InMobi likely to let go of 125 employees globally amid AI-first approach
KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)
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Nearly 125 InMobi employees may be let go due to wider deployment of artificial intelligence across the company, sources have told CNBC-TV18.
Adtech firm InMobi has decided to cut 5% of its global workforce as the company is adopting an AI-first approach, sources told CNBC-TV18. Around 125 employees of the 2,500-strong workforce may be affected due to the wider deployment of artificial intelligence across the company, they said.
“As artificial intelligence (AI) has been sweeping the world, the market needs and the expectations that our customers — brands, agencies and developers — have of us, are changing rapidly. The products for addressing the market needs and customer expectations, the skill sets for delivering those products and the go-to-market strategies are going to be significantly different from those of the past decade,” an InMobi spokesperson said in a statement.
The spokesperson said the changes that the company is bringing in at the organisation level are a proactive step to address the above needs, stay competitive and win globally in this decade and beyond.
InMobi’s move is similar to that of Paytm’s parent company One97 Communications which had in a statement in December 2023 said that with AI-led transformations, the company was aiming to save 10-15% in employee costs.
Earlier this week, Amazon, too, in a memo to its employees, announced its decision to implement significant layoffs across its Prime Video and MGM Studios divisions, according to CNBC International. The move is not isolated to the streaming services; it coincides with Twitch CEO Dan Clancy’s announcement of the cutback in the live streaming unit. Clancy explained the decision as a measure to “rightsize our company” and match the workforce with the current business scale.
Meanwhile, a report by The Information last month, claimed that Google is considering a substantial workforce reduction, potentially affecting up to 30,000 employees, as part of a strategic move to integrate AI into various aspects of its business processes.
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
India transforming from trend-jacker to torchbearer in consumer tech and adtech space, says expert
KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)
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Abhay Singhal, one of the Co-founders of InMobi, holds the perspective that India is making a significant shift from being a follower of trends to becoming a leader in the realms of consumer technology and advertising technology. Delving into the realm of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Singhal highlighted that InMobi’s overarching goal is to enhance the aesthetic quality of advertising, a feat that is unattainable without placing AI at the core of their efforts.
Abhay Singhal, one of the co-founders of InMobi, holds the perspective that India is making a significant shift from being a follower of trends to becoming a leader in the realms of consumer technology and advertising technology. During an interview with CNBC-TV18, Singhal emphasised that the future of India’s adtech industry looks incredibly promising.
“Advertising is a very secular industry. It is the need of the hour of every brand to reach the consumer and it is also the easiest way for any B2C company to make money. So adtech has a very bright future. However one thing which is very unique about India specifically is we are starting to come to our own, we are no longer just the trend-jackers, we are actually becoming torchbearers and picking up our own stuff and saying these are the solutions that we are going to bring in the advertising sector,” Singhal said.
Back in 2011, InMobi achieved the distinction of becoming India’s first unicorn. Subsequently, in 2020, its subsidiary, Glance, earned this title by securing a substantial investment of $145 million from tech giant Google and investment firm Mithril Capital.
Delving into the realm of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Singhal highlighted that InMobi’s overarching goal is to enhance the aesthetic quality of advertising, a feat that is unattainable without placing AI at the core of their efforts. He underlined that AI isn’t merely a tool to improve efficiency; rather, it serves as a catalyst for reimagining established paradigms.
Furthermore, Piyush Shah, another co-founder of the InMobi Group, as well as the President & COO of Glance, along with Vasuta Agarwal, Chief Business Officer of Consumer Platform Advertising at InMobi, engaged in a conversation about the transformative forces reshaping the landscape of media and consumer technology. They also elaborated on their strategic approach to unlocking the next phase of growth within the intricate and demanding adtech arena.
Watch video for entire conversation.
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
STARTUP DIGEST: InMobi to acquire Appsumer, says report; Deepa Malik appointed to OYO’s board
KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)
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Here are the top headlines from the startup space.
InMobi to acquire UK-based Appsumer: Report
Adtech firm InMobi has signed a definitive agreement to buy UK-based performance insights platform for mobile app advertisers Appsumer, for an undisclosed amount.
As per ET, the acquisition of Appsumer extends InMobi’s recent enterprise expansions. Last month, the company launched InMobi Telco to help mobile carriers and handset makers optimise their customer experiences and diversify their revenue streams.
Shumel Lais, Founder and CEO of Appsumer, will join InMobi and continue to lead the division, along with his full team. Appsumer will continue operating independently as a subsidiary within the global InMobi organisational structure, the report added.
VerSe Innovation acquires social networking app GolBol: Reports
VerSe Innovation, parent company of news aggregators Dailyhunt and short-form video app Josh has acquired social networking app GolBol. The financial details of the deal remain undisclosed.
As a part of the acquisition, VerSe Innovation will be bringing GolBol’s entire team including Co-Founders Shanu Vivek, Karandeep Singh Gujral and Kaushik Mahato to help multiply the impact of Josh, according to reports.
The GolBol team will focus their efforts on enhancing Josh Cam — a mobile video editing app designed exclusively for users and creators of the short-video ecosystem. The team will also drive efficiencies in AI & ML to build UGC discovery initiatives so that users on Josh enjoy authentic content experiences, reports added.
GolBol marks VerSe’s third acquisition this year. Previous acquisitions made by the company in 2021 include Bengaluru-based Cognirel Technologies Pvt Ltd to improve its AI capabilities; and video-sharing app Vebbler, to increase creator offerings on Josh.
The acquisition also comes just two months after VerSe raised $450 million from marquee global investors including Siguler Guff, Baillie Gifford, affiliates of Carlyle Asia Partners Growth II and others, valuing the startup at nearly $3 billion.
OYO appoints Paralympian Deepa Malik as independent director
IPO-bound hospitality firm OYO has appointed Paralympian Deepa Malik as an independent director on the company’s board.
“We are delighted to welcome Malik to OYO’s board of directors. We have been working on making our company and the board more inclusive over the last couple of years. Malik’s experience and her passion for travel and adventure would be invaluable for OYO for years to come,” OYO Founder and Chairman Ritesh Agarwal said.
