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China to Buy $200 Billion of American Goods Amid Trade War Fears

18May By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

USA

China to Buy $200 Billion of American Goods Amid Trade War Fears

In a bid to release tensions between America and China concerning the trade war, China may be disposed to buy up to $200 billion worth of American goods in an initiative that will decrease the tremendous trade deficit with the US, according to several media reports. Donald Trump announced that he would impose 25% tariffs that would amount to $150 billion against imported products Made in China. To counter, the Chinese government targeted $50 billion against American exports. The threats have not yet been implemented as of yet as the two countries are still trying to find a common ground of accord before taking drastic decisions. Currently, China deployed a high-level delegation led by Vice Premier Liu He in Washington to negotiate with the White House. The talks will be held for two ...

Ola and Uber Drivers Begin a Hunger Strike

18May By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

News

Ola and Uber Drivers Begin a Hunger Strike

Ola and Uber, the two cab-hailing giant companies are facing tough times as their Rajasthani taxi drivers are conducting a hunger strike from today due to disagreements against the rates of commission charged by their companies that they deem too high. The drivers also conducted a strike last month that lasted nine days and ended only when the tech-firms agreed to meet some of the drivers’ demands and promised to look further in the matter of others. The drivers’ association also pressed both Ola and Uber to stop the fleet cars whereby a driver is provided a car by the company against minimal rates and a compulsory fee of Rs 1,100 daily to the firms. “The company is adding up new cars every day. The competition is tough and it is getting difficult to get work. Hence, we are demanding...

18May By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

FUNDING

Delhi-based PR and Celebrity Endorsement Startup Raises Funding

Clarity Communication, a startup focused in PR and celebrity endorsement raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Atraxn Partners. The investment comes after the startup grew at an accelerated pace in the last 15 months as it added several startups and large firms in its portfolio. The funds will serve to financially assist Clarity augment and consolidate its hold of influential clients in the market it operates. To meet their goals, the Delhi-based startup will build skills and expertise in digital, traditional and social media and celebrity endorsements to meet the requirements of a diverse array of business and industries. Among the new clients associated with Clarity are venture capital firms and investment advisory firms. "The approach to communication is three-pronged - ...

Another Top Uber Executive Leaves the Company

18May By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

News

Another Top Uber Executive Leaves the Company

Jeff Holden, Uber’s chief product officer decided to quit the American cab-hailing company to pursue another opportunity, the company confirmed to Recode. Holden joined Uber’s headquarters in 2014 coming from Groupon. The timing of his departure seems very inappropriate since he was leading the firm’s flying car initiative, called Elevate, that would look like giant drones taking off vertically. In fact, last week, Uber hosted its second consecutive flying car annual summit, where the project got a very good reception from CEO Dara Khosrowshahi who stated that he would be willing to lose money to see this project take off. “We’ll take short-term losses in order to bring long-term business,” CEO Dara Khosrowshahi was quoted saying. “If over the short term we ne...

Paypal Acquires Leading Swedish Online Payments Provider

18May By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Paypal Acquires Leading Swedish Online Payments Provider

Paypal, the leading online payments system is ready to make its biggest gamble on point-of-sale transactions, small businesses and markets out of America, as the competition between Square, Stripe and others in the world of payments. Indeed, the online payment giant is set to acquire iZettle – a Sweden-based payments provider that holds the tag of “Square of Europe” for a reported fee of $2.2 billion in cash. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of this year and iZettle’s co-founder and CEO Jacob de Geer is expected to remain at the head of his company. Other important executives of the company will also keep their roles in the business post-acquisition. With this deal, Paypal announced that they will make the firm become “a center of excellence” for in-store and offline p...

18May By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

FUNDING

Health-tech Startup Founded by Former Myntra Execs Raises Funding

Mfine, a health-tech startup focused predominantly in Artificial Intelligence recently raised a Series A funding round of $4.2 Mn led by Prime Venture Partners. This round of funding also saw the participation of existing investors such as Stellaris Venture Partners and Mayur Abhaya who is also an entrepreneur in healthcare. This is the second time that the company is raising funds, having previously raised $1.5 Mn from Stellaris Venture Partners in September 2017. The funds raised will serve the purpose of building the hospital networks across cities while strengthening the team behind the manufacturing of the technology. It is also targeting making over 1-lakh consultations coming end of 2018 and sign partnership deals with 50 additional hospitals in India. Mfine saw the day in ...

17May By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

FUNDING

Droom Raises Colossal Funding from Toyota

Droom, the automobile marketplace recently raised a Series D funding round of $30 million with Toyota Tsusho Corporation (TTC), daughter company of Toyota Group Corporation, leading the investment round. Existing investor Digital Garage and four additional new investors from Hong Kong also participated in the funding round. The deal is a memorandum of understanding with TTC to expand operations in overseas market, with Toyota’s inventory as primary asset for expansion. This is the fifth round of funding that Droom is benefitting from, amounting to a total of $95 Mn since its founding. The company is set for its IPO by 2019. The previous round of funding of Droom happened in July 2017 when it raised $20 Mn from Digital Garage and others. In June 2016, it raised $25 Mn from Beenext and...

Flipkart FY17 Revenue Growth Cuts Down Losses

17May By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

BUSINESS

Flipkart FY17 Revenue Growth Cuts Down Losses

While Flipkart is still filling all legal documents and other details for the Walmart acquisition, Flipkart India, the wholesale arm of Flipkart, was able to cut down losses in FY17 by 55% when compared with FY16. According to filings at the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), Flipkart reported a net loss of $36 million (Rs 244 Cr) for FY17, which represents a 55% decline from the loss of the previous fiscal year that stood at $80.3 million (Rs 544.5 Cr). On the downside, the e-commerce giant’s total expenses increased significantly by 15%. For FY16, the total expenses of the company stood at $2 billion (Rs 13,722 Cr) compared to the $2.33 billion (Rs 15,813 Cr) in FY17. However, the e-tail business witnessed revenue growth of 19% in the fiscal year of 2017 with revenues standing at...

Facebook is Adding A Photo Cloud Storage and 2 More Features to its App

17May By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

Tech

Facebook is Adding A Photo Cloud Storage and 2 More Features to its App

Facebook, the social media giant is adding three features in a new update that it believes will facilitate users “create and save memories.” The update will add features such as allowing users to create a cloud backup whereby photos and videos could be directly saved from the users’ account, sharing of voice messages with friends, and archive any Facebook Stories shared. The new features will first be available in India and will spread throughout the entire globe “shortly thereafter.” Additionally, Facebook is bringing changes to its in-app Facebook Camera as users will be able to save their images and videos on the app itself instead of their gallery. This feature has been introduced to allow users to save local internal memory on their phones, especially those with entry-level devices...

Facebook Again Failed to Protect Data of 3 Mn Users

16May By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

News

Facebook Again Failed to Protect Data of 3 Mn Users

Barely two months after the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, Facebook is the subject of another data controversy as a third-party app in the form of a personality quiz, was able to collect and distribute sensitive Facebook data from over 3 million people. The data contained Facebook users’ answers for the personality trait test, and while it didn’t disclose the users’ names, it did contain their age, gender and relationship status. Additionally, status updates of over 150,000 users were exposed. The data was supposed to be shared and used among approved researchers exclusively through a specially designated website for that purpose but, reports suggest that a username and password to access the side could be found “in less than a minute” on any search engine, therefore meaning that ...

16May By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

FUNDING

Recent MakeMyTrip Funding Raises Valuation to Rs 26,000 crore

MakeMyTrip recently raised capital from its Nasdaq-listed parent company through a rights issue that took the Gurugram-based company’s valuation to Rs 26,000 crore. Documents filed by the Indian tour and travels aggregator to the Registrar of Companies demonstrate that MakeMyTrip received around Rs 128 crore from its parent company over the last six months through subscriptions to the rights issues. The RoC filings reveal that the board of directors of MakeMyTrip agreed to allocate 323,649 equity shares at an issue price of Rs 1,000 in February of this year to its parent company MakeMyTrip Limited Mauritius on a right basis. “Consent of the board… is hereby accorded to the allotment of 3,23,649 equity shares of Rs 10 each in the capital of the company… at an issue price of Rs 1,00...

German Bank Acquires Mumbai-based Fintech Startup

16May By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

ACQUISITION

German Bank Acquires Mumbai-based Fintech Startup

Deutsche Bank, the German investment bank and financial services recently announced the acquisition of its first Indian fintech startup, Quantiguous Solutions for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition was made as the bank looks to strengthen several divisions and applications. Post the acquisition deal, all employees of Quantiguous will move to Deutsche Bank offices and will integrate the core team posted to develop and roll-out the bank’s global application programming interface (API). Quantiguous solutions will be assigned to help develop Deutsche Bank’s global transaction banking franchise business. “The future of banking depends on connectivity which is key to drive growth for our global franchise,” said head of global transaction banking, John Gibbons. “The need to provide a...