IC Bytes of the Week: 06/12/20
Welcome to IC Bytes, where we quickly sum up the hottest news of the week in tech and business — in layman terms that our young readers can easily understand.

⚡Top things that happened

Flipkart announces PhonePe spin-off, digital payments company to be valued at $5.5 billion

E-commerce giant Flipkart is doing a partial spin-off of PhonePe, India’s largest digital payments platform. The move will help PhonePe access dedicated, long-term capital to fund its growth ambitions including going public by 2023.

In this financing round, PhonePe is raising $700 million in primary capital at a post-money valuation of $5.5 billion from existing Flipkart investors including Tiger Global, led by Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, according to the industry sources. They said PhonePe’s pre-money valuation is $4.8 billion.

Source: TechStory

The fresh funding would come to PhonePe in two tranches of $350 million each and help PhonePe to compete with rivals such as Google Pay, Amazon Pay and Alibaba-backed Paytm.

2. Amazon India plans to use electric vehicles for last-mile delivery

Amazon is reportedly in talks with a clutch of electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers to procure customised electric vehicles for last-mile deliveries. It is in talks with both automobile giants and startups including Mahindra Electric, Kinetic Green, Bengaluru-based Altigreen, Hyderabad’s e-trio and Gayam Motor Works and Delhi-based EV aggregator SmartE. Kinetic is expected to start commercial deliveries of its electric rickshaws to Amazon delivery partners this month, with an initial order of 250–300 units.

While the talks with other EV manufacturers are still underway, these companies are reportedly are running pilots to showcase their products before scooping up larger orders. Beyond the big EV order, Amazon may also make strategic investments in some of these companies to align long-term interests in servicing its requirements. The e-commerce giant is looking for EVs that can carry a payload of about 500–600 Kg with a range of about 150 Km and a top speed of 50 Km per hour.

Amazon’s e-commerce rival Flipkart has committed to transition into a 100% EV fleet by 2030.

3. Oyo has $1 billion to fund operations until IPO, CEO tells employees

Ritesh Agarwal, founder and chief executive officer of Oyo Hotels, told employees the Indian startup is making progress in recovering from the coronavirus fallout and has about $1 billion to fund operations until an initial public offering.

The founder made the comments in a chat with Oyo board member Troy Alstead, after the once high-flying company endured months of layoffs and losses as Covid-19 hammered its business. Oyo is one of the largest startups in the portfolio of SoftBank Group Corp., reaching a valuation of $10 billion before the downturn.

Agarwal said the company’s focus is on getting revenue per available room to 60% to 80% of pre-pandemic levels across all markets. India, China, Japan and Southeast Asia are making progress in reaching that range, he added.

4. Indian SaaS firms set to rake in $18–20 billion revenues by 2022

SaaS (Software as a service) companies founded by Indian entrepreneurs are poised to reach USD 18–20 billion in revenue, with the potential to capture 7–9 per cent share of the global SaaS market by 2022, a report by Bain & Company said on Tuesday.

The ‘India SaaS Report 2020’, which analysed a wide range of Indian SaaS companies, said four key archetypes of Indian SaaS companies are expected to gain further traction.

This includes SMB-focused SaaS companies (like Zoho and Freshworks) that target global markets with easy-to-use horizontal offerings and vertical-specific SaaS companies (like Locus and Innovaccer) that are disrupting underserved verticals like healthcare and logistics.

Also, globally competitive companies in emerging tech (such as Postman and Hasura), and India initiators with products tailored for the domestic Indian market (Darwinbox, MyGate and Yellow Messenger) are expected to see strong growth.

5. Razorpay, PayPal come together to help MSMEs

Razorpay has partnered with global digital payments major PayPal to enable seamless international payments for Indian micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and freelancers.

The company’s partner businesses can now integrate with PayPal and accept payments from international customers from across 200 markets conveniently and securely, reducing wait time from days down to minutes, Razorpay said.

Traditionally, micro-entrepreneurs have found it difficult to accept international payments on cards via payment gateways as many of them could not pass the eligibility checks at the banks’ end. By integrating PayPal into Razorpay’s payment platform, freelancers and MSMEs will now be able to accept international payments without having to write a single line of code, Razorpay said.

6. Artificial intelligence alone can add $500 billion to the economy: Google India

Google India on Thursday said artificial intelligence alone can add USD 500 billion to the economy, and assist in the better forecast of floods and accurate diagnosis of diseases.

The company has committed USD 10 billion for expanding India’’s digital footprint, a top official said.

Source: The Economic Times

Google had recently picked up a 7.73 per cent stake in Reliance Industries Ltd’’s (RIL) digital subsidiary, Jio Platforms Ltd. The two companies have also announced plans to come up with “an entry-level affordable smartphone”.

7. Funding: Cred raises $80M in Series B funding as valuation almost doubles, MobiKwik raises funding of INR 52 crore, Eightfold AI raises $125M

CRED, an app that helps you pay and manage your credit card bills, has raised $80 million. The round was led by DST Global and also saw participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital and Ribbit Capital.

With the Series C round of funding, the Kunal Shah-led startup’s value has almost doubled to $800 million — from its valuation of $450 million a year ago. This brings the just two-year-old startup closer to being a unicorn (with a valuation of over a billion dollars). It raised funds twice in 2019 alone — $125 million series A round and $120 million series B funding from Sequoia, Ribbit Capital, and more.

Fintech platform MobiKwik on Friday announced that it has raised INR 52 crore in a fresh round of funding that was led by Hindustan Media Ventures with the participation from Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan’s family office Pratithi.

MobiKwik will use the fresh capital for growth in all key business segments of the firm, i.e. in digital credit and cards, consumer payments and payment gateway.

Talent intelligence platform Eightfold AI said that it has raised USD 125 million in its latest funding round, valuing the Noida-based company at USD 1 billion. The Series D round was led by General Catalyst, and existing investors such as Capital One Ventures, Foundation Capital, IVP and Lightspeed Venture Partners, the company said.

So far, the AI-powered talent intelligence platform that uses a single solution to manage the entire talent lifecycle, has raised more than USD 180 million. Eightfold has more than quadrupled its sales since the last round of equity funding in April 2019 and boasts of a customers base that includes Tata Communications, AirAsia, Bayer, Capital One and Micron.
['Team Internclick']
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