are investing heavily in the technolo...
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HCL Tech inks a five year IT Infrastructure Deal with Nokia
22Jun By Lavina TolaniNo Comments
BUSINESS

HCL Tech inks a five year IT Infrastructure Deal with Nokia

HCL Technologies has partnered with Finish Telecom company Nokia in a five-year deal to modernise its IT infrastructure and application services. As a part of the deal, HCL will transition service from four incumbent vendors to establish an integrated IT service design and delivery framework while implementing a transition roadmap. For Nokia, the deal will help to improve operational efficiencies as announced in the press release. The official statement in the PR said, "Nokia has selected HCL Technologies as part of an important effort of streamlining Nokia's outsourced IT management services."   Nokia Chief Operating Officer Joerg Erlemeier said, This is an important development for Nokia and takes our digital transformation efforts to a new level, both for how it will...
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Swiggy turns “Unicorn”, Raises $210 Mn from DST Global
21Jun By Lavina TolaniNo Comments
FUNDING

Swiggy turns “Unicorn”, Raises $210 Mn from DST Global

Food Delivery Platform Swiggy has sealed its much awaited $210 million funding with Russian billionaire Yuri Milner's' DST Global thereby finally making entry into the prestigious "Unicorn" club. The company has informed that the investment round also saw participation from hedge fund Coatue and existing backer Meituan Dianping, with a total capital crossing $466 million including this round. Swiggy will be using the freshly raised capital in revamping its supply chain network and expanding to new markets. With an expected market valuation of $1.2 billion, the food delivery startup is ready to beef a war with Ant Financial-backed Zomato and new rivals like Ubereats and Ola-owned Foodpanda. Sriharsha Majety, CEO of Swiggy, in a statement, said, We’re thrilled to have grown the onl...
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