Tag: Lightspeed

Early-stage investing remains energetic with plenty of dry powder for investment: Lightspeed’s Rahul Taneja

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

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The icy winds that began to blow in 2022 did bring a lot of turbulence for Indian startups in 2023, with cautious investors taking a breather to re-evaluate their strategies and were quite hesitant to loosen their purse strings last year.

The venture capital pipeline did freeze over and funding slumped to a five-year-low in 2023. Startups managed to raise about $8.6 billion—just a fifth of the record high seen in 2021 and more than 60% lower compared to 2022, according to Tracxn.

While the value of investments collapsed across stages, deal-making for seed to early-stage startups remained energetic, with 1,014 term sheets signed, which represented 92% of the total 1,096 deals signed in the year gone by.

Rahul Taneja, Partner at Lightspeed, believes early-stage investing will continue to be active, with plenty of capital available to be deployed. “Founders with deep conviction and those building in large markets will not face any shortage of quality capital,” he asserted.

In 2023, Lightspeed backed one of India’s key Generative AI startups—Sarvam AI—which aims to build a ChatGPT-like large language model (LLM) to bring the power of artificial intelligence by leveraging the country’s linguistic diversity.

Stepping into 2024, Lightspeed, which has invested nearly $1 billion in artificial intelligence over the last 18-24 months, intends to keep Generative AI squarely in its sights, while continuing to back early-stage startups in emerging categories such as climate, EVs, agri-tech, B2B supply chain and deep tech (such as space, semiconductors), which found favour in 2023 as investors turned away from the internet businesses of the years past.

Since 2000, Lightspeed has invested over $1.8 billion in more than 100 startups in India and Southeast Asia. Unicorns in Lightspeed India’s portfolio include Byjus, Udaan, OYO, Sharechat, Darwinbox, Innovaccer, Globalbees, Yubi (CredAvenue), Razorpay, Acko & Zetwerk.

In this exclusive interaction, Rahul Taneja, Partner at Lightspeed talks about investing during a down cycle, the importance of patient capital and reveals sectors of strategic importance for the firm.

Gearing Up For 2024: Challenges, Conviction & Capital

Shruti Malhotra, CNBC-TV18: How do you anticipate 2024 unfolding for startups and investors? When do you see clarity emerging, and what notable developments are on the horizon?

Rahul Taneja, Lightspeed: We are patient, long-term investors in the region and strongly believe in the opportunity unfolding in front of us thanks to rapid digitization across the economy. As such, we are very optimistic and believe that 2024 will be a great year for the ecosystem. Early-stage investing continues to be active in India – there is plenty of capital available to be deployed and will continue to come. 2023 was a defining year in terms of a move to sustainable economics and business models. And plenty of founders are succeeding in this environment. So we believe that founders with deep conviction, building in large markets, will not face any shortage of quality capital. We remain confident that 2024 will be a great year for both startups and investors alike – it won’t be without its set of challenges, but we believe the ecosystem is well-geared for it.

Startup Spotlight: Building In India, For The World

Q: Are any 3-5 startups and sectors catching your attention in 2024? Share your thoughts on emerging trends and potential disruptors.

Rahul Taneja, Lightspeed: We continue to invest in 4 core themes — a) Enterprise SaaS and infrastructure (especially AI-driven), b) Fintech, c) Consumer products & services, and d) Commerce. What we’ve particularly focused on is the now-well-established India to the world movement especially in manufacturing and continue to double down on that. In addition, we are actively investing in emerging themes such as Climate and Mobility.

IPO Outlook: The Journey From Private To Public Markets

Q: Are there specific IPOs in 2024 that have captured your interest? What factors make these IPOs stand out for you?

Rahul Taneja, Lightspeed: India has become and remains the global investment destination of choice, with the government ably managing interest rates, inflation and growth together. As profitability improves, the market for companies suited for IPOs is only deepening. We saw this happen in the last 24-36 months with offerings such as Zomato, Mamaearth, Nykaa, Freshworks and others. It’s especially encouraging to see that the domestic investors (both institutional and retail) are embracing these offerings. We believe the companies that will do well in public markets are those who have a definitive view on profitability (or a clear path to it in the near term), predictable growth machinery and a differentiated customer proposition.

AI’s Trajectory: Going Beyond The Inflection Point

Q: What’s your perspective on the future of AI? In which directions do you see it expanding? And, in your view, can any business remain unaffected by the impact of AI?

Rahul Taneja, Lightspeed: AI has been clearly an area of significant and strategic importance to the firm. We have been investing in AI for a long time and the last 18 months saw clear inflection. We have globally invested nearly $1 billion in AI in the last 18-24 months.

What we’re seeing is AI reshaping industries and in some cases giving birth of entirely new segments. Every company, in some form, will be an AI company – what this means is most companies are now actively assessing how AI impacts their current workflows, productivity, output and efficiency. This is visible across enterprise, consumer, customer support, software development and finance. In the recent past, we’ve invested across the AI stack starting from foundational models, applications and more with companies such as Sarvam, Portkey, Thena and others.

Investment Strategy: Fund Size and Strategic Allocations

Q: Could you share insights into your current fund size and the areas where you are strategically allocating capital?

Rahul Taneja, Lightspeed: We are currently deploying in India & Southeast Asia out of our early stage fund Lightspeed India IV ($500 million) and global growth stage funds Lightspeed Select & Opportunity (~$5 billion). As long-term believers of the potential of the Indian startup ecosystem, we invest across cycles and are patient investors. We believe there are multiple macro themes which are deepening and would continue to invest in them. Top themes today are — a) Cross border/India to the World – predominantly Enterprise SaaS and infrastructure, increasingly Content and Commerce as well; b) Fintech; c) Local consumption – both B2C and B2B, across consumer, commerce; and d) Emerging areas – Climate, Mobility among others.

Also Read: Startup founders have learnt to prioritise fundamentals over growth, says Good Capital’s Rohan Malhotra 

Also Read: Startup Outlook 2024: IAN co-founder Padmaja Ruparel says funding will rebound but not reach 2021 levels

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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

Zyod raises $3.5 million in seed funding, led by Lightspeed

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

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Zyod, a global B2B platform for apparel sourcing and manufacturing on Tuesday announced $3.5 million seed funding led by Lightspeed. The seed round also saw participation from FJ Labs, Panthera Peak Partners and select angels such as Abhishek Goyal (founder Tracxn), Abhinav Sinha (global COO Oyo), Ravi Khandelwal and others.

Ritesh Khandelwal and Ankit Jaipuria, co-founded Zyod in January 2023 with a vision to transform the apparel sourcing and manufacturing ecosystem in India. The firm has introduced a technology platform as a one stop shop for fashion brands to leverage India’s vast manufacturing footprint and
source high quality products at the best possible MOQ, the firm said in a statement.

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“Solving for every brand, irrespective of the scale, Zyod can provide a new range of products within 21 days with an as low as 50 pieces MOQ. This combination of 5x faster sourcing at 50x lower MOQs makes it a lucrative option for global brands and buyers. Since its inception, Zyod has witnessed a steady market demand and has already served over 150 customers across 13 countries, democratizing and simplifying fashion sourcing for every brand, retailer and wholesaler,” it said.

Globally, consumers are increasingly embracing fashion trends faster, which has led to the rise of fast fashion brands. What this means for every fashion brand is that it needs to be in closer sync with trends and consumer choices. However, fashion manufacturing and sourcing has remained relatively unchanged which means high volume buying, often at long lead times, leading to large unsold inventory at season end.

Despite making high gross margins, fashion brands often end up being unprofitable due to large inventory write-offs every year. Zyod’s agile supply chain is solving this mega problem for fashion brands and retailers across the world, the firm stated.

Ankit Jaipuria and Ritesh Khandelwal, co-founders of Zyod, said, “While fashion is rapidly transforming globally, the incumbent supply chain has not kept pace with how rapidly consumers have evolved and it needs a complete reimagination of manufacturing itself, to build for the future. At Zyod,
we are making fast fashion accessible to every brand/retailer using our unique, agile supply chain.

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Zyod plans to use the funds to further strengthen the technology platform and team. From adding more manufacturers and suppliers to introducing new features, Zyod will continue to build a larger network of MSMEs in the apparel sourcing and manufacturing segment. The brand is actively hiring across functions such as product, tech, marketing, and operations.

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

Lightspeed raises $500 million early-stage fund for India and South East Asia

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

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Lightspeed, backer of startups like BYJU’s, Oyo, Razorpay, and ShareChat, has launched a $500 million fund dedicated to India and South East Asia to double down on early-stage bets.

“In the early 2000s, Lightspeed started building a global footprint given our conviction that the future of technology and entrepreneurship would be global. Today, Lightspeed has 70 investors located across 12 cities globally,” said Bejul Somaia, Partner, Lightspeed.

“By intentionally constructing cross-border deal teams, we’re able to offer founders local market knowledge and relationships, together with deep sector domain knowledge. In doing so, we’re all exposed to, and are learning from, the innovation that is happening across the world in order to better serve our founders,” Somaia added.

Also read: BYJU’s faces more questions as another Rs 1,200 crore fundraise goes off track

Lightspeed India is not alone in launching a larger fund for Indian startups this year amid a funding winter. Other global VC firms like Sequoia Capital raised $2.85 billion to fund startups in India, Southeast Asia. Matrix Partners India also started the process to raise a larger fourth fund of $450 million. Accel India, raised $650 million for its seventh fund in March.

Alongside India IV fund, the Silicon Valley-headquartered VC firm has also announced the closing of Fund XIV with $1.98 billion, Select Fund V with $2.26 billion, and Lightspeed Opportunity Fund II with $2.36 billion of committed capital.

With this, Lightspeed has raised over $7 billion to fund early- and growth-stage entrepreneurs around the globe, 60 percent more than its last flagship fundraise. The company said with the fresh capital, it will focus on expanding its early stage bets and supporting its large and growing global platform.

Also read: MFine merges with LifeCell International’s diagnostics arm after laying off over 400 staff

The VC firm has also unveiled Lightspeed Faction, an independent team dedicated to building on the company’s nine-year history of backing founders in blockchain infrastructure, a statement said.

Lightspeed has partnered with more than 500 enterprise, consumer, health and fintech founders and their companies. Roughly a fourth of those companies have either been acquired or gone public, with 33 IPOs over the years, it added.

The firm has invested over $1.5 billion in close to 100 global fintech companies including $600 million specifically in blockchain and emerging use cases.

Also read: Innoviti closes series D round at $45 mn and HealthifyMe’s growth plans

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

Hubilo raises $4.5 mn from Lightspeed

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

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Hubilo, a global virtual events platform, has raised USD 4.5 million (about Rs 33.2 crore) in funding, led by venture capital firm Lightspeed. Marquee tech angels, including Girish Mathrubootham (CEO Freshworks), Nishant Rao (ex-CEO LinkedIn India), Jonathan Boutelle (Co-founder, Slideshare), and Abinash Tripathy (CEO Helpshift) also participated in the seed funding round, Hubilo said in a statement late Monday night.

The company, which started its journey amidst the COVID crisis in April, has grown over 40X organically and is projected to exceed USD 10 million in booking run rate and host over one million attendees in the next few months, it added. The USD 800 billion global events industry was one of the hardest hit by COVID-19 but organisers are migrating online rapidly and also expanding their attendee base.

Hubilo said it is building a ’system of record’ for virtual events. On one end, Hubilo offers gamified experiences to increase attendee engagement, and on the other end, it offers deep integrations with platforms such as Marketo and Salesforce to provide actionable insights to organisers and sponsors and they can see the return on investment from their event-related budgets. Customers like the United Nations, Roche, Informa Markets, Tech In Asia, Fortune and GITEX are already using Hubilo for their events, the statement said.

”Our vision is to build the world’s smartest platform for virtual events that brings Experience + Intelligence together. While the revenue growth has been phenomenal, what excites us most is re-imagining and leading the marketing stack that will emerge around virtual events and unlocking massive value for key stakeholders such as CMOs, event organisers and sponsors,” Vaibhav Jain, Founder and CEO of Hubilo, said.

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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

Hubilo raises $4.5 million from Lightspeed to build an intelligent hub for virtual events

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

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Hubilo, a global virtual events platform has raised a $4.5 million seed round, led by Lightspeed and backed by marquee tech angels, including Girish Mathrubootham (CEO Freshworks), Nishant Rao (ex-CEO LinkedIn India), Jonathan Boutelle (Co-founder, Slideshare), and AbinashTripathy (CEO Helpshift).

Starting its journey amidst the COVID-19 crisis in April, Hubilo claims to have grown over 40x organically and is projected to comfortably exceed $10 million in bookings run rate and host over one million attendees in the next few months.

The company adds that the $800 billion global events industry was one of the hardest hit by the COVID-19 but organizers are migrating online rapidly and also expanding their attendee base. For example, Apple’s WWDC attendance went from 6,000 developers in 2019 to several million online this year.

The team believes that one of the biggest differentiators for Hubilo is its gamified experiences to increase attendee engagement, and deep integrations with platforms such as Marketo and Salesforce to provide actionable insights to organizers and their sponsors who can finally prove ROI from their event-related budgets.

Vaibhav Jain, Founder & CEO of Hubilo said, “While the revenue growth has been phenomenal, what excites us most is re-imagining and leading the marketing stack that will emerge around virtual events and unlocking massive value for key stakeholders such as CMOs, event organizers and sponsors. We do this through deep platform instrumentation and integrations that track attendee engagement, lead quality, and other event-related data. It is fantastic to have Lightspeed along in our journey as we ramp up a world-class team and business in the US and beyond.”​

Having already roped customers like the United Nations, Roche, Informa Markets, Tech In Asia, Fortune and GITEX, Hubilo is seeing strong pull as well as repeat usage from clients in US, EMEA and APAC markets.

“Hubilo is, hands down, one of the fastest-growing SaaS companies we’ve ever seen. We had been looking for a founder to back in this market for a long time and Vaibhav is a true Lightspeed founder: a strategic builder who has plans to change the sector, lead it globally and an intense passion for and deep insights on this market from having previously run a hybrid events company”, added Hemant Mohapatra, Partner at Lightspeed.

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

STARTUP DIGEST: Here’re top updates of the day

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

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There were many developments in the startup space during the day, which include UK-based Compass Group’s India unit in talks to acquire food-tech firm SmartQ, Lightspeed Venture Partners expands its operations to Southeast Asia, Walmart Foundation announces two new grants to help India’s smallholder farmers, Amazon India sets up all-women delivery station in Gujarat Amazon India, and Shiprocket launches accelerator program Rocket Fuel for Direct to Consumer startups.

Here’re top startup stories of the day:

UK-based Compass Group’s India unit in talks to acquire food-tech firm SmartQ
Online food-tech startup SmartQ that provides services in the digital cafeteria segment is in talks to be acquired by UK-based Compass Group’s India unit for $6-7 million, a source has told Moneycontrol.

The talks were at an advanced stage and the deal could be announced shortly, the person in know of developments said, without sharing the details.
Dev Amritesh, Managing Director for Compass Group in India, declined to comment. SmartQ did not respond to Moneycontrol’s emailed queries on the deal and the status of the talks.

Lightspeed Venture Partners expands its operations to Southeast Asia
Lightspeed Venture Partners launched its Southeast Asia operations. Headquartered in Singapore, Lightspeed will partner and support the region’s entrepreneurs building companies. It will deploy capital for its Southeast Asian investments from its global funds, where it has previously announced having raised $4 billion in 2020.

Lightspeed has been investing in Southeast Asia, with investments such as Grab, Chilibeli, Ula, Shipper and NextBillion, and is looking to accelerate further.

Walmart Foundation announces 2 new grants to help India’s smallholder farmers
Walmart Foundation, the philanthropy arm of retail major Walmart, announced two new grants totalling $4.5 million (around Rs 33.16 crore) to help improve farmer livelihoods in India.

The new grants will help two NGOs — Tanager and PRADAN — to further scale their efforts to help farmers earn more from the improved output and fair market access. Both grantees will focus on increasing opportunities for women farmers via farmer producer organisations (FPOs), it added.

In the latest round of Walmart Foundation grants, international non-profit organisation Tanager will receive over $2.6 million to extend its Farmer Market Readiness Program and help farmers in Andhra Pradesh. Delhi-based PRADAN will receive $1.9 million to launch its Livelihood Enhancement through Market Access and Women Empowerment (LEAP) program in West Bengal, Odisha and Jharkhand in eastern India.

Amazon India sets up all-women delivery station in Gujarat Amazon India; also launches its first fulfilment center in Bihar
Ecommerce major Amazon India has set up an all-women delivery station in Kadi, Gujarat – its second such facility in the country. The new all-women delivery station, operated by a delivery service partner, is part of the company’s efforts towards increasing participation of women in the workforce.

Kadi is located close to 50 kilometers from Gujarat’s capital Ahmedabad, with a population of close to 80,000 people. In 2016, the company had launched its first all-women delivery station in India, with its partner in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
Amazon India also announced the launch of its first Fulfilment Centre (FC), in Bihar. With more than a lakh cubic feet of storage space, the new fulfilment center will be located in Patna and help better serve customers within the region and neighboring states.

Shiprocket launches accelerator program Rocket Fuel for Direct to Consumer startups
Tech-enabled D2C logistics aggregator Shiprocket has launched Rocket Fuel, a start-up accelerator program to help D2C start-ups scale their business exponentially.

Shiprocket plans to invest anywhere between $100,000 and $500,000 in each startup selected in Cohort. Funding will be a mix of credits from various companies plus cash from angel and venture capital investors.

The program is designed to help D2C startups scale up without the typical capital required to scale up. In addition, to D2C brands the accelerator program will also include technology startups which are enabling the D2C ecosystem.

Funding of the day:

Zuper raises $1.1 million in seed funding, led by Prime Venture Partners and others
Workforce management startup Zuper raised $1.1 million in seed funding, led by Prime Venture Partners and participation from Gunderson Dettemer & Gemba Capital.

The company is planning to use the fresh funds to aggressively grow and expand in North America, UK & SouthEast Asia. It is also looking to hire across all functions in the US and in India.

Angel platform Inflection Point Ventures invests in AFK Gaming
Esports content platform that focuses on Asian content for a global audience AFK Gaming, raised $200k in a Pre-Series A round from Inflection Point Ventures, an early-stage investing platform. AFK Gaming’s website has scaled its reach 4X since January of this year.

SuperCric raises funds from Nordanvind Gaming for India’s first ‘Cricket Manager’ platform
Sports tech startup of the Kabbadi Adda fame AnalytIQ Sports Technologies raised an angel funding of an undisclosed amount for India’s first ‘Cricket Manager’ simulation game ‘SuperCric’. This funding is raised from Malta based company, Nordanvind Gaming.

The funds raised by SuperCric will be used to invest deeply in product development and customer acquisition. The company plans to launch the game and expand its user base to 10 million by the end of the IPL.

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

STARTUP STREET: Here’re top startup updates of the week

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

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There were many developments in the startup space during the week, which include IPL 2020 found a title sponsor in fantasy gaming unicorn Dream11, global VC firm Lightspeed closed its biggest fund in India, Reliance Retail entered India’s buzzing epharmacy space and Airbnb is all set to go public. Here’s your weekly dose of news from the world of startups, technology and entrepreneurship.

1. Dream11 wins IPL 2020 title sponsorship for Rs 222 crore; has no immediate fundraising plans
Gaming unicorn Dream11 has won the title sponsorship rights of Indian Premier League 2020 for Rs 222 crore. Dream11 is a fantasy sports platform that allows users to play fantasy cricket, hockey, football, kabaddi and basketball.

Earlier this month, Chinese company Vivo had pulled out of this year’s commitment as the title sponsor of IPL. Founded in 2008 by Harsh Jain and Bhavit Sheth, Dream11 is India’s only gaming unicorn and valued above $1 billion. The platform has more than 8 crore users. In 2018, it announced a partnership with ICC (International Cricket Council), Pro Kabaddi League, International Hockey Federation (FIH) and BBL.

According to Crunchbase, Chinese technology conglomerate Tencent has invested $100 million in Dream11. Other investors in the Indian gaming unicorn include Kalaari Capital, Steadview Capital, Multiples Alternate Asset Management and Think Investments.

In 2018, Dream11 had roped in Indian cricket team wicket-keeper and former captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni as its brand ambassador. Dream11’s revenue grew 3x to Rs 800 crore in FY2019 from Rs 230 crore in FY18. However, its losses widened to Rs 130 crore in FY19 from Rs 65 crore in FY18, according to Tracxn.

In an exclusive interview to CNBC-TV18, CEO & co-founder of the gaming platform, Harsh Jain said he expected the Dream11 brand to gain from the brand recall and popularity of IPL. He added that the Dream11 brand is at an inflection point, and the association with IPL will benefit the company in terms of revenues and valuation, and help it break even.

Jain said while the company is looking forward to expanding its offerings and client-base, it is well capitalised. On news reports of new fund raising, he clarified that the company is continuously in conversation with investors, especially large technology investors in India. Any future fundraising will be via secondary route as the company expects early investors to exit.

2. Lightspeed India looking for ‘Bold Entrepreneurs’ building for India with new $275 million fund
Multi-stage venture capital firm Lightspeed India Partners has closed its new fund Lightspeed India Partners III, with a commitment of $275 million from global institutional LPs. As businesses work towards an ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’, Lightspeed will be looking for ‘bold entrepreneurs’ building for India and the world.

Lightspeed India Partners III is the venture capital firm’s biggest fund in India to date, having raised $175 million via its second fund in 2018 that bet on consumer internet and software players and $135 million when it launched its first India dedicated fund in 2015. With the new fund, the venture capital investor’s assets under management will exceed $1 billion in the country.

It has already invested over $750 million in India so far, across its domestic and global investment arms. Since its inception in India in 2007, Lightspeed has focused on accelerating disruptive innovations and trends in the enterprise and consumer sectors. The firm is an investor in some of the most valuable startups in the country like edtech platform Byju’s, B2B commerce firm Udaan and hospitality group OYO.

3. M&A action in India’s epharmacy segment
• Reliance Retail Buys Majority Stake In Netmeds

Reliance Retail acquires majority equity stake in Vitalic Health and its subsidiaries Netmeds for a cash consideration of approximately Rs 620 crore. The investment represents around 60 percent holding in the equity share capital of Vitalic and 100 percent direct equity ownership of its subsidiaries — Tresara Health, Netmeds and Dadha Pharma Distribution.

Vitalic and its subsidiaries are in the pharma distribution, sales, and business support services. Its subsidiary run Netmeds that connects customers to pharmacists and enable door step delivery of medicines, nutritional health and wellness products.

• PharmEasy, Medlife seek CCI approval for merger
E-pharmacy companies PharmEasy and Medlife have sought approval of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for a potential merger. As per the CCI filing, PharmEasy looks to acquire 100 percent equity shares of Medlife. Medlife and its promoters will get 19.59 percent of the equity share capital of PharmEasy’s parent company API Holdings.

4. CCI dismisses anti-trust case against WhatsApp
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has dismissed a case against WhatsApp, saying the company has not abused its dominant position to expand in the country’s digital payments market, according to an official order.

A case filed in March alleged that WhatsApp was bundling its digital payment facility – WhatsApp Pay – within its messaging app for which it already has a large user base in the country.

The case alleged WhatsApp was abusing its position by forcing its payments feature on to its existing users, according to a Reuters report.

In an official order, India’s competition watchdog said it did not find any contravention of antitrust laws, adding the company’s “actual conduct is yet to manifest in the market” as it has not fully launched the service yet.

“As stated by WhatsApp, the number of users being served under the beta version is limited to less than 1% of its users in India,” said the order.
In its defence, the company had told the CCI its users are not required to register for or use WhatsApp’s payment feature in order to use the messaging service, the order said.

