Author: Mugdha Variyar

NoBroker becomes unicorn with $210 million funding

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Real estate platform NoBroker.com has raised USD 210 million in funding in its latest round and has turned into a unicorn at a USD 1 billion valuation.

The round was led by General Atlantic, Tiger Global Management and Moore Strategic Ventures. This brings the total funding raised by NoBroker to USD 361 million.

The company offers services for property related needs from renting, buying, home services, financial services and society management. It currently operates across six cities: Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune. The company says more than 75 lac properties are registered on the portal and more than 1.6 crore individuals have used NoBroker services.

Also Read | Sharechat’s parent co to raise funds; Gokwik bags Rs 112 crore in Series A funding

“We are humbled by the confidence shown to us by global investors such as General Atlantic, Tiger Global and Moore Capital. One of the key uses of this fund-raise will be to invest in NoBrokerHood, our community app and marketplace. We have signed 10,000 societies till now and the objective would be to aggressively grow and reach 1 lakh societies in next two years”, said Amit Agarwal, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of NoBroker.com.

“We are seeing an upward trend in the property buying segment and this funding will help us deepen our investments in resale and primary sale verticals”, said Saurabh Garg, Co-founder and Chief Business Officer of NoBroker.com

NoBroker was launched in 2013 by Akhil Gupta, Amit Kumar Agarwal and Saurabh Garg.

Also Read | Purplle.com raises $65 million funding from Premji Invest

Shantanu Rastogi, Managing Director, General Atlantic said, “NoBroker’s digital-first approach to efficiently solve renting, buying, maintenance and related needs for real-estate owners, tenants, buyers, residential societies and developers is paradigm shifting. Focused execution with a customer-first mindset of the founders bodes well for NoBroker’s continued penetration in this market solving for the toughest problems. In the future, NoBroker’s product stack will also find relevance in several under-regulated developing markets around the world. We are excited to be part of NoBroker’s continued success”

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Sharechat set to raise $500 million at $5 billion valuation

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Social media platform Sharechat’s parent company, which also runs short-video platform Moj, is in the process of raising $500 million and will be valued north of $5 billion, as per sources.

The round will be executed in two parts and the first close will be announced soon, as per sources.

The round will be led by new and existing investors, though CNBC-TV18 could not confirm the names of the next investors. Sharechat counts Temasek, Snap Inc, Tiger Global, Moore Strategic Ventures and Twitter among existing investors.

Sharechat’s valuation is expected to cross $5 billion post-funding, two people aware of the matter said. Sharechat was last valued at $2.8 billion in July post $145 million.

Also Read: LIC’s embedded value likely at $150 billion, says report

The company had turned unicorn in April when it was valued at $2.1 billion in April. The company is also said to be in talks to acquire competitor MX Takatak from Times Internet, as per reports.

Sharechat’s Moj has gained significant traction post its launch in June last year at the time when there was a crackdown on the Chinese short video platform TikTok. It competes with Dailyhunt’s Josh and Inmobi’s Roposo, apart from Chingari and a few other players.

Also Read: BOTTOMLINE: SEBI lens on new age IPOs overlooks issue of irrational valuations

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Paytm’s GMV up 107% YoY in September quarter, loan disbursals double QoQ

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Paytm saw a 107 percent year-on-year (YoY) increase in the gross merchandise value (GMV) on its platform in the September quarter while the loan disbursals reached 2.8 million in Q2, double the number of June quarter.

The company put out some business metrics for the September quarter and October on Sunday, ahead of its quarterly earnings set to be published on November 27.

The GMV, which entails the payments made to merchants via Paytm’s payment instruments, touched Rs 83,200 crore in October, a 131 percent YoY jump, the company said. The growth was aided by strong festive spends, it said. For the September quarter, the GMV stood at Rs 1.95 lakh crore, up 107 percent YoY.

The number of monthly transacting users reached 57 million in the September quarter, which grew further to 63 million in October, a 35 percent YoY jump.

The GMV per monthly transacting user also increased to Rs 13,217 in October, up from Rs 11,369 in the September quarter.