On the development, in a tweet, Deepa Malik said, “Proud to join the board of OYO that has shown its commitment to SMBs & holds high standards for workforce diversity, with strong environmental, social & governance agenda.”
Malik joins the board of OYO that has three other independent directors and one nominee director, besides Ritesh Agarwal being the chairman, the statement said.
D2C brand Plum opens first offline store in Mumbai; to add 50 more over two years
Homegrown beauty and personal care brand Plum on October 13 opened its first offline store in Mumbai.
The opening of exclusive stores reflects the company’s strategy to develop an omni-channel approach, it said in a statement.
The clean beauty brand, which currently retails on Amazon, Flipkart, Nykaa and Myntra apart from being available via retail chains such as Health & Glow, plans to open 50 stores in the country by 2023 to expand its reach beyond its digital-first operations.
Plum started out in 2014 and has since built distribution in over 225 towns and cities in the country, through over 750 assisted retail outlets, and over 10,000 unassisted retail outlets. Plum counts three million shoppers as part of its customer base, the company said. It serves nearly three lakh shoppers monthly.
SecureKloud’s arm Healthcare Triangle gets approval for Nasdaq listing
Healthcare Triangle (HCTI), a subsidiary of cloud solutions platform SecureKloud Technologies, has received the approval for an overseas listing in the US. It will become the second Indian-origin company to be listed on NASDAQ after Freshworks.
Through this IPO, HCTI plans to raise a total of $15 million including an over-allotment of $2 million. The IPO proceeds will be utilised for potential acquisitions, working capital, research and development, and general corporate investments, as per the company.
“Our goal is to become among the top 10 healthcare IT companies in North America and we believe, this will unlock significant value over the next few years,” said Suresh Venkatachari, Chairman & CEO, SecureKloud and HCTI.
EF Hutton, a Benchmark Investments, LLC division, acted as sole book-running manager for the offering. Healthcare Triangle operates in the healthcare cloud industry with a total addressable market of $300 billion.
A Bloomberg business report estimates that the global market for healthcare data science and analytics will be $40 billion by 2025 with a CAGR of 23.5 percent.
To capitalise on this opportunity, HCTI said it will focus growth through our software as a service (SaaS) subscription model for CloudEz, DataEz and Readabl.AI platforms.”
Healthcare Triangle is primarily a healthcare technology platform company and is counted among the top 80 Premier Partners of AWS and an audited next-generation MSP. They are a leading partner of Google Cloud and a Gold Partner of Microsoft Azure Cloud.
ADA acknowledges healthtech startup Breathe Well-being’s diabetes management programme
Healthtech startup Breathe Well-being’s Diabetes Management Program (BDMP), has been verified by American Diabetes Association (ADA).
The personalised digital therapeutics programme assists individuals to manage and reverse Type 2 Diabetes. A clinical study was conducted to verify the efficacy of the BDMP digital therapeutics programme, and in addition, long-term health outcomes were tracked for three years. ADA examined the results of this digitally delivered therapeutics programme across cohorts with different age groups and profiles of chronic patients suffering from Type 2 diabetes and certified that the BDMP works to reverse diabetes, the company said in a statement.
The total group of 181 participants were divided into three control groups, the first group of 60 patients treated with the BDMP plus doctor-prescribed medication, the second group of 61 patients treated with the BDMP plus doctor-prescribed medication plus Stress Reduction module and third group of 60 patients were only treated with doctor-prescribed medication, the startup added.
BDMP delivers customised interventions by using a personalised coach-driven, community-first approach through interactive gamification and encourages patients to track their blood glucose level, weight and physical activity.
Altigreen launches its large-format EVs in Kolkata
EV manufacturing company Altigreen has launched its large-format electric three-wheelers in Kolkata. The company has delivered the vehicles to Mahindra Logistics Limited, it said in a statement.
The startup entered the market in eastern India by supplying the first batch of 15 electric three-wheeler delivery vans, the Neev Highdeck, to Mahindra Logistics. The company has already launched in Delhi, Bengaluru and Chennai.
The company makes four variants of its electric delivery van Neev — the Neev Flatbed, the Neev Chassis Cabin, the Neev Lowdeck and the Neev Highdeck. Its vehicles have payloads of 500kg and 550kg. The vehicles can be fully charged in 3.5 hours.
At present, the startup is operating at 70 percent utilisation. Since August 2021, it has sold 150 vehicles in eight cities and hopes to sell 1,500 vehicles by year-end.
GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY & STARTUP NEW
Billionaire Alibaba founder Jack Ma reappears in Hong Kong: Report
Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma, largely out of public view since a regulatory clampdown started on his business empire late last year, is currently in Hong Kong and has met business associates in recent days, sources told Reuters.
The Chinese billionaire has been keeping a low profile since delivering a speech in October last year in Shanghai criticising China’s financial regulators. That triggered a chain of events that resulted in the shelving of his Ant Group’s mega IPO.
While Ma made a limited number of public appearances in mainland China after that, as speculation swirled about his whereabouts, one of the sources said the visit marked his first trip to the Asian financial hub since last October.
Ma, once China’s most famous and outspoken entrepreneur, met at least “a few” business associates over meals last week, Reuters said. The former English teacher disappeared from public view for three months before surfacing in January, speaking to a group of teachers by video. That eased concern about his unusual absence from the limelight and sent Alibaba shares surging.
In May, Ma made a rare visit to Alibaba’s Hangzhou campus during the firm’s annual ‘Ali Day’ staff and family event, company sources have said. On September 1, photographs of Ma visiting several agricultural greenhouses in the eastern Zhejiang province, home to both Alibaba and its fintech affiliate Ant, went viral on Chinese social media.
The next day, Alibaba said it would invest 100 billion yuan ($15.5 billion) by 2025 in support of “common prosperity,” becoming the latest corporate giant to pledge support for the wealth sharing initiative driven by President Xi Jinping.
Alibaba and its tech rivals have been the target of a wide-ranging regulatory crackdown on issues ranging from monopolistic behaviour to consumer rights. The e-commerce behemoth was fined a record $2.75 billion in April over monopoly violations.
Carl Pei’s Nothing raises $50 mn, partners with Qualcomm
Technology company Nothing, founded by OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei has raised $50 million from strategic and private investors, and has partnered with US chipmaker Qualcomm.
The company launched its first device — a transparent earbud that comes with active noise cancellation and a retail price of $99 — in August and sold more than 100,000 of those in the first two months.
A tie-up with Qualcomm, whose chips are present in a range of devices from cars to phones, would help Nothing to build future products.
UK-based Nothing’s backers include GV, Tony Fadell, designer of Apple Inc’s iPod, Twitch Co-Founder Kevin Lin and Reddit CEO Steve Huffman. It had raised $15 million in a Series A round led by GV, formerly Google Ventures, in January.
US Senator asks Facebook CEO to retain documents linked to testimony
US Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell has called on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to preserve all documents related to a testimony last week from company whistleblower Frances Haugen, as per Reuters.
“The testimony … raises significant concerns about whether Facebook has misled the public, federal regulators, and this committee,” said Cantwell, a Democrat. “This committee will continue its oversight and work to pursue legislation to protect consumers’ privacy, improve data security, and strengthen federal enforcement to address the digital harms that are the subject of these hearings.”
She asked Facebook to preserve and retain internal Facebook research referenced by Haugen and Facebook’s evaluation of the research; ranking or composition systems; experiments or recommendations to change those ranking systems and the impact of Facebook’s platforms on children and teenagers under the age of 18.
Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said in response the company has “absolutely no commercial incentive, no moral incentive, no company-wide incentive to do anything other than to try to give the maximum number of people as much of a positive experience as possible on Facebook.”
Cantwell’s letter cited “the potential danger that social media platforms pose for spreading divisive content was demonstrated, with horrifying consequences, by the role the Facebook platform played in fomenting ethnic violence against the Rohingyas.”
She added, “The role of Facebook’s platform in the Rohingya tragedy illustrates the horrible consequences that failing to effectively limit the spread of divisive content on social media platforms can have in inflicting public harm.”
Last week, the Commerce Committee harshly criticised Facebook, accusing Zuckerberg of pushing for higher profits while being cavalier about user safety, and demanded regulators investigate whistleblower accusations that the social media company harms children’s mental health and stokes divisions.
Zuckerberg defended the company, saying the accusations were at odds with Facebook’s goals.
Haugen, a former product manager on Facebook’s civic misinformation team, left the nearly $1-trillion company with tens of thousands of confidential documents.
Apple likely to cut iPhone 13 production due to chip crunch: Report
Apple is likely to slash production of its iPhone 13 by as many as 10 million units due to the global chip shortage, Bloomberg News reported.
The company was expected to produce 90 million units of the new iPhone models by the end of this year. The report said Apple told its manufacturers that the number of units would be lower because chip suppliers, including Broadcom and Texas Instruments, are struggling to deliver components, the report added.
In July, Apple forecast slowing revenue growth and said the chip shortage, which had started hitting its ability to sell Macs and iPads, would also crimp iPhone production. Texas Instruments also gave a soft revenue outlook that month, hinting on chip supply concerns for the rest of the year.
The chip crunch has put immense pressure on industries from automobiles to electronics, leading many automakers to temporarily suspend production.
Twitter debuts new ad features, revamped algorithm ahead of ecommerce push
Twitter has rolled out new ad features and revamped the algorithm that decides which ads users see, as part of an effort to lay the groundwork to launch future ecommerce features, the social networking company told Reuters.
The new features come as Twitter is pushing to grow its performance advertising business, a strategy that aims to quickly generate sales, and constituted just 15 percent of Twitter’s business last year. The effort could help Twitter reach its goal of doubling annual revenue by 2023.
The San Francisco-based company is positioning itself to eventually allow brands to sell products through the service by first improving on its ability to show users relevant ads and increasing the likelihood they will click the ad.
Twitter added that it is working on new tools to let companies run ads to find customers who are more likely to make in-app purchases.
Slide-show ads that feature multiple products can now send users to different websites when they click the ad, whereas previously brands could only choose one destination. This increased the number of clicks by 25 percent on ad campaigns that set a goal of driving website visits, the company said.
Twitter also improved the advertising algorithm, showing the ads to a larger pool of people at the beginning of the campaign so it can better gauge user interest. Those algorithm improvements led to a 36 percent increase in ad campaigns that achieved at least five downloads during the time period that the ad ran on Twitter, the company said.
Binance unit launches $1-Bbn fund to fast-track blockchain tech adoption
Binance Smart Chain, a unit of crypto exchange Binance, said it had launched a $1-billion fund to help fast-track adoption of digital assets and blockchain technology.
A total of $500 million from the fund will be reserved for investments to help grow decentralised computing, gaming, metaverse, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and blockchain-based financial services, according to Reuters.
Of the remainder, $300 million will be earmarked for a builder programme and $100 million each for liquidity incentives and talent development.
“With the $1-billion initiative, our focus will be widened to building cross-chain and multi-chain infrastructures integrated with different types of blockchains,” Gwendolyn Regina, investment director of BSC Accelerator Fund said.
BSC has over one million daily active users spread across more than 900 decentralised applications, making it one of the biggest crypto ecosystems.
Cryptocurrencies post eight straight weeks of inflows – CoinShares data
Cryptocurrency products and funds attracted $226.2 million in investments last week, marking their eighth straight week of inflows, a report from digital asset manager CoinShares showed.
Over an eight-week run, total crypto product inflows hit $638 million, with a year-to-date total of $6.3 billion.
Bitcoin, as expected, led the way, nabbing $225 million, for a fourth straight week of inflows, according to data in the week ended Oct. 8.
“We believe the turnaround in sentiment towards Bitcoin is due to constructive statements from SEC chair Gary Gensler, potentially allowing a Bitcoin ETF (exchange traded fund) in the US,” wrote James Butterfill, investment strategist at CoinShares, in the report.
At a Financial Times conference a few weeks ago, US Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gensler repeated his support for Bitcoin ETFs that would invest in futures contracts instead of the digital currency itself.
Bitcoin soared to a five-month high of just under $58,000 on October 11, boosted by persistent institutional demand as it gains legitimacy among investors. On October 12, the world’s largest cryptocurrency in terms of market value was last down 3.6 percent at $55,402.
Since a low of $28,600 hit in June, Bitcoin has gained about 88 percent of its value.
Blockchain data provider Glassnode, in its latest research note, said Bitcoin experienced a boost in network activity in the first week of October, suggesting new demand is beginning to enter in the fourth quarter.
Ethereum, meanwhile, saw minor outflows totaling $14 million, data showed, as it continues to lose market share to Bitcoin. Its market share has fallen 1 percent to 24 percent of assets under management in the last week alone.
Other altcoins such as Solana and Cardano posted inflows of $12.5 million and $3 million, respectively, data showed. While other digital tokens, namely Polkadot, Ripple and Litecoin posted outflows.
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
Reliance in talks to invest $250-$300 million in InMobi’s Glance
KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)
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Reliance is all set to pick up about a 15 percent stake in lock-screen content platform Glance, which is a subsidiary of India’s first unicorn InMobi, sources told CNBC-TV18 on Tuesday.
Reliance is all set to pick up about a 15 percent stake in lock-screen content platform Glance, which is a subsidiary of India’s first unicorn InMobi, sources told CNBC-TV18 on Tuesday.
They said that Reliance is in a fairly advanced stage of talks to invest $250-$300 million in Glance and the deal could close in a month.
Reliance may get access to screen-lock content of Glance for the Jio Google 4G smartphone and it is also looking to get access to short video platform Roposo and social commerce through Shop101, the businesses that were acquired by Glance, sources said.
According to Counterpoint Research, Glance has 151 million active users in India in Q2 2021 and one in every four Indian smartphone users is now active on the platform, which is available on Android phones.
However, both Reliance and Glance did not comment on the development.
Glance, started by InMobi in 2019, turned unicorn in December 2020 after funding from Google and other investors such as Mithril Capital.
RIL shares traded 0.6 percent higher at Rs 2,539.30 in late afternoon deals, having touched a record high of Rs 2,565 earlier in the day. On Monday, the conglomerate’s market capitalisation hit the Rs 17 lakh crore mark for the first time ever, cementing its position as India’s most valuable company.
Disclosure: Network18, the parent company of CNBCTV18.com, is controlled by Independent Media Trust, of which Reliance Industries is the sole beneficiary.
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
RIL shares hit all-time high; may pick 15-20% stake in InMobi’s Glance
KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)
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Shares of Reliance Industries (RIL) rose over one percent on Tuesday and hit an all-time high at Rs 2,561 today. This comes after a media report said that RIL is in talks to invest between $200 million and $250 million in InMobi’s lock screen content platform Glance.
Shares of Reliance Industries (RIL) rose over one percent on Tuesday and touched an intraday high of Rs 2,561 on the BSE after a media report said that RIL is in talks to invest between $200 million and $250 million in InMobi’s lock screen content platform Glance.
At 10:00 am, the scrip was trading 1.3 percent higher at Rs 2,558. The stock also hit an all-time high at Rs 2,561 today.
Strength in shares of RIL kept the headline indices from slipping deep into the red today. The stock contributed the most to the gains in Nifty50 today.
Glance, which is already backed by RIL’s partner Google, could give the Mukesh Ambani-led company access to content on the lock screen for its upcoming Google-Jio smartphone that is expected to go on sale by October end, as per the report.
InMobi and RIL are in the early stages of discussions and the conglomerate is reportedly looking to acquire a 15-20 percent stake in Glance.
Some reports had said earlier this week, that the oil-to-telecom conglomerate could pump in as much as $300 million into Glance and the transaction could be completed in the next few weeks.
In the past three years, the stock has generated 105 percent returns while Nifty50 gave a 63.5 percent return during the same period.
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
Best of Young Turks: Retracing InMobi’s journey and how Naveen Tewari built not 1, but 2 unicorns
KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)
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In this Young Turks interview from 2017, we chatted with Tewari at a time when InMobi had managed to achieve a record profitability turnaround after a near-collapse in 2015, which taught him ‘The Art Of Sacrifice’.
India’s longest-running show on startups and entrepreneurship Young Turks marks another milestone as it completes 19 years! To celebrate this landmark, we wish to take you through our time capsule, The Young Turks Archive, recounting the journey of some trailblazing entrepreneurial talent over the last two decades.
As India transforms, shrugging off the old cloak and dressing up with the digital debonair, we believe the lessons gleaned from these handpicked stories will be a trusted guide to the next generation of changemakers. Join us in this celebration of ideas, innovation and inspiration!
This week, we feature Naveen Tewari, the co-founder of the adtech platform InMobi, which is India’s first unicorn startup. What’s more, he and his team at InMobi have created not one, but two unicorns with the group’s subsidiary content platform Glance hitting a valuation of $1 billion during the pandemic in 2020. InMobi has been the oldest serving-member of the unicorn club, having been the first entrant in 2011.
In this Young Turks interview from 2017, we chatted with Tewari at a time when InMobi had managed to achieve a record profitability turnaround after a near-collapse in 2015, which taught him ‘The Art Of Sacrifice’. Then, it was all about narrowing and sharpening the focus. “Some of the tough decisions that we felt that we had to get away from were doing loss-making deals,” he said. A valuable statement as critics question the skyrocketing valuations and the line-up of loss-making startups flying to Dalal Street after food-delivery platform Zomato.
Striving in search of profitable growth while operating in a fast-changing digital landscape, Tewari had indicated InMobi may move quickly to make some meaningful acquisitions. After bringing the short-video app Roposo into its fold under Glance in 2019, InMobi has acquired Shop101 with aspirations of tapping social commerce, which is said to be the next big shift in e-commerce. It is planning to go for a U.S. IPO with a listing on the NASDAQ by the end of this year.
Here’s an insightful chat with the founder of India’s first unicorn as 22 new startups have already joined the elite club so far this year. 2021 is likely to be known as the ‘Year Of India’s Unicorns.
Shereen Bhan: Hello, and welcome to this special edition of Young Turks where we bring you the story of a startup founded by four friends who spotted an opportunity in mobile advertising back in 2008 when mobiles weren’t ubiquitous and the Android and iOS platforms didn’t exist. InMobi was building an independent ad network before Facebook and Google began changing the rules of the game. Now, the founders, then, took the tough decision to build a product company out of India. And, the venture has seen its highs, becoming the country’s first unicorn back in 2011, and its lows, with people labelling InMobi a has-been in 2015. But, two years of hunkering down and doing what’s right has helped the startup turn things around. The venture has turned profitable in 2016 and is set for its next leg of growth. Is the story now sustainable?
Joining us today to discuss that is the co-founder and CEO Naveen Tewari. Naveen, thanks very much for joining us on CNBC TV-18. To start with, Naveen, the last two years have been difficult, and that would be putting it mildly. If I look at the headlines and the conversations surrounding InMobi, between 2015 and now (2017), it was all about layoffs, it was about debt, it was about attrition. In fact, even in an email that you wrote to your employees, you called it a “make or break” time for the company. Take me through what the last two years have actually meant for you.
Naveen Tewari: Here’s how I’d describe it. I think the last two years have been tough because we’ve been making a transition from being, what I would call, a startup into an enterprise. And, an enterprise that I at least believe is sustainable, can become much larger. Therefore, we had to solve for certain things that we didn’t necessarily solve for when we were a startup, or where we were at least in the phase of startup. I think the media kind of mistook us, or our changes, to essentially be articulating them as attrition or other things.
I am very, very glad that we as a company, and everyone who works here, has been able to change, take the company through that change in the last two years by making some, what I would call, common sense decisions and tough decisions. The reason I use both of these words at the same time is because that’s probably what’s required to move from a startup phase into an enterprise phase.
Therefore, it feels extremely exciting to be in these times right now where you can now look and plan for things, not just for the next year or two, but for the next five years. And that’s probably why we came into existence to begin with. Therefore, being able to do that truly right now, not depending on somebody else but depending on your own fate, is absolutely a great feeling to have.
Shereen Bhan: Speaking of those tough decisions, Naveen, if I could get you to give us a sense of the financials. Because, what I was looking at, and data shows up, that year-ending March 2015 losses were at about $40 million, the previous year about $44.6 million. So, can you give me a sense of where things stand as far as your current financials are concerned, in terms of revenues, and, of course, you’ve now turned black?
Naveen Tewari: I think the interesting piece within this is not just the fact that we’ve been able to turn profitable. By the way, just to give you a sense, it’s just not merely profitable but it’s at a fairly strong, healthy profitability.
Shereen Bhan: Can you quantify that for us, Naveen? What does strong, healthy profitability mean?
Naveen Tewari: Well, here’s what I’ll tell you. IN Q4 2016, we were on a run rate of a profitability of somewhere between $40-$50 million. Therefore, that effectively would tell you the scale at which we were working from where we were two years ago. And, by the way, I just want to also break the myth in general, where people believe that as you go for profitability, you’re letting go of growth. That also didn’t necessarily happen. We are able to go for growth. Yes, the growth was slightly muted, because you had to get rid of decisions and deals that were loss-making for you earlier. You stopped doing those things. That’s where I use the word “common sense”. You stop doing some of the basics that you were not doing earlier and you started to do now.
Shereen Bhan: Even as far as your revenue picture is concerned, Naveen, and we’ve spoken about this in the past. You’ve had a billion dollar-aspiration for several years now. What is the situation as far as revenue run rate is concerned?
Naveen Tewari: I think that we can see a sight to it, a path to it. I think it might take us another couple of years to get there. But, I think now we will go for it on our own terms. That’s the big difference.
Shereen Bhan: What does that mean, when you say that “you’re going to go for it on your own terms”? Again, I’m looking at data put out by various publications at the end of March 2016. Revenue between $320 and $325 million. So, in the near term, what is the aspiration if we let the one billion dollar-aspiration still lower away or further away on the horizon?
Naveen Tewari: Yeah, look, I think we expect ourselves to grow roughly about 30-35%. And if you take that growth rate, apply that to the numbers that you saw for 2015, I would argue that we could potentially grow over the next three years or so, 30 to 50% growth. That should get us to about a billion dollars. So, we have another two to three years before we get to their billion dollar-mark.
Shereen Bhan: Okay. Naveen, you talked about tough decisions.
Naveen Tewari: By the way, I just want to qualify. I just want to quantify the fact that this billion dollars is not a GMV number, but it’s a true revenue number. We get confused by those things.
Shereen Bhan: Yes, I’m glad to note that a lot of founders have now finally decided to not talk in terms of GMV, but to talk in terms of real numbers. Naveen, take me through some of the tough decisions that you had to take, because, growing from a startup to an enterprise, as you pointed out, is also about the art of sacrifice. It’s about taking those tough decisions. It’s also about narrowing your focus, sharpening your focus, it’s about giving up on this, “I want to be something for everybody” to “I want to focus on some strategic markets that make sense to me”. So, what can we expect now, over the next few years, as far as your growth plans are concerned?
Naveen Tewari: Some of the tough decisions that we felt that we had to get away from were doing loss-making deals. For example, it is very hard when you’re in a phase of growth, to essentially say no to business, to say no to revenue. But a lot of this revenue comes at the cost of that not being marginally profitable for you. And we used to have that business for probably a large portion of our existence. And, I think those were the deals that we basically said no to, or even if we said yes to, they were extremely selective and we were extremely clear on why we were saying yes to it. And yet, by the way, here’s what I would add, we didn’t necessarily see a significant growth dip because of those.
I think the second one was, essentially, to be very, very precise in where your investments would go. Three years ago, given the phase that we were in, we would say yes to all, most decisions. We would say yes to decisions in every market for ourselves. We would say yes to whichever country we were seeing any growth in, we will deploy some share of our incremental investments into that bucket. But, over the last two years, we started to make very tough decisions. We started to give money only to a few countries. We started to call out a few countries where we would not give them an incremental budget, but keep them on the leash. But, everyone appreciates this, once you have that hard conversation. Because, they actually like to see the company succeed.
So, for example, we started to invest a lot more in the U.S. and China in 2015 and 2016. We did not invest in any other market as aggressively as we invested in the US and China. The other markets where we then started to invest from in 2017, in addition to the US and China, were Indonesia, Australia, and India. We said, “Look, these are markets where we now need to essentially go forth and look at investments and scale the market for ourselves. There were a lot of product investments, technology, R&D investments that we’re doing in multiple areas, we’ve cut down and shut down certain areas where we saw that, “Look, this is not going to give us something meaningful over the next two years or so”. We said, “Look, we’ll come back to this, we’ll pick our bets”. So, we have a new framework that we use now, which we call ‘60-30-10’ – 60% of our investment goes towards revenue business or businesses where revenue gets impacted here. Now, 30% goes where we can see an impact over the next 12 to 24 months, and 10% goes towards something that we can see beyond 24 months.
I’ll add the last piece to this, which was that the management bandwidth is also equally important. That’s not a commodity. That’s not something that you can just say, “Hey, I can distribute this over in many, many things”. I think that’s where the people’s side of the story comes in, where we said, “Look, as we do less similar things we will be more focused”, which is what you were also mentioning. I think those are the things that we did, that we’ll be able to take the business to a level where it invests on its own. We don’t have to rely on external capital. We don’t have to worry about external forces. We just have to care about what’s right for us.
Shereen Bhan: Well, time for us to take a break. But when we return, we continue our conversation on this Young Turks exclusive with Naveen Tiwari on the InMobi turnaround story.
Naveen Tewari: People around you will tell you how hard growth would be if you try and force yourself towards profitability – a completely overused argument.
Shereen Bhan: Welcome back, you’re watching the CNBC TV-18 Young Turks exclusive. We’re in conversation with Naveen Tewari, on the InMobi turnaround story. Let me talk about your growth markets. You pointed out that you’ve been investing in the U.S. and China over the past two years. At this point in time, I think that China contributes about 28% to revenues. What about the U.S., Indonesia, Australia, and India? So, that’s the five-market strategy that you have in place for the next few years?
Naveen Tewari: We see ourselves going after these five markets because we see strategies here, whereby we can actually cement ourselves to be one of the top players in these markets. I’ll come to the U.S. in a minute, but in China, Indonesia, India, and Australia, we clearly see ourselves being one of the top two or three players in that market for sure over the next couple of years. That’s why massive amounts of investments are going into those markets. We have a strategy to say, “Hey, here’s how we can be one of the winners in those markets”.
In the U.S., which is a much more complicated and overcrowded market, we think we have areas of niche where we can go in and own those pieces. So, we are going very, very heavy on video advertising, we’re going very heavy on remarketing-based commerce advertising. We think those are niche areas where we can actually own a very significant portion, even in the U.S. as a market.
Therefore we think, even in that extremely large market, we’ll actually have a very strong foothold over the next couple of years.
Shereen Bhan: You know, just a quick point on China, and I don’t mean to scoff at the success that you’ve enjoyed in China, Naveen, but wouldn’t you say that’s largely on account of the fact that the big boys have been kept out of the Chinese market?
Naveen Tewari: Yeah, you’re right. Look, there is no hiding the fact that Google and Facebook are not present there. But, let’s not also undermine the presence of Tencent, Baidu and Alibaba in that market. They are extremely, extremely strong in that market. Frankly, the reason why Google and Facebook are not in that market are because of those three companies. So, therefore, while one can make the argument against Google and Facebook not being there, the reality is, the presence of those three have actually held entrance of Google and Facebook in itself, whether through direct or indirect means, but they have actually been able to do so. So, we actually feel pretty privileged and excited about the fact that we are one of the top advertising platforms in China even today. Therefore, we think we can actually cement ourselves even more strongly in that market over the next couple of years.
Shereen Bhan: Let me now pick up on some of the other issues that you talked about. You talked about giving up on the products. That didn’t work out for you. Now, you had this big launch in San Francisco – the MIIP platform that you launched, and that hasn’t really worked out as one of the key bets that you were hoping for in the way that it would. There has been a change in strategy there. Do you continue to want to take that forward? What is the story there?
Naveen Tewari: Yeah, look, I think contrary to the belief, the MIIP platform has actually worked. I’ll tell you the distinction. When we launched this, we made a mistake, which is where we positioned the consumer-facing side of MIIP a lot more than the underlying platform of MIIP. The underlying platform of MIIP today has already started contributing 10-15% of our revenues. The consumer-facing side of it was anyway significantly future-looking and we were merely trying to display that. And that came to light a lot more than the underlying platform. So, while that still remains, we had to get rid of the name, and therefore, we market that as a remarketing platform right now. That’s doing significantly well, globally.
But, that’s not the product that we did give up on. We gave up on products that never even saw the light of the day, that never even came out. Because, they were not going to essentially make sense for us. We had teams of about five to ten people that were actually working on it and they all felt excited about those kinds of products. We just didn’t feel that we would be able to do justice to those things coming out. Therefore, we had to say no to it.
Shereen Bhan: You know, the other thing that you talked about, Naveen, was that you don’t want to rely on external funding. Now, the last round of funding was in 2011 and that’s when you raised $200 million from SoftBank. You may not need the funding at this point in time, but are you looking at raising funds?
Naveen Tewari: Look, I would put this into two buckets right – one is, I actually think most of the technology startups should be able to become sustainable with the level of capital that we got. Now, going forward, looking for capital would basically be on our terms. Now, there are many things that one can do as an organisation where we don’t need the capital. We may want it or we may get it. Then, we will essentially do acquisitions. If we start talking about how we look at the future, we think that there are a lot of changes that are happening in the advertising landscape, it’s a great opportunity for us to essentially acquire a lot of companies. We haven’t yet done so over the past two or three years. But, we think that could be a great opportunity for us.
Shereen Bhan: So, will 2019 be a big year for you on the acquisition front? And where would you be looking at these acquisitions? Will these be geography-specific or capability-specific acquisitions that you would look at?
Naveen Tewari: Yeah, look, I think it’s hard to say. A lot of these are slightly more opportunistic in the way they are. But, what I could tell you is between 2017 and 2018, we would certainly look at doing a few acquisitions, which by the way, span across both geographies and capabilities. I would argue that they kind of started to go hand-in-hand a little bit. We’ll see what comes out but that certainly is on the cards.
Shereen Bhan: Naveen, what is the situation as far as the cash on books is concerned. At the end of March of 2015, it was at about $13 million. Also, in terms of the debt position, about $16 million. Any concerns and worries on the debt front?
Naveen Tewari: No, no we have enough cash to service our debt if we want, any day we want. There’s no need to do it. That’s why that is there. So, it helps you get the leverage that you want. So, cash on balance is not even a concern for us.
Shereen Bhan: Is this turnaround sustainable, Naveen? Have you been able to get rid of the non-core stuff that you wanted to get rid of, you know, restructure enough to be able to make this turnaround sustainable? Because, that’s the question everyone’s asking, given what we’re seeing in the Indian startup landscape at this point in time.
Naveen Tewari: Yeah, look, precisely for that reason, we never came out with this earlier. We didn’t want to talk about this earlier, we kept it under wraps for a long, long period of time. We wanted to be convinced ourselves. We saw great signs of it. We are convinced that it’s sustainable. We’re seeing signs of sustainability clearly. So, we are happy with the way it is. You should see this being sustainable for us for sure. By the way, I think on the point of the Indian ecosystem, it’s important that many, many companies look at becoming profitable, because as an entrepreneur to different entrepreneurs, I can tell you, it’s an amazing feeling to be profitable, and not be reliant on others in trying to grow yourself.
Shereen Bhan: I’m sure it’s been a lot of sleepless nights over the last two years, Naveen, for you. And I would imagine that that’s the case across a lot of startup boardrooms, at this point in time in India. What is that one thing that you would like to share with entrepreneurs who are going through exactly what you’ve been going through?
Naveen Tewari: People around you will tell you how hard growth would be if you try and force yourself towards profitability. You give it a lot more value than it is important for. The growth does not suffer as much if you do it rightly and smartly. You need to be extremely prudent about the way you do it. Therefore, that argument one should not take. I think it’s an overused argument that growth will get hampered if you look for profitability. It’s a completely overused argument.
Shereen Bhan: So, the road to profitability has been achieved. What about the IPO plans, Naveen? We’ve spoken about this in the past as well. Is the IPO on the horizon?
Naveen Tewari: Look, I don’t know what horizon means. But, if you ask me, we will look at something.
Shereen Bhan: The next two to three years.
Naveen Tewari: Yeah, absolutely. Then it should be on the cards, probably. The advertising space is not well understood in the country today. In general, it’s a very complex space – the advertising technology space. Now, in that space, by the way, if you look globally, there are Google and Facebook, the guys who are above a billion dollars. Then, there are players who are between $100 million to $1 billion. Those are a handful of players, maybe five, less than five, of which, global players are less than three, maybe two. Now, that’s the space that we’re in. The reason why adtech in general is not considered to be a great space to be in is because less than $100 million, there are 200 companies, and most of them may be less than $50 million. Adtech is hard. It’s very easy to start, very hard to scale beyond $100 million. We find ourselves not just at an India scale, obviously, but certainly at a global level, in that interesting band where we think we are at scale and differentiating from the others with very strong technology in place, and therefore, be able to cross the mark where the scale becomes paramount. Therefore, you see a lot of consolidation happening in the smaller companies and that’s the one that we want to take advantage of and grow. Therefore, as you grow, we think we will be one of the top five advertising platforms in the world in the next two to three years.
Shereen Bhan: Was selling out really an option for you over the last two years? Did you seriously consider that, Naveen?
Naveen Tewari: Well, it did start to cross my mind a couple of times because of the things being tough and you are trying to figure out how to get out of those scenarios. So, it does, it does cross your mind. I was reflecting. I was talking to an international player. He was, obviously, a renowned player and plays very well, and he was saying, “Look, as players, we also get to go through these phases where you’re doing really, really well, and then suddenly you have a slight slump. You question yourself. I think every one of us goes through that phase, and you come out of it, and you are much stronger and you’re fitter. You kind of do it better because you know what didn’t work, right?” I think that’s where we are right now.
Shereen Bhan: Well, Naveen Tewari, here’s wishing you and the team at InMobi the very best of luck. We hope that the lessons that you’ve learned over the past two years will ensure that the growth that you now see is going to be sustainable. Thanks very much for joining us on CNBC-TV18 and sharing your story with us when you started InMobi in 2007, and today, as you’ve turned profitable. It’s always a pleasure, thanks very much indeed.
Transcriptions by Arunima Rao Arunima Rao interned with Young Turks from April to June 2021 Twitter @_arunimarao
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InMobi, India’s first Unicorn, eyes US listing by end of this year
KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)
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Summary
InMobi, may launch an initial public offer (IPO) of something around $1 billion while valuing the company to the tune of $12- $15 billion.
Bangalore-based InMobi, India’s first Unicorn startup, is planning to list itself in the United States stock exchange by the end of 2021, reported Bloomberg.
The company’s board meeting is scheduled in a few weeks and that’s when the process for listing may begin, the report quoted a person privy to the company’s plans. InMobi, may launch an initial public offer (IPO) of around $1 billion while valuing the company to the tune of $12- $15 billion.
Once the company makes its debut, it could well become India’s first unicorn to list itself on the US stock exchange. Not just that, InMobi is also among the first few startups targeting the IPO in America.
