Tag: Coronavirus

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Motivational Startup

Startup World Excitement Returns Amid COVID-19 Pandemic as Venture Capitalists Show Faith And Deal Discussions Heat Up

Startup (Representational Image Only, Photo Credits: NeedPix.com)

Mumbai, September 11: Coronavirus pandemic had badly affected businesses all over. Over the last few months, we saw numerous job losses, businesses being shut amid the lockdown. However, with the relaxation in the lockdown norms, the situation is improving. According to reports, venture capitalists are slowly returning to the startup world.

According to the Moneycontrol report, investors have started writing cheques, making big bets, something that was expected would take longer. Some names include Dailyhunt, ShareChat, skincare brand WOW Skin Sciences, and meat delivery startup Licious deal discussions have heated up.

Last month, fantasy gaming startup Dream11 emerged as the title sponsor of this year’s Indian Premier League (IPL).  The Indian unicorn replaced Chinese handset company Vivo, which opted out of sponsorship this year amid India-China border standoff. Infact, the company is counting on a bumper IPL for business recovery.

Infact during the lockdown as well, in March and April, online education, healthcare and gaming startups were the direct beneficiaries.

This surely comes as good news because when the pandemic hit India, investors hit the panic button and made their exits from the already finalised deals, postponed their fundraising plans and went aggressive on cost-cutting measures.

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Startup Strategy

Happiest Minds Technologies IPO Receives Great Response After Going Public Amid COVID-19 Pandemic; Here Why Ashok Soota’s Second Startup Saw Huge Demand

Happiest Minds Technologies (Photo Credits: Wikimedia commons)

Mumbai, September 10: The coronavirus pandemic has brought over a gloom to the Indian economy and Happiest Minds Technologies took the brave step of launching IPO amid the lockdown.

Ashok Soota was 68 when he started Happiest Minds. He had quit as the Chief Executive Officer of Mindtree — a company he co-founded and took public in 2000. In 2011, Soota left Mindtree and co-founded Happiest Minds.

Happiest Minds IPO was oversubscribed 150 times. According to experts, the Happiest Minds Technologies IPO was a good opportunity for an investor at a time when the entire IT space is witnessing a huge demand for a digital solution. The Rs 702 crore issue was subscribed 151 times, as per data available on NSE.

According to a Business Standard report, The impact of heavy subscription in Happiest Mind was also felt in the subscription data for another IPO that opened this week — Route Mobile. Ashok Soota, the promoter, wants to sell around 84.14 lakh shares. Also, there were reports that investor CMDB II, which owns 19.4 percent in Happiest Minds, is looking to exit after the IPO.

 

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Business motivation Motivational Startup

Post-COVID-19 Business: 73% Small And Medium-Sized Businesses Confident of Bouncing Back Post-Coronavirus; Here Are 4 Key Aspects Which SMBs Are Looking at, Says Report

Growth (Photo Credits: Pikist)

New Delhi, September 9: The coronavirus pandemic has affected everyone, from businesses being shut, to workers being fired, the economy of the country is in the doldrums. Amid the gloom, a new report- “HP Asia SMB Report 2020” has been published which gives a ray of hope. According to an IANS report,  73 per cent of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in India are confident that they will survive and bounce back post-COVID-19.

The report highlights that Indian SMBs are more confident than their Asian peers in bouncing back after the pandemic as the regional average stood at 60 per cent. The Indian SMBs are confident that they will bounce back and believe that this period is giving them a good opportunity to reformulate the business strategy.

The respondents are hopeful that the pandemic would bring business opportunity, but it will take some time. Here’s how the SMBs believe to bounce back and fight the pandemic:

4 Key Aspects Which SMBs are Looking at:

The report mentioned that Indian SMBs have recognised four key aspects that will help them best to bounce back – using online tools, flexible work options, advice on strategy and innovation at work.

Doing digital: SMBs in India recognised the importance of going digital to revive the business. The report mentioned that the respondents believed that digital adoption was essential for the revival of the business.

For the study, 1,600 SMBs completed the survey between May 26 and June 7, which comprised 200 interviews in each of the markets- Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

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Startup

Vedantu to Nykaa; 5 Startups That Raised Amid COVID-19

The new normal in today’s world is with the least physical contact, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, when everything is unpredictable similarly, seeing the change in consumer behavior is natural. Fighting with odds, many Indian startups continued to raise funds in tough times.

That’s true, the pandemic has unquestionably changed the funding scene in India, but truly has created many new possibilities for those startups that can adapt to the current environment. There are some startups that have already shown a trend- defying growth, which created a benchmark and ray of hope to many startups.

