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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 payments...

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 ...

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 s...

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, he...

OYO Expects to Double Down on Growth in its Home Market

24Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

OYO Expects to Double Down on Growth in its Home Market

OYO Hotels & Homes is “well-capitalised” and will be doubling down on growth in its home market of India. From the ongoing funding round, it plans to invest a fifth, or $200 million, in Asia’s third-largest economy. The SoftBank-backed company, which is in the process of raising $1 billion (Rs 7,000 crore) from a clutch of investors, doesn’t have any plan to raise further capital. “Today, we are committing to invest $200 million in India, with the focus on building strong capabilities that will help us further improve the quality of customer experience in India. We will cross leverage this in other markets as well,” he said. The communique suggests a shift in OYO’s strategy from focusing on profitability — last fiscal year it had cut losses by a third to pushing gro...

SoftBank Group to Close $1.5 billion Investment in a Cab Aggregator

22Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

SoftBank Group to Close $1.5 billion Investment in a Cab Aggregator

SoftBank Group is in advanced talks to invest $1.5 billion in Grab, three times a previously expected $500 million, as Southeast Asia's biggest ride-hailing firm looks to expand, a person with knowledge of the matter said. Six-year old cab aggregator Grab has so far raised over $6.5 billion, led by SoftBank, Chinese ride-hailing firm Didi Chuxing and Toyota. After a fund raising in August, Grab was valued at around $11 billion. SoftBank first bought a stake worth $250 million in Grab in 2014 just as Grab began competing with Uber Technologies in Southeast Asia. Its latest funding in the ride-hailing firm will be made from its Vision Fund, which after raising more than $93 billion last year is the world's largest private-equity fund. A source stated that SoftBank is expected to finalise it...

Coworking Firm WeWork to Double its Space in India

21Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Coworking Firm WeWork to Double its Space in India

The provider of coworking workplace We Work is planning to double the coworking space it offers in India to 6 million square feet in 2019. The company is expecting to expand its presence to cities including Chennai, Pune and Hyderabad by the end of next year. The New York-headquartered collaborative workspace firm currently operates 3 million sq ft office space across Bengaluru, Mumbai and Gurgaon. “In India, WeWork started the year with over 5,000 desks and is closing it with 35,000 desks across 21 locations. With a member base of 20,000 in India, we are selling 2,000 desks a month,” said Karan Virwani Karan, chief We-Work executive officer, WeWork India. It was in late 2016 that the company made a foray into the country through a joint venture with Bengaluru-based real estate de...

US based Teeth Aligner Startup Opens up Physical Stores in SF

21Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

US based Teeth Aligner Startup Opens up Physical Stores in SF

Candid, a teeth aligner startup is evolving its direct-to-consumer business. The company aims to basically make straight teeth more accessible and more affordable than Invisalign. In addition to its at-home impression process, Candid recently started enabling people to come into a physical office to get their teeth scans completed. With this development, Candid is opening physical storefronts in San Francisco, Austin, Columbus, Ohio and Santa Monica, Calif. This is in addition to the two locations in New York City, one in Boston and one West Hollywood, California. The company aims to have 75 locations across the U.S. by the end of next year. Candid 3D prints its FDA-approved aligners and is designed for people who need mild to moderate orthodontic work. In Ca...

CleverTap Ties Up with SonyLIV to Launch Video Push Notifications

19Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

CleverTap Ties Up with SonyLIV to Launch Video Push Notifications

Mobile marketing platform CleverTap is partnering with SonyLIV to launch video push notifications which will make SonyLIV the first video streaming platform to do so. This will allow users to view video previews in push notifications, even on a locked screen. The company will leverage CleverTap’s Psychographic Segmenation feature to process millions of data points to improve the content recommendations. So far, it has seen a three time increase in click-through rates (CTR), increased session durations and higher than average view times. Uday Sodhi, Head - Digital Business, Sony Pictures Network India, said, “Being able to promote the most relevant content at the right time to the right user, through video, is something we are excited ...

ePayLater Partners with Cashfree to Bring in Pay Later Options

19Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

ePayLater Partners with Cashfree to Bring in Pay Later Options

Indian digital payments company ePayLater which is based in Mumbai has partnered with another payment company called Cashfree to bring in its innovative payment facility to their merchants. This partnership will bring ePayLater’s credit-based payment solution to almost all the merchants such as Daily Ninja, BigSmall, WheelStreet, EventsHigh, EduCart and Instaspaces using the Cashfree payment gateway. Also, ePaylater is targetting to process Rs.1000 crore in payments within the next 12 months. The company wants the product to be rolled out to more than 5000 merchants on the Cashfree platform by next year. “Offering credit via Buy Now, Pay Later option is one of the most exciting developments in Indian fintech and Cashfree hopes to offer this...

Google to Invest $1 Billion on New Campus in New York

18Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Google to Invest $1 Billion on New Campus in New York

Alphabet owned Google is investing more than $1 billion on a new campus in New York. With this, it will becom the second major technology company after Amazon to pick America's financial capital to expand and create thousands of jobs. The 1.7 million square-foot campus, called Google Hudson Square, will include leased properties at Hudson Street and Washington Street, the company said in a blog post on Monday. The new campus will be the main location for Google's advertising sales division, the Global Business Organization. Google hopes to start moving into two Hudson Street buildings by 2020, followed by a Washington Street in 2022 and will have the capacity to more than double its New York headcount, currently more than 7,000, in the next 10 years. The company's plans ...

Reliance Jio in Talks with US Company Flex for Smartphone Production

15Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Reliance Jio in Talks with US Company Flex for Smartphone Production

One of the largest Indian conglomerate Reliance Jio Infocomm is in talks with US contract manufacturer Flex for locally producing about 100 million mobile phone handsets as the Mukesh Ambani-owned telco seeks to rapidly enhance its market share by signing on the majority of those users now using feature phones. “Jio is in advanced discussions for a large order and that has caused a stir in the market, even prompting Flex to negotiate some tax benefits with the government in the SEZ where its factory is located,” a person familiar with the matter said. Another person said that Flex currently has the capacity to manufacture around 4-5 million devices per month at its factory in the special economic zone (SEZ) near Chennai. Any move by t...