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Paisabazaar.com to Bring Cooperative Banks to its Platform

14Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Paisabazaar.com to Bring Cooperative Banks to its Platform

Paizabazaar.com which is an online loan marketplace is planning to bring in cooperative banks to its platform. It has been reported that cooperative banks in Ahmedabad have been approached by the portal. Various bankers stated that it’s probably the first time an online aggregator is looking to offer as many options as possible to the consumers who are applying for loans through its platform as this pushes up the chances of approval. “They are a great local bank to a segment which will help increase inclusion. These customers are the ones who now using internet via mobile phones and we expect to cater to these new set of customers by partnering with cooperative banks,” Naveen Kukreja, CEO,Paisabazaar.com said. But, the latter did not disclose the details of its...

14Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Pepperfry Launches a new business vertical ‘Pepperfry Bespoke’

Furniture and home products marketplace Pepperfry has launcheda new business vertical 'Pepperfry Bespoke'. With this, the company is evolving into a full-stack home interiors solutions provider. "In the last 6-7 years, we have built a large product business in the home and furniture space. With this service, we will foray into services like civil and electrical work, thereby doing the end-to-end design and execution for our customers" Pepperfry founder Ashish Shah said. The service is at present available in three cities including Mumbai, Bengaluru and Gurugram, wherein the company has converted three of its large format studios into Bespoke studios. These studios will offer customers home interior design and build services like 3D visualisation, space opt...

Swiggy to Enter Educational Institutes through ‘Launchpad’

13Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Swiggy to Enter Educational Institutes through ‘Launchpad’

The food delivery major Swiggy is planning and piloting a programme to launch operations in university towns. This programme will be known as Launchpad. Launchpad will bring onboard students, typically those in the third year of a four-year graduation degree, as the campus Swiggy CEO in each university or college town to leadSwiggy’s operations in the campus. The company at present is running pilots for the Launchpad in universities including Birla Institute ofTechnology and Science (BITS) Hyderabad, Lovely Professional University in Punjab and Chitkara University, also in Punjab. Swiggy is currently operational in 50 cities and is looking to roll-out the initiative in a full-fledged manner on 400 campuses over starting January. The campus CEOs will be supervised by Swiggy's execu...

VC Firm Sequoia Capital Invests Rs 65 Crore in Wakefit

11Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

VC Firm Sequoia Capital Invests Rs 65 Crore in Wakefit

Venture capital firm Sequoia Capital has invested Rs 65 crore in Wakefit which manufactures mattresses, at a post-money valuation of Rs 210 crore. Through this round, Sequoia Capital has picked up 31.9% stake in the previously bootstrapped startup.The startup will leverage 10-15% of the acquired funds primarily to strengthen its manufacturing arm by introducing automation and boosting its production capacity from 250 mattresses per day to 700 mattresses per day and also plans to invest in innovation and launch newer product ranges,including bed sheets fabricated with wood pulp fibers, comforters, pillows, and sleepwear.“Wakefit has been at the forefront of high quality sleep solutions since 2015, democratizing great sleep and changing the way India sleeps. We are very keen to initiate the ...

China’s JD.com Partners Intel to Develop ‘smart’ Retail experiences

11Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

China’s JD.com Partners Intel to Develop ‘smart’ Retail experiences

China’s second highest-profile investor behind Alibaba known as JD.com has partnered with another U.S. tech giant that is Intel. Both the companies stated that they will set up a “lab” focused on bringing Internet-of-Things technology into the retail process. This would probably include new-generationvending machines, advertising experiences and more. That future is mostly offline — or, in China tech speak, “online-to-offline” retail — but combining the benefits of e-commerce with brick and mortar physical retail shopping. The e-commerce company already works with Intel on personalized shopping experiences, but this new lab is focused on taking things further with new projects and working to “facilitate their introduction to global markets.” “The Digitized Retail J...

Coworking Firm 91springboard to Expand its Capacity Six fold to 1.5 lakh Desks

10Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Coworking Firm 91springboard to Expand its Capacity Six fold to 1.5 lakh Desks

Coworkingspace company called 91springboard is planning to expand its capacity six-fold to 1,50,000 desks in three years from the end of this financial year. The company would openfacilities in more Indian cities. “Currently, we have 20 operational centres and are on track to reach 12,500 desks by the end of thisyear and then 20,000-25,000 desks by March-April 2019. We aim to get 150,000desks by March 2022,” said Varun Chawla, cofounder of 91springboard. It was mentioned that thefirm lately secured funds amounting to $10.2 million from Singapore-basedmarketing technology company FreakOut. The company currently has centres in NewDelhi, Gurugram, Noida, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Pune andGoa. “We will be expanding in these cities and following this, next round of cit...

Obopay Partners with Federal Bank & Mastercard to Launch its Prepaid Card

10Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Obopay Partners with Federal Bank & Mastercard to Launch its Prepaid Card

Digital payment firm Obopay has reportedly entered into a partnership with FederalBank and Mastercard for the purpose of launching a prepaid payment solution for corporate clients to manage their disbursement and payment solutions. The company stated that the fresh card will have multiple features like split transaction, multi wallet facility, ATM withdrawals, inter-card fund transfer, and many others. Also, the card which comes with no minimum balance requirement and no service charge can be useful for all forms of corporate entities like distributors, colleges, factories retailers etc. “We are joining hands with Mastercard and Federal Bank for promoting digitization and creating a robust payment solutions solution which will provide end users with the highest level of convenien...

Singapore-based Grab in Advanced Talks to Invest $100 Million in OYO

3Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Singapore-based Grab in Advanced Talks to Invest $100 Million in OYO

Singapore ride-hailing company Grab is in advanced talks to invest $100 million (Rs 697.7 crore) in OYO Hotels & Homes as part of the Indian hospitality chain’s ongoing $1 billion funding round. Grab is expected to close the deal over the next few days, according to two people briefed on the matter. Grab and OYO, both of which count SoftBank as one of their primary investors, have identified Indonesia as a key market for growth. Grab, which has been going head-to-head with Indonesia’s ride-hailing and logistics startup Go-Jek, has stated its intention of entering sectors ranging from grocery delivery to healthcare, according to a report by Bloomberg. OYO announced the launch of its operations in Indonesia in October last year. At the time, the Ritesh Agarwal-led company starte...

Facebook Brings Monetisation Tool for Indian Content Creators

1Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Facebook Brings Monetisation Tool for Indian Content Creators

With an aim to popularise original videos on its platform and give a fight to YouTube, Facebook has announced that it is introducing multiple monetization tools for the Indian content creators. This was announced during its first Indian “Creator Day” event. Facebook has opened ad breaks to all qualifying video creators to help them earn money. The new feature will allow the creators in India to join ad breaks to get a 55% share of the revenue from the video ads shown to the viewer. These ad breaks will available for eligible partners in Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Malayalam and English. But, the creators will have to follow certain guidelines in order to be able to allow ads. Starting with the first one, ad breaks can only be included in long-form videos with length of three minutes an...

PhonePe Introduces IRCTC Micro-app on its Platform

30Nov By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

PhonePe Introduces IRCTC Micro-app on its Platform

PhonePe, a Flipkart-owned digital payments platform will now offer an IRCTC micro-app on its platform. The company has partnered with Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) to carry forward with this process. This development has come three months after PhonePe struck a partnership with IRCTC to facilitate digital payments on the IRCTC Rail connect Android app. With this, the micro-app will now allow users to book their train tickets directly through the PhonePe App. "We are continuously evolving and innovating towards building a hassle-free ecosystem for our 100 million users and the association with IRCTC is another step in that direction. Our aim is to create a unified login and payments experience across all important consumer use cases especially in the space o...

Paytm’s Parent One97 Communications Crosses Rs 1 lakh crore Valuation Mark

29Nov By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Paytm’s Parent One97 Communications Crosses Rs 1 lakh crore Valuation Mark

The parent company India’s biggest payment services firm Paytm that is One97 Communications has reportedly and successfully crossed the valuation mark of Rs 1 lakh crore in the unofficial market. Talking about the unofficial market, the firm’s value has raced past the market capitalisation of listed blue-chips like IndusInd Bank, Mahindra & Mahindra, Bajaj Finserv, Titan, HDFC Standard Life Insurance and Godrej Consumer. One97 shares changed hands at roughly Rs 18,200 a piece this week, running up nearly 60% in the last six months after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway bought a stake in the company. “Shares of One97 Communications have jumped from Rs 11,000 to Rs 18,000 in just six months after Warren Buffett’s firm invested,” said Sambhav Aggarwal, director, ARMS Securities,...

29Nov By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Microsoft Surpasses Apple & Becomes World’s Most Valuable Company

The technology giant Microsoft has Corp surpassed Apple Inc to become the world's most valuable publicly traded company with a $300 billion rout. After becoming the top company in the world, Microsoft shares rose 0.6 percent Tuesday, pushing the company's market value to $828.1 billion at the close. The last time Microsoft's market capitalization was bigger than Apple was in 2010. Microsoft fell behind Apple as computing shifted from desktop machines to mobile devices like iPhones, making Microsoft's PC dominance less relevant. However, the company has made to the top spot and proved to be the topmost. The rise of cloud computing changed Microsoft's fortunes about five years ago. Under Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella, the company invested majorly in data centers and other in...