In current time two situations were going on in the startup ecosystem, one where a handful of startup able to raise funds, and the other hands a few startups is still struggling. Hence, we are going to list a few startups which successfully raised millions of funds and blooming in their sector.

Vedantu

The ed-tech sector has come into the spotlight since the lockdown started. Vedantu is one of the online class venture, founded in 2014 by Pulkit Jain, Anand Prakash, and Vamsi Krishna. They provide online tutoring classes from class 1st to 12th and even for medical and engineering exams.

As per this ed-tech startup has raised $100 million and valuing the company at 600 million. The startup owner claimed they have recorded growth of 220% in the period of lockdown, with 2 million students subscribed.

InCred

Mumbai based NBFC InCred, founded in 2016 by Bhupinder Singh, which started with operations with consumer lending then expanded into small business lending in 2017. As per the company stated, they have a loan book over Rs 2,000 crore.
As per the latest reports of April 2019, the digital lending platform has successfully raised Rs 600 crore in led by the Dutch development finance institution FMO.

Dunzo

Dunzo is a hyperlocal delivery app founded in 2015 by Kabeer Biswas currently, Dunzo has a firm place in the hyperlocal delivery space their services available in eight cities Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Gurugram, Pune, and Jaipur. Initially, they started with delivering individual sources, but with time they expanded in categories like groceries, fruits, and vegetables, fish and meat, etc.
In the current scenario, Dunzo has raised $28 million, and their funding round led by Google and Lightstone Fund. If we speak about an existing investor in the company is Google, and it was their first investment in an Indian start-up in 2017.

Nykaa

Mumbai – based e-commerce platform of fashion and beauty, founded by Falguni Nayar in 2012. They have played an instrumental purpose in shaping the beauty and lifestyle industry through its curated product in The Indian market in a great price range.
As per the latest reports in may Nykaa raised Rs 66.64 crore from their primary investor Steadview Capital. Later on, this round of investment company became valued at $1.2 billion, therefore, entering the startup unicorn club.

Unacademy

Another Ed-tech platform Unacademy founded by Gaurav Munjal, Hemesh Singh, and Roman Saini in the year of 2015. The platform was built for educators and new-age learners by focusing on producing educational videos and providing interactive classes to students. During the outbreak of pandemic and complete lockdown, they bulged with 20,000 Free Live Classes on their platform.

Recently, Unacdemy entered the Unicorn club by raising $150 million by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank valuing it at $1.45 billion, in just six months. Which got to them the second Ed-tech startup in the country after Byju’s.

In the gloomy sky, these startups’ growth acted as the silver lining as in these difficult times, not only these, but many more startups from Delhi, Mumbai, Banglore, and other cities were able to raise funds through hard work. We believe after reading the article you find motivation and see the silver lining in these puzzling times.

 

 

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Finance

Amazon to Invest $18 Billion This Year to Help SMBs in US to Scale Their Operations and Grow

Amazon (Photo Credits: Amazon, Facebook Page)

Seattle, September 2: E-commerce giant Amazon on Wednesday announced that it will invest $18 billion this year to help small and medium businesses (SMBs) scale their operations and grow. The firm stated that in the next 12 months, it will provide more than 5,00,000 SMBs in the US currently selling on Amazon, with online selling guidance, education, and support. Moreover, the company plans to onboard an additional 1,00,000 US businesses as new sellers in its store. Jeff Wilke, CEO Worldwide Consumer at Amazon, said that at Amazon, the mission is to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, and part of fulfilling that mission is connecting small businesses with customers.

Wilke made the statement during Amazon Accelerate, a three-day virtual summit for SMBs in the US that was kicked-off on Tuesday. Wilke further said that Amazon’s success is directly tied to the success of independent businesses across the US. “We are passionate about supporting small businesses, investing and inventing on their behalf to help them be resilient through COVID-19 and beyond,” Wilke added.

Despite the impact of COVID-19 has had on small businesses, many American SMBs selling through Amazon have experienced continued growth. The e-commerce behemoth has launched more than 135 new tools and services this year to help sellers manage and grow their businesses, including new ways to connect brands with customers.

According to a report by IANS, the company said it will spend an additional $100 million this year to promote small businesses during Prime Day and through the holiday season. Last year during Prime Day, third-party sellers – mostly SMBs – exceeded $2 billion in global sales. The report added that the third-party sellers continue to account for more than half of all units sold in Amazon’s store, and even during the pandemic, third-party sales continued to grow faster than Amazon’s first-party sales.