Lending business sees strong growth

Paytm is focusing on growing its lending business, the company management had told CNBC-TV18 ahead of its listing. The total loan disbursals stood at 2.8 million in the September quarter, twice the 1.4 million disbursals in the June quarter. In the month of October, the company disbursed 1.3 million loans.

The value of loans disbursed has also seen a growth, and the company said it has reached an annualised run-rate of $1 billion in loan disbursals.

The value of loans disbursed grew 499 percent YoY to Rs 1200 crore in the September quarter. In October, the value of loans disbursed was Rs 630 crore, a 418 percent YoY growth.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

“Single authority for data better,” says Kris Gopalkrishnan, head of non-personal data committee

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Kris Gopalkrishnan, head of the non-personal data governance framework expert committee set up by the IT Ministry, said a single data authority for personal and non-personal data will be better for regulation.

Speaking to CNBCTV 18, Gopalkrishnan said that the report by the committee was submitted to the government about two months ago, and he said that the recommendations entail that an authority is required for data protection, but it has been left to the government to decide whether there should be a single authority for personal and non-personal data or separate authorities.

“We have in our recommendations talked about an authority. We have said single authority possibly for data is better. Even otherwise, we should harmonise the authorities that look at data to ensure there is no increase in compliance requirements,” he said.

“As part of our recommendations, we have said an authority is required. Now should this be a single authority or separate authority is something for the government to decide,’ Kris Gopalkrishnan said.

“We have also said that there needs to be industry representation in the authority,” he added.

The personal data protection bill is expected to be taken up in the winter session of the Parliament. Asked if the non-personal data governance framework will also be taken up as a bill by the Parliament, Gopalkrishnan said: “Our responsibility was to generate the report after consultations with industry. We have submitted final report to the ministry. The process beyond that will be decided by the ministry. ”

IAMAI and EY released a report on Tuesday to assess the impact of the non-personal data governance framework.

The report found that over 76 percent of the participants in the survey believe that external access to their company’s data even in anonymized formats will hamper their growth prospects and about 81 percent believe that there should be a more nuanced definition of sovereign purpose in the framework.

40 percent of survey respondents expressed discomfort in sharing data with the data trustee, citing that entrusting a non-government body with metadata could lead to data spillovers among competitors.

Gopalkrishnan said that concerns on data sharing and IP rights have been shared by the industry with the committee.

“We have addressed as many concerns as possible in our report,” Gopalkrishnan said.

“We have looked at digital, light-weight compliance requirements,” he added.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Flipkart doubles fulfilment capacity YoY, sees strong quarter: Walmart

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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E-commerce major Flipkart doubled its fulfilment capacity versus last year in preparation for the festive season, with dozens of new fulfilment centres, more than 1,000 last mile delivery hubs and expanded relationship with kirana partners, Walmart said during its Q3 earnings call on November 16.

“Festive season was off to a good start for Walmart with Big Billion Days in India,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said.

Also read: E-commerce platforms sell goods worth $9.2 bn during festive sale this year: RedSeer

“Flipkart had another strong quarter, with strong sales and favourable trends in monthly active users,” the Walmart management said during the call, adding that Flipkart, China and Mexico, saw strong growth during the September quarter.

Walmart International net sales were $23.6 billion, a decrease of $5.9 billion, or 20.1 percent, negatively affected by $9.4 billion related to divestitures, the company said in its earnings. Changes in currency exchange rates positively affected net sales by approximately $1.3 billion.

Also read: Flipkart and Moj announce a collaboration for video and live commerce

However, without the divestitures, Walmart saw international sales growth of 10 percent in constant currency terms, led by India, China and Mexico. International profit was up 17.5 percent, excluding divestitures, the company said.

Judith McKenna, Head of Walmart International, spoke about how Walmart is sharing capabilities and technology around the world.

“The Flipkart ad tech platform is really matured, and is being deployed in markets such as Chile, Mexico and Canada,” she said.

Also read: Amazon Seller Services gets fresh fund infusion of Rs 1,460 cr from parent

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Mensa Brands turns unicorn in just 6 months; gets Alpha Wave, Prosus backing in Series B funding round

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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In what is so far the fastest unicorn story in the country, Mensa Brands, a house of brands that acquires and invests in online-first brands on the lines of the popular American startup Thrasio, on Tuesday announced its Series B fundraise of$135 million. With this funding, the company has turned into a unicorn in just six months since starting operations.