The tech startup may file the S-1 statement, which is a registration document, with the US stock exchange in about three months, the report added. The IPO plan may move to the next stage after that.
For the listing, the company is said to be in talks with banks such as JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc.
Founded in 2007, InMobip became India’s first unicorn four years later in 2011. Naveen Tewari, the Harvard Business School alumnus, along with others from the “boys with the PPT” group, founded what was then mkhoj, an SMS based search and monetisation business in Mumbai. The growth was tremendous. A year after it was founded, the number of employees increased to 50 and mkhoj had 4 offices across the globe.
The following year it was renamed InMobi and the founders made their inroads into the European and the US market. There has been no looking back since then. In 2011, SoftBank Group Corp. pumped $200 million into the company and remains the biggest stakeholder even today with 40% ownership.
With the Covid-19 pandemic opening new avenues for advertising and technology companies, InMobi, too, has shifted to mobile in gaming, video streaming and shopping.
Besides InMobi, several other startups have also acquired the status of unicorn following their valuation of over $1 billion. Among them are Paytm, BYJU’s, Flipkart, Zomato, Swiggy and Ola Cabs.
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Six months since the ban on several Chinese applications including TikTok, Google has made a big bet on short video and content space in India. It has backed InMobi Group’s Glance, a lock screen content platform, as well as Dailyhunt’s parent company VerSe Innovation for its short video platform Josh.
The funding comes from the $10 billion India Digitization Fund that was launched by Google CEO Sundar Pichai in July.
CNBC-TV18 spoke to Naveen Tewari, CEO of InMobi Group; Virendra Gupta, founder of VerSe Innovation; and Umang Bedi, co-founder of VerSe Innovation, for more details.
Also watch Shrey Goyal and Royal Jain talk about their startup Mastree, an edtech platform founded in November 2019.
Google funds Indian content platforms DailyHunt’s Josh, InMobi’s Glance
KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)
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Summary
Google has invested in a $145 million funding round of InMobi subsidiary Glance, along with the existing investor, Mithril Capital, a global investment fund founded by Silicon Valley investors Peter Thiel and Ajay Royan.
Google has announced large bets, one in InMobi Group’s Glance, a lock screen content platform, and another in DailyHunt’s Josh, a short-video platform.
The funding comes from the $10 billion India Digitization Fund that was launched by Google CEO Sundar Pichai earlier this year.
Google has invested in a $145 million funding round of InMobi subsidiary Glance, along with the existing investor, Mithril Capital. Mithril Capital is a global investment fund founded by Silicon Valley investors Peter Thiel and Ajay Royan.
Google has also joined Microsoft and other investors in a $100 million round in VerSe Innovation, mainly to scale Josh. VerSe Innovation is the parent company of news aggregator platform DailyHunt. The funding also makes DailyHunt the newest unicorn.
“When we shared details of the India Digitization Fund in July this year, we identified enabling affordable access and information for every Indian in their language, whether it’s Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Gujarati, and more as a key pillar to drive forward India’s digitization,” Caesar Sengupta, VP, Google, said in a blogpost.
“This is why we’re pleased to announce investments in leading Indian startups Glance Inmobi and VerSe Innovation, enabling them to further scale the availability of relevant and engaging content in different formats across various Indic languages. Glance Inmobi delivers visual, immersive, and localized content experiences across products like Glance and Roposo, while VerSe Innovation serves vernacular content in 14 languages through platforms like the Dailyhunt and Josh apps,” he added.
Glance offers AI-driven personalized content in multiple languages, including English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu on the lock screen of Android smartphones.
InMobi claims Glance has 115 million daily active users that spend 25 minutes per day, while its short video platform Roposo has more than 33 million monthly active users.
Josh claims to have over 77 monthly active users, 36 million daily active users, and over 1.5 billion video plays per day.
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Google joins $145 million funding round for InMobi’s Glance
KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)
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Summary
Glance is a subsidiary of InMobi Group and the owner of the video-sharing social media platform Roposo.
Google has invested in a $145 MN funding round of InMobi subsidiary Glance, a lock screen platform, along with existing investor Mithril Capital, a global investment fund founded by Silicon Valley investors Peter Thiel and Ajay Royan.
Glance is a subsidiary of InMobi Group and the owner of the video-sharing social media platform Roposo.
The platform, which was launched last year, had raised $45 million from Mithril Capital earlier.
Glance offers AI-driven personalized content in multiple languages including English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu on the lock screen of Android smartphones.
The company claims Glance has 115 million daily active users that spend 25 minutes per day, while Roposo has more than 33 million monthly active users.
Glance will use the new investment to deepen its AI capability across Glance and Roposo, expand its technology team, launch services on the platform, further strengthen the brand and drive expansion in global markets.
“Glance is a great example of innovation solving for mobile-first and mobile-only consumption, serving content across many of India’s local languages,” Caesar Sengupta, VP, Google, said in a statement. “Still too many Indians have trouble finding content to read or services they can use confidently, in their own language. And this significantly limits the value of the internet for them, particularly at a time like this when the internet is the lifeline of so many people. This investment underlines our strong belief in working with India’s innovative startups towards the shared goal of building a truly inclusive digital economy that will benefit everyone.”
Glance displays trending content across entertainment, sports, fashion, news, and other content categories. It leverages its strategic partnership with world’s leading Android smartphone brands to deliver this native user experience to consumers.
“Glance, the world’s largest screen zero platforms, is a powerful innovation to democratize content on the mobile Internet,” said Ajay Royan, Managing General Partner and Co-founder of Mithril Capital. “It has been fantastic working with the Glance leadership team in realizing Glance’s global vision of breaking through technical and linguistic barriers to deliver frictionless and engaging experiences across cultures and languages.”
“Glance is reimagining the future of digital consumption on smartphones,” said Naveen Tewari, Founder and CEO of Glance and InMobi Group. “We are absolutely thrilled to have Google as a strategic investor in Glance and Roposo. With two of the largest digital content platforms in the country, we have taken the lead in making the digital economy accessible for the next billion users in India and globally.”
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