 

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Motivational

Can Travel And Hospitality Sector Get Back In Business With Revenge Travel Amid COVID-19?

Empty Airports amid coronavirus pandemic (Photo Credits: pikist.com)

The hotel and the tourism industry was badly hit by the COVID-19 as businesses remained shut for several months. In view of the coronavirus pandemic, several people had to cancel their travel plans. Even though the numbers continue to rise across the world, however, the economies have started to open up.

The tourism industry is hopeful for a wave of ‘revenge travelling’ – people going on extra trips or splurging after the coronavirus crisis subsides because they have been deprived of it for so long.

What is ‘Revenge Travel’?

Revenge travel is a term that is being popularly used to refer to the time when people will plan extra travel and splurge as an act of revenge because they have been deprived of it for so long. The concept isn’t new. It has roots in the early 1980s in China during the devastating poverty of the Cultural Revolution where ‘revenge spending’ by consumers emerged.

With the ease in restrictions, urge among people to travel has increased

According to a report on Oaky, several surveys have been done to understand consumer sentiment. For e.g., as Wuhan’s lockdown is over and travel is opening up around China, and demand has been returning slowly. Mariott which had temporarily closed 90 hotels have resumed the operations in 60. Even though the occupancy is low, the business has started again.

According to a Washington Times report, in May, a report by McKinsey & Company found Chinese confidence in domestic travel had risen by 60 percent from its shutdown lows, as much of the country reopened. The report spoke about how travellers opted to stay close to home and go by car or train over flying. The hotels further opted for reduced capacity, mandatory masks and more stringent sanitation rules to lure the still-hesitant travellers, according to the McKinsey report.

Similarly, in India, which had undergone one of the strictest lockdowns in March has opened up its economy in phases. Hotels, lodges have reopened in the country with full attention to safety precautions and other measures.

The pandemic has caused the economy to come to a grinding halt with job losses, businesses being shut, furloughs and others. The coronavirus numbers have touched the grim mark of 25,664,094 figures across the globe as of Tuesday. However, with a slew of relaxations announced in several countries, it will be interesting to see if revenge travel can help the hospitality sector to get back to business amid the coronavirus pandemic.

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Business motivation Strategy

Jio Platforms’ Success and Growth Gives Hope to Struggling Indian IT Vendors Impacted by COVID-19 Pandemic, Says GlobalData

Businesses (Photo Credits: Pexels)

Hyderabad, September 1: Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, many Indian IT vendors are struggling, having been affected considerably over the last few months. However, Mukesh Ambani-led Jio Platforms has transformed into a tech juggernaut during this hour of crisis.Global technology companies have seen a surge in their valuation over the past six months – with the most notable example being Apple passing the USD 2 trillion mark in market capitalization (MCap) value.

On the other hand, many Indian IT vendors are struggling as they have been largely affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. While traditional Indian IT services giants have been waiting to tide over the impact of the pandemic, Jio Platforms has transformed into a tech powerhouse. A study by GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, stated that while it may be difficult for others to replicate what Jio has achieved, the interest in Jio will definitely augur well for other Indian technology companies at a time when enterprises across the world are gearing up for digitization.

Nishant Singh, Director of Technology at GlobalData, said that while Indian IT vendors seeing such stark contrast to global counterparts is unfortunate, this is just the nature of the IT services business model, which, in contrast to software, needs projects in the pipeline. “With the COVID-19 outbreak, enterprises halted all non-critical expenses, including plans to upgrade or transform their IT infrastructure. This has had an impact on Indian IT companies, since most of their revenues are from IT services”, Singh said.

He added saying that a lot of the faith in global technology companies comes from the fact that they have a pretty robust suite of intellectual property, including hardware, software and ecosystems that serve consumers and enterprises alike. “The growth in stock prices merely reaffirms that technology companies – primarily ‘Big Tech’ companies – are well poised to tide over the pandemic-induced recession”, he said.

A report by news agency ANI stated that big IT companies such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCL have traditionally been IT services giants. The report adds that unlike their counterparts in the software space, IT services companies typically do not have a large stash of intellectual property, making it slightly difficult for the market to distinguish between the IT services companies. Despite these struggles, the near future should see the market showing more confidence in the traditional Indian IT vendors.

Singh further added saying with enterprises across the world now gearing up for digitization, Indian IT services vendors are set to witness a lot of action. Coupled with the market euphoria witnessed for Jio, the technology landscape in India will witness a drastic revival in investor confidence.

Jio Platforms Limited is an Indian digital services company. It is a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited which was established in 2019. The company owns India’s largest mobile network operator Jio and other digital businesses of Reliance. On 8 May 2020, Jio Platforms was reported to be the fourth largest Indian company by market capitalization. Since April 2020, Reliance Industries has raised Rs 152,056 crore (US$21 billion) by selling 32.97% equity stake in Jio Platforms.

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Startup

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Creates Platform to Engage With Tech Startups in India, Here Are Details About Digital Catalyst Program And How to Apply

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (Photo Credits: Company website)

Bangalore, August 26: Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has created a platform to engage with tech startups in India. HPE has launched the HPE Digital Catalyst Program in partnership with angel investing platform LetsVenture. The objective is to support, innovate and identify the next generation of digital disruptors in the Indian startup ecosystem.

As part of this program, HPE will work with a selected cohort of eight enterprise-focused, growth-stage startups along three tracks – technology, go-to-market, and investment. With more than 50,000 startups, India is believed to have the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world.

“COVID-19 has acted as a catalyst in accelerating digital transformation around the world,” said Som Satsangi, managing director, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, India “At HPE, we have always been a believer in the power of partner ecosystems in driving innovation.

Here’s how to apply for the program: 

Click on the link: letsventure.com

The applications are now open and the last date for submission is September 18, 2020.

October 1, 2020, is the announcement of the cohort.

October 5, is the launch of the program.

Mid of January 2021 is the showcase and wrap up of the program

How will the startups benefit?

Startups participating in the program will receive support from HPE teams including technology mentoring by HPE’s distinguished technologists, market validation and mentoring with HPE’s sales leaders. The disruptive startups aligned with HPE’s strategy will also have the opportunity to pitch to the HPE Pathfinder program for funding.

 

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Finance

MSMEs in Maharashtra: State Government Mulling Relief Package For Lockdown-Hit Sector, Says Industries Minister Subhash Desai

MSME (Photo Credits:
Emergency Credit Facility Under ECLG for small businesses hiked from Rs 25 crore to Rs 50 crore by NCGTC. | Representational Image.

In what is believed to be a move to revive the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector in Maharashtra, the state government is planning to provide some relief to the sector which has been severely impacted due to coronavirus lockdown. Maharashtra industries minister Subhash Desai was quoted in a TOI report saying that the MSME sector has asked for relief which includes interest subvention, relief in electricity duty and support for wages to be dispensed during the lockdown.

Desai said that the state government will consider providing a relief package to MSME sector after this issue comes up in the cabinet. The state has 20 lakh units registered as MSMEs, of which, six lakh are in the manufacturing sector, while the others are in service sector.

Indian Merchants Chamber president Rajiv Podar said that the biggest challenge for MSMEs is a fund crunch and a large chunk is blocked by PSUs. “In addition, 65% of MSMEs are below the investable grade and are therefore, not able to access the Centre’s relief package,” he said. Podar said the RBI’s interest rate transmission has not trickled to MSMEs adding that the government will need to stimulate demand in the economy.

Meanwhile, Anant Singhania, director of J K Organisation and CEO of J K Enterprises was quoted in the report saying that the Centre’s Atmanirbhar package catered more to MSMEs, who were already borrowers, to able to borrow more. He said the rest got excluded from the package and are in need of help. “The industrial sector on the whole, “faces a funding challenge since cash flow has come to a grinding halt,” said Singhania, adding that the industry is functioning at a sub-optimal level, facing a lack of demand and lack of workers.

Further, Singhania said that the governments had to give some assurance to the large number of migrants who left the cities so that they would return. “There also needs to be some monetary infusion in the market from the government and public sentiment needs to change on the ground,” he said.

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Startup

RBI Says ‘Promoting Startup And Ensuring Their Survival is Critical in Generating More Employment’

Startup
Startup (Photo Credits: Pixabay)

Mumbai, August 25: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Tuesday said that the promotion of young firms and startups and ensuring their survival is critical for generating more employment generation and higher productivity-led economic growth in India. RBI’s annual report for 2019-20 mentioned that it will be essential to reorient resources and policy focus in this direction.

RBI in its report mentioned that Indian IT firms are already leading globally in terms of developing applications using artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), robotics, and blockchain technology. This niche advantage needs to be leveraged to strengthen India’s position as an innovation hub, coupled with India’s ‘Start-up India’ campaign which recognises the potential of young entrepreneurs of the country.

Commenting on the economic growth revival of the country following the impact of coronavirus, RBI said that the government’s consumption will continue to support current economic demand while private consumption is expected to lead the recovery.