The round was led by Alpha Wave Ventures of Falcon Edge Capital with participation from all existing investors – Accel Partners, Norwest Venture Partners and Tiger Global Management. Prosus Ventures (Naspers) also invested in Mensa in the latest funding round. Mensa has raised a total of more than $300 million in equity and debt since starting its journey in May this year.

“We will continue to raise more capital. But, we are profitable in the first six months and also paid advance tax in the first quarter of operations, ” Ananth Narayanan, founder and CEO, Mensa Brands, told CNBC-TV18.

Narayanan was previously CEO of Myntra and co-founder and CEO at Medlife.

Mensa Brands has partnered with 12 brands and it says that a majority of them are growing 100 percent year-on-year (YoY) since their integration with Mensa.

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Narayanan said, “Mensa is trying to build a global, tech-led house of brands.” He added that some brands like Karagiri have started global operations and another brand Folkculture does 60 percent of sales in the US through amazon.com.

The roll-up model, also popularly referred to as the Thrasio model, has seen frenetic activity in India in recent months.

Thrasio is an acquirer of Amazon third-party private-label businesses. The company finds “top-reviewed, bestselling” products on Amazon and buys brands from small business owners.

It has so far acquired and scaled over 100 businesses.

Over the recent months, at least half a dozen such startups have emerged. These include Global Bees, Mensa Brands, 10Club, G.O.A.T Brand Labs, Powerhouse91, and Upscalio.

​Navroz Udwadia, co-founder and partner of Alpha Wave Ventures | Falcon Edge Capital said, “We are excited to continue backing Ananth Narayanan as he executes a best-in-class playbook of brand aggregation and acceleration focused on Indian and global e-commerce brands.”

He said, Mensa demonstrates a tangible uplift through a combination of product and pricing optimisation, technology-led process improvement, distribution and marketing augmentation and fine-tuning the supply chain.

According to him, these levers meaningfully accelerate the growth and margin trajectory of the brands and make them well-poised to become category leaders. “We believe Mensa is well on track to cement its reputation as the partner of choice for well-performing e-commerce brands,” Udwadia said.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Zomato not copying Info Edge, Tencent: Sanjeev Bikhchandani

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Info Edge founder Sanjeev Bikhchandani believes portfolio company Zomato is not copying the Info Edge playbook when it comes to investing in new-age companies.

Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal on Wednesday announced the company’s investments in startups such as Curefit, Shiprocket and Magicpin, and said the company will invest another $1 billion into more companies over the next couple of years.

“I do not believe that Deepinder is modeling Zomato on Info Edge, they are modelling the company on their own path. They are original thinkers,” Bikhchandani told CNBC-TV18 in his first TV interview after receiving the prestigious Padma Shri award earlier this week.

“Zomato is not copying Alibaba, Tencent, InfoEdge. If they regard groceries and logistics as big part of their future, they will go in that direction. They have said that we are focused on food and the rest we can do inorganically. It is a sound strategy,” Bikhchandani said.

Also Read Zomato to invest $1 billion in startups over next 1-2 yrs

Bikhchandani also said that 2-3 years was a reasonable timeframe for companies going public to turn a profit.

“Many of the companies can turn a profit quickly when required. Indian markets have come to terms with loss-making companies going public as long as there is a time line of profitability. 2-3 yrs is a reasonable timeframe for companies to turn a profit,” he said.

Commenting on the high valuations unicorns are chasing when going public, Bikhchandani said startups are getting valuations from institutional investors.

He added that valuations of all companies are rising. “Info Edge valuation has also gone up since pandemic though fundamentals may not have increased at the same pace,” he said.

“There is liquidity in the market that is driving prices up,” he added.

Also Read: MSCI rejig: IRCTC, Zomato among 7 Edelweiss’ picks

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Zomato to invest $1 billion in startups over next 1-2 yrs even as losses grow, contribution margin falls

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal announced the company’s investments in startups such as Curefit, Shiprocket and Magicpin, and said the company will invest another $1 billion into more companies over the next couple of years.