The order will come as a relief for WhatsApp, which is seen close to a full launch of its payments service in its biggest market by users but one where it has for months struggled to get required clearances. The Supreme Court is separately hearing cases challenging the expansion of its payment service, as reported by Reuters.

5. Fundraising This Week
• Ed tech startup LEAD School has raised $28 million in a Series C funding round led by Westbridge Capital along with existing investor Elevar Equity. The firm that helps private schools digitize their curriculum will use the funding to accelerate the development and roll out of new products, increase its school network in Tier 2-3 cities and hire talent across domains.

• Logistics SaaS platform for predictive visibility, FarEye has raised an additional $13 million as an extension to its Series D investment led by The Fundamentum Partnership and Korea based KB Global Platform Fund. This is the second time this year that FarEye has been able to raise funds to support its hyper-growth in global markets, making it a total of $51 million in investment so far. In April, FarEye had raised $24.5 million in Series D from M12 (Microsoft’s venture fund) with participation from Eight Roads Ventures, Honeywell Ventures, and existing investor SAIF Partners.

• Lifestyle-community-commerce platform Trell announced a $11.4 million Series A round led by KTB Network. Samsung Ventures, Ankur Nagpal, CEO of Teachable, Gokul Rajaram (Board Member, Pinterest, Square, DoorDash) and Vineet Buch (Ex-Head of Google Play Store Development) also participated via Firebolt Ventures in the round along with existing investors Sequoia’s Surge, Fosun RZ Capital, and WEH Ventures.

• FPL Technologies has raised $10 million in Series A financing round with participation from Sequoia India, Matrix Partners India, Hummingbird Ventures, and a number of reputed angel investors. The company has also announced the launch of its mobile-first credit card, OneCard.

• Space tech startup Pixxel has raised $5 million in seed funding led by Blume Ventures, growX ventures and Lightspeed India. The round also included contributions from Inventus Capital India and other angel investors including Stanford Angels and Ryan Johnson, a veteran in the earth imaging space.  The new funding will strengthen Pixxel’s plans for its first satellite launch later this year and accelerate development of the second satellite that the team plans to launch next year. The bigger plan is to deploy 30 satellites by December 2022 for its global constellation.

• ‘Pay-As-You-Use Water Purifier’ startup DrinkPrime has raised $3 million in a Pre Series-A round from Omidyar Network India and Sequoia Surge. The Bangalore based company plans to use the funds to strengthen its team and invest in its growth plans.
• Homegrown short video sharing platform Chingari raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Brian Norgard, the Chief Product Officer of Tinder, and leading French entrepreneur Fabrice Grinda, Founder of OLX. OLX founder Fabrice Grinda has more than 200 investments in several big firms including Alibaba Group and Airbnb Norgard has earlier invested in startups like SpaceX, Lyft, and NotionHQ.

• UK’s publicly owned impact investor – CDC Group commits 10 million dollars to Chiratae Ventures’ Fund IV to support the growth of early stage scalable, tech-enabled startups in India.
• Top Global News This Week:

Airbnb IPO is coming soon as rentals rebound
Travel rental platform Airbnb has announced that it has submitted a draft registration to the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering.

The company did not give details or share financial information nor did it specify how many shares would be offered. The filing comes in what has been a rough year for the travel industry worldwide.

Earlier in May, the company had laid off nearly 1,900 employees or 25 percent of its workforce as the business came to a complete halt due lockdowns and travel bans across the world. The company has however reported a steady improvement in rentals in the last few months.

Airbnb was valued at $18 billion in April after it raised funds to help it navigate the pandemic. That was nearly half, of what the company was worth in 2017.

Apple becomes first US company to reach $2 trillion market cap
Apple becomes the first US company to reach the $2 trillion market cap, making it the first publicly traded US company to achieve this milestone. The company has doubled in valuation in just over two years.

The iphone maker was also the first to reach a $1 trillion market cap in August 2018 . The company also surpassed the state-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco to become the world’s most valuable publicly traded company after reporting blowout quarterly results last month.

The stock is up over 55 percent in 2020 so far and Apple’s market value is now higher than the GDP of numerous developed countries, including Italy, Brazil, Canada, Russia and South Korea, among others.

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