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Grocery delivery startup Zepto has raised $60 million in its first institutional financing round. The startup has a unique proposition in the rather crowded hyperlocal delivery space — a 10minute guarantee on grocery delivery. The funding round was led by Glade Brook Capital, the US-based growth equity firm, and included participation from Nexus Venture Partners and Y Combinator, as well as angel investors Lachy Groom, Neeraj Arora, and Manik Gupta. After the round, the young startup is valued at $225 million. According to the startup, the proceeds from the funding round will be utilized towards expanding its operations and userbase across the country to expand and hire more employees. It currently has 300 employees and plans to quadruple the amount over the next few months. Being in beta mode for the last six months in Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Delhi-NCR, it plans to expand to Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, and Kolkata in the next 30 days, expanding to 100 dark stores and servicing around 100

Neo-banking in India, just like other fintech sectors, has picked up surging pace, specially in post-pandemic times. From the numbers that startups claim, it seems people have started to opt for neobanks at a much faster pace, as compared to traditional banks. As time has passed, the neobank segment is slowly moving out from its fledgling state and becoming more mainstream. The same has held true in the case of Bengaluru-based neobank Fi, which raised $50 million in its latest funding round led by Eduardo Saverin’s B Capital and Falcon Edge. With this, the two-year-old Fi is now valued at $315 million, an increase from its previous valuation of $45 million in 2020. According to the startup, the proceeds from the funding round will be used in order to hire people for its tech team and bring more customized products to its users. “The feedback from users has been encouraging and the app has been well received. We have been focused on delivering a banking experience for digital natives th

The name UPI has become almost commonplace – not only has it revolutionized the rapidly growing fintech sector, but it has enabled people to make easy and fast transactions. The government has been working hard to make it more accessible, and the results have been shown in the data provided by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). According to the data, United Payments Interface (UPI) clocked over a record 4 billion transactions in the month of October (4.21 billion to be exact), while the value of transactions made through UPI crossed $100 billion in a month for the first time. Transactions worth ₹7.71 lakh crore were conducted during October, fueled by the shopping frenzy that accompanies the festive season. This is a massive increase from how it fared in September – UPI had registered 3.6 billion transactions worth ₹6.5 lakh crores in that time period – a rise of 15%in the number of transactions and 18.5% in the value of transactions. The number of transactions has more

SpaceX has its eyes set on the skies, whether it be sending rockets or launching satellites for its Starlink constellation. This time, it is the latter – SpaceX now has its wholly-owned subsidiary in India as it aims to start launching broadband and other satellite-based communication services in the country. Currently, SpaceX is preparing to apply for licenses from the local government. The subsidiary, registered under the name Starlink Satellite Communications Private Limited, was announced by Sanjay Bhargava, Starlink Country Director India, in a post on LinkedIn. “Pleased to share that SpaceX now has a 100% owned subsidiary in India. The name is SSCPL – Starlink Satellite Communications Private Limited and the incorporation date is Nov 1, 2021. Happy Birthday, SSCPL. We can now start applying for licenses, open bank accounts, etc,” the post read. Companies are required to set up subsidiaries in India to provide internet in the country. Once the local unit has been set up and the co

Delhivery has been gearing up for its IPO for quite some time, and now, it has filed its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for an initial public offering (IPO) worth ₹7,460 crores. The IPO of the homegrown logistics and supply chain startup consists of fresh issuance of equity shares worth ₹5,000 crores and an offer for sale (OFS) of shares worth up to ₹2,460 crores by existing promoters and shareholders. In the OFS, Deli CMF will sell ₹400 crores worth of shares, while CA Swift Investments will sell shares worth ₹920 crores. SVF Doorbell Ltd will sell up to ₹750 crores, while Times Interest will sell shares worth ₹330 crores. If the IPO goes smoothly, Delhivery is likely to be valued at over $6 billion. It was last valued at over $3 billion. ₹2500 crore from the proceeds from the IPO will be used for funding organic growth initiatives, while another ₹1250 crore will be utilized to make acquisitions, other strategic initiatives,

In a news that may not be a massive surprise to industry watchers, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, announced a new corporate identity for the social networking giant he founded. Facebook Inc, which was the parent for all of social networking giant’s products ecosystem,  will now be called ‘Meta’. Announcing the new identity at the company’s augmented and virtual reality conference, Zuckerberg said “Right now our brand is so tightly linked to one product that it can’t possibly represent everything we’re doing today, let alone in the future. Over time, I hope we are seen as a metaverse company, and I want to anchor our work and our identity on what we’re building towards.” The name change comes at a critical juncture. While the company is projecting itself as a spearhead of the ‘metaverse’ (more on this later), it is also embroiled in lawsuits globally, around its anti-competitive practices. Facebook has since been trying to shed this image, of being a monopolistic big tech company,  shunn

With October coming to an end, it’s time to see how companies fared in the third quarter of the year earnings. The industry wide result has been mixed this time around. While Truecaller, Microsoft, and Alphabet did well in Q3 2021, Facebook missed its revenue forecast. Now, it looks like Amazon falls into the same bucket as the newly formed Meta , after its Q3 2021 earnings showed results that fell below the estimates. In Q3 2021, Amazon reported $110.8 billion in revenues, an increase of 15% compared to the year-ago period, but below the estimate of $111.6 billion. The company also reported a net income of $3.2 billion in the period, or $6.12 per share, below the estimate of $8.92 per share, and the largest year-over-year decline since the second quarter of 2017. Its operating income decreased to $4.9 billion in the third quarter, compared with $6.2 billion in the third quarter of 2020. As for the fourth and final quarter of the year, Amazon expects that sales will generate amounts be

In what was yet another record breaking quarter for Apple Inc., the company posted a mammoth $83.4 Bn in revenue for the quarter ending September 2021. This meant an uptick of 29 percent year over year, with quarterly earnings per diluted share of $1.24. In terms of other important financial numbers, Apple’s iPhone sales, despite a not so revolutionary upgrade on the iPhone front, accounted for nearly 50% of the overall revenue. Apple sold a humongous $38.8Bn worth of iPhones, a number that could have been much higher had COVID-19 not impacted iPhone 13 chip supply. Mac numbers stood at $9.1 Bn, marginally up from the $9 Bn from the same quarter last year. This is because the latest Macbook launched will see an uptick in sales from this quarter and the quarter onwards. iPad sales saw an uptick too, and stood at $8.25 Bn, up from the $6.7Bn it witnessed in the same quarter last year. Services continues to haul in big bucks for the Cupertino giant, raking in over $18Bn in revenues in th

JioPhone Next, the brainchild of both Google and Reliance Jio, is set to hit the Indian markets on Diwali, November 4. So get ready to have an extra-special time this festive season! The JioPhone Next will cost ₹6,499 ($87), however, you can get the phone for as low as ₹1,999, if you opt for paying through EMIs. The Easy EMI option will let you pay ₹ 1,999 initially (along with ₹501 for processing fees), and then pay the balance amount in easy EMI, which can be for either 18 or 24 months. This is the first time that a smartphone in the entry-level category will be launched with a financing option. India may be the world’s second-largest internet market, and yet, the digital divide in the country is a big one. Digital literacy is yet another subject of which many Indians know frighteningly little, and Google and Jio have been working for more adoption of smartphones among the masses. Thus, the JioPhone Next was born. Reliance Jio has already partnered with over 30,000 retail outlets acr

Adani Group, one among India’s largest business conglomerates, has acquired what it says is a “significant” minority stake in online travel aggregator ClearTrip, which is owned by Flipkart. Adani group is owned and run by Gautam Adani, among the richets on the planet, and someone who has invested massively in new-age tech in the past few years. The financial details of the deal were not revealed. With the deal, which is expected to close next month (subject to customary closing conditions), both the Adani Group and the Flipkart Group will benefit from synergies that will deliver superior travel experiences to their consumers. At a time when the hospitality and tourism industries are slowly making a comeback after the horrors of 2020, the deal is expected to help the segments in their revival. This deal will also enable ClearTrip, which has clocked a growth of 10 times in flight bookings ever since it was acquired by Flipkart, to transcend digital boundaries and bring end-to-end travel