Zomato said it is in the process of selling Fitso to Curefit (Curefit Healthcare Pvt Ltd) for $50 million, and is also investing cash in Curefit. Net $50 million cash investment plus value of the Fitso business (worth $50 million) will give Zomato a cumulative shareholding worth $100 million in Curefit (6.4 percent shareholding in Curefit).

Also Read: Magicpin raises $60 million in Series D funding led by Zomato

The company said it has also signed definitive documents for investing $75 million in logistics player Shiprocket for a 8 percent stake as part of a larger $185 million round.

The company saw revenue grow by 22 percent sequentially to $189 million in the September quarter, while EBITDA losses also grew to $41 million , a near 2x increase sequentially and a 4x jump year on year.

Zomato said losses went up due to increased spending on branding and marketing for customer acquisition, increased investments and growing share of smaller/emerging geographies in the business, and increased delivery costs due to unpredictable weather and increase in fuel prices.

When it comes to profitability, contribution as percentage of gross order value was 1.2 percent  in Q2 FY22 as compared to 2.8 percent in Q1 FY22.

The company said reduction in contribution margin was on account of increased investments in growth geographies, ie growing share of smaller, emerging cities in our business, as well as an increase in delivery cost per order (Rs 5 per order increase in Q2 FY22 as compared to Q1 FY22).

Also Read: MSCI rejig – IRCTC, Zomato among 7 Edelweiss’ picks

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Byju’s to raise $1.2 billion debt through term loan B

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Byju’s is set to raise USD 1.2 billion debt through Term Loan B, as per its filings reported by Bloomberg.

Byju’s will be the second of the unicorns in India to raise debt through this route after Oyo.

In July this year, Oyo raised a Term Loan B funding of USD 660 million from global institutional investors, essentially debt financing taken from institutional investors.

Byju’s will now be independently assessed by the leading credit rating agencies such as Moody’s and Fitch.

Byju’s has said it will use the funding for general corporate purposes. The company did not have comments till the time of filing this story.

Byju’s touched USD 16.5 BN valuation in June post a fund raise of Rs 2,494 crore.

The company has raised nearly USD 2 billion since the pandemic and has made big-ticket acquisitions.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Ola records first operating profit in FY21 as expenses come down ahead of IPO

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Ola has recorded an operating profit for the first time in FY21 for mobility business, regulatory filings sourced from Tofler show. This comes ahead of its plans to hit the public markets soon.

Ola’s standalone operating profit in fiscal 2021 was in the black with positive EBITDA at Rs 89.8 crore, 109 percent jump YoY.

However, overall, the business was badly impacted during the pandemic year, with operating revenue down 65 percent to Rs 689 crore.

On a consolidated basis, the company still registered a significant loss of Rs 1326 core, though it was down 22 percent year on year.

Ola also reported a profit before tax and exceptional item (which entails allowance for impairment of investments, loans to subsidiaries), the filings showed.

Ola’s operational profitability was thanks to a steep cut in advertising costs by 63 percent and miscellaneous costs by 90 percent. The company did not break down miscellaneous costs.

However, as the ride-hailing sector sees recovery, many expenses are likely to come back.

“The fall in revenues can be attributed to lock downs and restriction in movement in the last financial year. The company also reduced its miscellaneous expenditure during the year, resulting in much reduced losses for the year. The company has not explained the nature of miscellaneous expenditure but it is likely to be marketing expenses and discounts,” Anchal Agarwal, CEO of Tofler, said.

In September Ola CEO Bhavish Agarwal had said that GMV had crosses pre-Covid levels.

“India is moving again! Our @olacabs GMV crossed pre-covid levels last week. Recovery from second wave is 3 times faster. Clearly India is up and about!” he tweeted.

India is moving again! Our @olacabs GMV crossed pre-covid levels last week. Recovery from second wave is 3 times faster. Clearly India is up and about! Some interesting trends as #IndiaIsMoving👇 pic.twitter.com/ERJfBR5s8f

— Bhavish Aggarwal (@bhash) September 7, 2021

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow