According to TechCrunch, citing sources, the deal is expected to be finalised “within weeks” and involves a share-swap agreement….reports Asian Lite News
Media firm Dailyhunt is in the advanced stages of talks to acquire homegrown microblogging platform Koo, a media report said on Wednesday.
According to TechCrunch, citing sources, the deal is expected to be finalised “within weeks” and involves a share-swap agreement.
Founded in 2020, Koo is owned by Bengaluru-based Bombinate Technologies.
The company was founded by Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka and is often considered to be India’s version of Elon Musk’s X.
In a statement to IANS, Dailyhunt parent VerSe Innovation’s spokesperson said that they have no comment on recent speculations.
“Our focus remains on our core objectives,” the spokesperson added.
In September last year, Bidawatka said that the company is looking to “partner with someone who has the distribution strength to give Koo a massive user impetus and help it grow.”
In a LinkedIn post, he mentioned that the next phase for Koo is to “build scale and that will happen with either funding or through a strategic partnership with someone who already has scale” in the “current reality of a slow investor market.”
In April last year, Koo said that it had let go of 30 per cent of its workforce over the course of the year amid the current global meltdown.
The company had told IANS that it is important for businesses of all sizes to adopt efficient and conservative approaches to see this period through.
Union Budget 2022-23 likely to give more incentives to boost startups.
Veteran investor and Info Edge Founder Sanjeev Bikhchandani said that he believes that good governance is important as companies grow….reports Asian Lite News
Recent governance issues with well-funded and “poster boys” of startups have added to the ongoing bearish trend for the ecosystem amid the funding winter, industry leaders and experts said on Wednesday.
As startup majors Paytm and Byju’s make the headlines for several issues amid the regulatory heat, investors have turned cautious about conducting a thorough due diligence process.
Veteran investor and Info Edge Founder Sanjeev Bikhchandani told IANS that he believes that good governance is important as companies grow.
“You cannot build a sustainable large valuable enterprise if you are not governed well. Therefore, I would urge startup founders to put more emphasis on good governance,” he added.
According to Shrijay Sheth, Founder, Legalwiz.in, financial mismanagement and compliance-related issues are surfacing often these days.
“While the startup founders will assume a role of a custodian of investor’s money, it is also important for the investors to take an active role in flagging such issues in time, especially, when they hold a board or an observer seat.
“Most of these issues surface while raising funds or when the business lacks financial performance,” he noted.
Incubators, accelerators and other government funded programmes need to educate nascent stage founders, according to experts.
First-time entrepreneurs stay non-compliant largely because of lack of knowledge, than any other reason.
“Many requirements like labour-related compliance, POSH policy implementation, or maintaining basic accounting hygiene remain unaddressed due to lack of awareness. This needs to be addressed,” said Sheth.
Due diligence and corporate governance are crucial factors at every stage of a startup’s journey.
“At DevX Venture Fund, we have always emphasised strong corporate governance and ethos. We invest at an early stage and hence it is crucial to set the right expectations of how an organisation should run,” Umesh Uttamchandani, CoFounder, DevX Venture Fund, told IANS.
Conducting regular monthly calls with the portfolio startups and providing clarity to “our investors happens to be of utmost importance as the founders ought to be accountable after raising funds and enable potential investors to engage with the founders who have clean books”.
Tech debts are casting a wide-reaching shadow across CSP (Communications Service Providers) organisations…reports Asian Lite News
About three-quarters of companies globally reported 55 per cent or more of legacy tech debt in the last year, a new report showed on Wednesday.
According to the global IT services firm Accenture, tech debts are casting a wide-reaching shadow across CSP (Communications Service Providers) organisations, impacting business outcomes beyond the IT function.
“Tech debt is a huge challenge for CSPs that can only be overcome by decoupling legacy systems and building the foundation for a Digital Core capitalising on the new opportunities generative AI and digital tech offer,” said Mathangi Sandilya, Global Technology Industry Group Lead, Communications & Media, Accenture.
“Our research found that companies with lower tech debt have consistently outperformed their peers in terms of IT costs, business agility as well as financial growth so the urgency to accelerate transformation is clear,” she added.
The report surveyed 252 global CSP senior executives and decision-makers. The survey took place in November 2023 across 22 countries.
According to the report, the financial and operational costs of maintaining the legacy systems are rising (year-over-year).
About 84 per cent of CSP executives said their company will miss future growth opportunities if it fails to accomplish ongoing IT transformation and 77 per cent recognise that modern IT systems can streamline their IT architecture and lay the foundation for a nimble telco in the future.
When it comes to the implementation of best practices and advancing towards higher stages of technology adoption, only a handful of CSPs have achieved the advanced state.
Around 93 per cent cited cloud-first infrastructure as a significant capability, but only 26 per cent are following advanced practices in transforming their operating model, the report noted.
Similarly, with AI, 91 per cent acknowledged the importance of the technology for their business, yet only 22 per cent have integrated it into customer and network operations.
Slootman said that there is no better person than Ramaswamy to lead Snowflake into the next phase of growth and deliver on the opportunity ahead in AI and machine learning…reports Asian Lite News
Indian-origin Sridhar Ramaswamy has been named as the Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors of US-based data cloud company Snowflake.
Ramaswamy, who previously held the position of Senior Vice President of AI at Snowflake, replaces Frank Slootman who has decided to retire but will continue to serve as Chairman of the Board.
“In the last 12 years, Frank and the entire team have established Snowflake as the leading cloud data platform that is providing enterprises with the secure, scalable and cost effective data foundation and cutting-edge AI building blocks they need to build for the future,” said Ramaswamy.
“I am honored to have been chosen to lead the company into this next chapter of growth. We have an enormous opportunity ahead to help all customers leverage AI to deliver massive business value. My focus will be on accelerating our ability to bring innovation to our customers and partners,” Ramaswamy added.
Since joining Snowflake in May 2023 in connection with the company’s acquisition of Neeva, the world’s first private AI-powered search engine, Ramaswamy has been spearheading Snowflake’s AI strategy.
He led the launch of Snowflake Cortex, Snowflake’s new fully managed service that makes AI simple and secure for all users to quickly drive business value.
Slootman said that there is no better person than Ramaswamy to lead Snowflake into the next phase of growth and deliver on the opportunity ahead in AI and machine learning.
“He is a visionary technologist with a proven track record of running and scaling successful businesses. I have the utmost confidence in Sridhar and look forward to working with him as he assumes this new role,” Slootman said.
Prior to joining Snowflake, Ramaswamy co-founded Neeva in 2019.
Previously, Ramaswamy led all of Google’s Advertising products, which included search, display and video advertising, analytics, shopping, payments, and travel.
During his 15 years at Google he was an integral part of the growth of AdWords and Google’s advertising business from $1.5 billion to over $100 billion.
Ramaswamy also held research positions at Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies, and Bell Communications Research (Bellcore).
He was a Venture Partner at Greylock Partners from October 2018 until recently, and he sits on the board of trustees at Brown University.
The 13th largest airline in the world, AirAsia currently flies directly to Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok from 14 Indian cities….reports Asian Lite News
The Malaysia headquartered AirAsia airline, which would soon add Jaipur, Vishakapattinam and Ahmedabad to its route map, is looking to add more Indian Tier 2/3 cities, said a senior official of the airline.
The official said that India is a key market for AirAsia as it contributes about 18 per cent of the total revenue.
The 13th largest airline in the world, AirAsia currently flies directly to Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok from 14 Indian cities.
“We are now looking beyond the metro cities in India. We have the bilateral rights for Patna and Calicut. We want to connect Madurai, Coimbatore and other Indian cities as well,” said Kesavan Sivanandam, Chief Airport & Customer Experience Officer, AirAsia, told the media here on Tuesday.
According to Sivanandam, the airline fleet strength is 225 aircraft, out of which 200 are flying now post the Covid pandemic.
He said there is a lot of pent up demand in India where passenger load is not an issue. The major issue is the availability of aircraft and maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facilities.
Sivanandam said AirAsia has a market share of 51 per cent between India and Malaysia.
According to Razaidi Abd. Rahim, Overseas Director (Chennai) of Tourism Malaysia, till November last year, about 5,87,000 Indians had travelled to Malaysia.
He said with visa-free entry till December 2024, the number of Indians visiting Malaysia is expected to touch about 7,00,000.
Sivanandam said AirAsia will continue to maintain a major share of the projected passenger traffic between the two countries.
He said the average age of the fleet is 12 years and the airline has placed orders for 650 new planes and the deliveries are set to begin by the end of this year.
Byju’s key investors — Prosus, General Atlantic, Sofina and Peak XV — have moved the tribunal against the embattled edtech major over its $200 million rights issue….reports Asian Lite News
Key investors in Byju’s alleged on Tuesday that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) is investigating diversion of funds of over $500 million by the edtech company to a hedge fund in the US.
In the ongoing hearing at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in Bengaluru, the investors alleged that the address of the hedge fund was a “pancake shop” and its founder “is a 23-year-old without any training”.
“About $533 million has been siphoned off. He (Byju Raveendran) wants us to invest more money. How will we be protected?”
Byju’s key investors — Prosus, General Atlantic, Sofina and Peak XV — have moved the tribunal against the embattled edtech major over its $200 million rights issue.
During the hearing, the investors claimed that “if the amount is parked in their bank account especially when the man is sitting abroad and is not coming to India, it will become irreversible”.
Earlier in the day, the investors argued that the process adopted by Byju’s for its $200 million rights issue is “in breach of laws”.
They said that the board of directors had to call an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) of shareholders before the rights issue so that they could vote.
“The board of directors did not call a general body meeting before rights issues as they are aware that the general body is not in their favour,” argued the lawyer on investors’ behalf.
“Our 25.4 per cent stake will come down to 2.5 per cent if we don’t subscribe to the rights issue. If we subscribe, we don’t know what happens to our money,” the investors said.
Byju’s argued that the investors were “forum shopping” by approaching the NCLT.
“If the NCLT passes any order today, it will dilute the order of Karnataka HC,” the company’s lawyer said.
“The investors are not looking at the interest of 100 million students and the 12,000 employees but only at their value maximisation.”
“It has been 21 months since our last capital raise,” the company added.
Goyal urged the captains of Indian industry to contribute to the holistic and comprehensive vision of expanding the domestic manufacturing footprint…reports Asian Lite News
Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday said that with the triple track of strong macroeconomic fundamentals, huge thrust in infrastructure creation and social welfare push, India has been at the forefront of global growth for the past decade.
In his address at the ‘Viksit Bharat@ 2047 Conclave’ organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) here, the Minister said that the government is undertaking various initiatives to promote manufacturing in the country.
Goyal urged the captains of Indian industry to contribute to the holistic and comprehensive vision of expanding the domestic manufacturing footprint in the world and make India a Viksit Bharat by 2047.
He urged them to be ‘vocal for local’ and be a part of job creation, giving impetus to the service sector and tourism in the country.
The Minister said that the thrust of increased foreign investments coupled with the nation’s contribution of a 3D vision of democracy, demography and demand, India’s economy is on fast track.
He said that the projected earnings from exports that the government expects from the manufacturing sector in the coming years will also help boost the economy.
The Minister said that India is one of the preferred destinations both for investment and as a sourcing hub to cater to the world demand.
He further said that the aspirational India is a big demand aggregator and also acts as a booster for the manufacturing industry.
India has become an important player in the renewable energy manufacturing sector, said Goyal. He emphasised that India has stepped up automobile manufacturing and will double its manufacturing capacities in the construction sector too.
He also said that India is a leader in the electrical manufacturing space and with the inclusion of women and youth in the workforce, the consumption of fast moving goods and electronic products have seen a rapid increase giving a leg up to the electronic manufacturing industry.
Goyal said that the auto component industry has become a pride of the nation exporting $20 billion of goods with an aspiration target of $100 billion by 2030. He added that the government has set its focus to develop a semiconductor industry and is also looking to promote ship building in the country providing impetus to increase in goods manufacturing in the country.
The minister said that India has an important role to play in global value chains that provides a fillip to add to the manufacturing investments and capacities of the nation.
He further added that due to its high quality and affordable production, India has the potential to serve the needs of the world.
GeM Aims Big
The Government e-Marketplace (GeM) is set to close the fiscal year ending March 2024 with sales of Rs 4 lakh crore to the government from the turnover of Rs 422 crore in its first year of operation, Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, Piyush Goyal, said on Tuesday.
Speaking at the ‘Startup Mahakumbh’ curtain-raiser event in the national capital, the Union minister said the GeM now has over 23,000 registered startups doing business with the government.
GeM, created in a record time of five months, facilitates online procurement of common use goods and services required by various government departments, organisations and PSUs.
“The Government e-Marketplace is a startup itself. It started after ‘Startup India’,” the minister told the gathering.
The government is geared up to organise the first-ever ‘Startup Mahakumbh’, a celebration of homegrown startups, at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi from March 18-20.
The minister further said that youngsters coming out of colleges today are not job seekers but “want to be job creators”.
“This can-do spirit is what we will be reflecting at the ‘Startup Mahakumbh’,” Piyush Goyal mentioned to startup leaders and community at the event.
The event is expected to host over 1,000 startups, more than 10 thematic tracks, over 1,000 investors, more than 500 incubators and accelerators.
GeM aims to enhance transparency, efficiency and speed in public procurement. It provides the tools of e-bidding, reverse e-auction and demand aggregation to facilitate the government users, achieve the best value for their money.
RBI said this action is based on the deficiencies in regulatory compliance of the two banks…reports Asian Lite News
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced on Monday that it has imposed penalties on the State Bank of India (SBI) and Canara Bank for non-compliance with banking regulations and RBI directions.
The RBI in an order dated February 26 slapped a penalty of Rs 2 crore on State Bank of India for contravention of provisions of the Banking Regulation Act and not complying with the Depositor Education Awareness Fund Scheme.
The RBI said that an examination of the Risk Assessment Report/Inspection Report revealed, inter alia, that SBI held shares as pledgee of an amount exceeding 30 per cent of paid-up share capital of certain companies and also failed to credit eligible amount to the Depositor Education and Awareness Fund within the period prescribed in the BR Act.
Similarly, the RBI has imposed a penalty of Rs 32.30 lakh on Canara Bank for non-compliance with certain directions issued by the central bank on ‘Data Format for Furnishing of Credit Information to Credit Information Companies and other Regulatory Measures’.
The RBI said that an examination of the Risk Assessment Report/Inspection Report and all related correspondences in the case of Canara Bank revealed, inter alia, non-compliance with the aforesaid directions by the bank, to the extent it (i) failed to rectify the rejected data and upload the same with the Credit Information Companies (CICs) within seven days of receipt of such rejection report from the CICs, and (ii) restructured certain accounts which were not standard assets as on March 31, 2021 under the extant directions.
However, RBI also said this action is based on the deficiencies in regulatory compliance of the two banks and is not intended to pronounce upon the validity of any transaction or agreement entered into by the bank with its customers.
Harshil Mathur said that regulations have played a crucial role in driving innovation, financial inclusion and co-creating financial literacy…reports Asian Lite News
Regulations in the fintech industry have enabled India to become a global benchmark in fintech and unified payments interface (UPI)-based services are one such example, Harshil Mathur, CEO of full-stack financial services platform Razorpay, said on Monday.
Speaking to IANS, Mathur said that regulations have played a crucial role in driving innovation, financial inclusion and co-creating financial literacy.
“We firmly believe that regulations in the fintech industry have enabled India to become a global benchmark in the sector,” Mathur emphasised.
Transactions via the UPI platform surpassed the 100 billion-mark in 2023 to close at around 118 billion, representing 60 per cent growth as compared to 74 billion transactions recorded in 2022.
The total value of UPI transactions in 2023 stood at around Rs 182 lakh crore, up by 44 per cent as compared to Rs 126 lakh crore in 2022, according to latest data by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).
Mathur said that the Digital India Stack is now a global benchmark for most countries, providing a competitive advantage for growing businesses.
“As the financial ecosystem and digital payment transactions grow, compliance and governance have to go hand in hand. Regulators have efficiently balanced innovation with risk management while they allow people to innovate,” Mathur stressed.
Currently, the key regulatory bodies that regulate fintechs in India are the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
The RBI last month released a ‘draft framework for recognising Self-Regulatory Organisations (SRO) for FinTech Sector’, laying down the characteristics of a fintech SRO, and includes the required functions and governance standards.
According to the Central Bank, “self-regulation within the fintech sector is a preferred approach for achieving the desired balance”.
The Razorpay CEO said that given the growing prominence of the fintech industry, “it becomes a must for companies to possess the right regulatory insights and uphold high responsibility to ensure compliance, creating a layer of trust, protection and shield for the entire financial ecosystem”.
When it comes to data, the digital P2M (person-to-merchant) payments market in the country is likely to reach $4 trillion by 2030.
Razorpay said it has achieved an annualised total payment volume (TPV) of $150 billion across its business verticals.
“Recognising the ever-expanding potential of startups, freelancers and enterprises, the company believes businesses today require an intelligent real-time financial infrastructure to scale with evolving payment and banking needs and diverse consumers and markets,” Mathur added.
India has the fourth-highest funded fintech startup ecosystem globally. The enterprise fintech industry in the country is poised to expand exponentially, with projections estimating a market size of nearly $20 billion by 2030.
According to a latest report by Chiratae Ventures, in collaboration with The Digital Fifth, investment in technology across financial segments is expected to witness high growth over the coming decade.
According to Prabhakar, economic growth in Q3 FY24 though is a tad slower than Q2, it is uneven across sectors with a few of them registering better growth than others….reports Asian Lite News
Government owned mortgage lender Bank of Baroda (BOB) on Friday predicted India’s gross domestic product (GDP) in Q3 FY24 to grow at 6.4 per cent on the back of subdued growth in industrial and agricultural sectors.
“For Q3FY24, the economy is projected to grow at a slower pace by 6.4 per cent against a growth of 7.6 per cent in Q2FY24 led by subdued growth in agriculture and industry sector. Service sector is expected to lift up growth,” Jahnavi Prabhakar, Economist said in a report.
According to Prabhakar, economic growth in Q3 FY24 though is a tad slower than Q2, it is uneven across sectors with a few of them registering better growth than others.
For the full year the estimate is 6.8 per cent. Going ahead for FY25 growth will be at a similar level of 6.75-6.8 per cent, Prabhakar said.
According to the IMF, the Indian economy is projected to grow by 6.7 per cent for the current fiscal, upgrading the estimates by 40bps from its previous forecast in Oct ’23. For FY24 and FY25, the economy is expected to grow by 6.5 per cent for both the years, on the back of ‘resilience in domestic demand’.
“On the other hand, the World Bank expects the economy to clock a growth of 6.3 per cent in FY24 and 6.4 per cent in FY25 led by strong domestic demand, growing infrastructure spending along with robust private sector credit growth,” Prabhakar said.
Against these forecasts, as per the NSO advance estimates, the economy is expected to grow by 7.3 per cent for the current fiscal. RBI has pegged the country’s growth at 7 per cent in FY24 with Q3FY24 and Q4FY24 growth at 6.5 per cent and 6 per cent respectively.
For FY25, it is projected at 7 per cent with downside risk emerging from escalation of geopolitical tensions and volatility in the financial markets, Prabhakar said.
GDP.
Recently credit rating agency ICRA said India’s GDP will grow at 6 per cent in Q3 FY2024 from 7.6 per cent in Q2 FY2024
500 Stocks Top $1 Billion Market Cap, Market Depth Surges
The market depth in India has increased considerably over the last few years with the number of stocks with more than $1 billion market cap nearly doubling to 500.
While the largest cap stocks (more than $50 billion) are still few, most of the largest caps are also privately owned and well run, foreign brokerage Jefferies said.
The number of stocks with more than $1 billion market cap has nearly doubled to 500 since 2019.
“The Indian equity markets are the only ones across the major emerging market (EM) economies which have consistently given more than 10 per cent annualised returns over the last 5-year/10-year/15-year/20-year periods.
“We believe that more than 10 per cent US$ returns seem sustainable given that India is witnessing a multi-year cyclical uptrend. In terms of positioning, Indias equities are most under-owned by global EM active funds since 2014.
“As India’s weight in MSCI EM has gone up, foreign investors have still not shored up Indian equities with the same proportion, leading to most under-owned position by global EM funds which we believe should change going forward,” the report said.
“Savings in equity is still a small chunk of the overall investment pie in Indian households. Our proprietary analysis of India’s household savings data shows that equity holdings and flows as a percentage of household assets and annual savings is less than 5 per cent,” it added.
With growing awareness towards long-term savings into equities through mutual funds in India, Jefferies estimates the structural flows from retail to the equity markets at $30-35 billion/annum.
“Indeed, just reallocation within the savings pie is enough to sustain retail flows in the market. Auto-deducted monthly flows into equities (SIPs) are just 10 per cent of annual incremental bank deposits; and can gain further share,” the report said.
India rank’s fifth not only in terms of nominal GDP, but also in terms of market cap. India’s market cap stands at $4.3 trillion, behind the US ($44.7 trillion), China ($9.8 trillion), Japan ($6 trillion) and Hong Kong ($4.8 trillion).
India’s market cap to GDP is 1.2x, which is still lower compared to the major economies such as the US and Japan which are at 1.9x and 1.4x, respectively.
