Hello Reader,
Economic downturn—are we there yet? Not quite.
For three straight days now, Indian indices extended their gains from the previous week, ending higher on Monday. While the Nifty ended at over 15,800, the Sensex jumped 433 points. As inflation fears eased, stocks across Asia and Australia too experienced gains.
In other news, India’s gig workforce is about to explode. A report by Niti Aayog predicts that the country will have 2.35 crore gig workers by FY 2029-30, up from just 77 lakh in FY 2020-21. It added that gig workers are expected to form 6.7 percent of the non-agricultural workforce, or 4.1 percent of the total livelihood in India, by FY 2029-30.
Niti Aayog also recommended extending social security measures for such workers and their families in partnership mode as envisaged in the Code on Social Security.
Also, it’s Elon Musk’s birthday!
Bigbasket’s quick commerce push
India’s quick commerce segment has been busy with well-funded players like Zepto, Swiggy Instamart, and Zomato-backed Blinkit leading the fray. Meanwhile, Ola shut down its quick commerce operations.
When Bigbasket launched its quick commerce play—BBNow—in Bengaluru in December, it seemed like it was late to the party. But the Tata-backed company has a plan.
Today, BBNow covers nearly 50 percent of Bigbasket’s existing customer base, with a network of 160 stores across the top 10 Tier I cities of the country.
Bigbasket’s gameplan:
- Bigbasket aims to expand its dark store network to 300 stores across these cities by mid-August, to serve 80 percent of its existing customer base. The company plans to add 40 dark stores in Tier II cities such as Lucknow, Kochi, Vadodara, and Vizag.
- The average dark store is spread across 2,500 to 3,000 square feet, serving a radius of up to 2.5 kilometres. Its estimated capex for setting up averages Rs 50-60 lakh per store.
- While quick commerce has been pushing the envelope, BBNow aims to deliver the majority of orders in under 30 minutes, with 96 percent of them being delivered within 26 minutes.
“We started with 10 to 20-minute deliveries but that is overkill. It can take a delivery executive nearly 12 minutes to move from the gate to an apartment to the ninth floor of a high-rise. We do not want to pass on the additional pressure to delivery boys,” said TK Balakumar, Chief Operating Officer at Bigbasket.
Bigbasket delivery
What is PancakeSwap?
There’s SYRUP in your crypto! PancakeSwap, one of the most popular decentralised crypto exchanges (DEXs) on BNB Chain (previously Binance Smart Chain), regularly posts $500 million+ daily (24 hours) trading volumes.
Despite being launched by a group of anonymous developers in 2020, it has been audited by prominent blockchain security firms such as Certik and Slowmist. Users can not only use the platform to trade/swap crypto tokens but also provide liquidity, stake funds in return for BNB, and more.
CAKE, SYRUP Pools, and more:
- PancakeSwap uses an Automated Market Maker (AMM) design, meaning it does not follow an order book system (a feature of centralised exchanges) where traders are matched with each other.
- Users can use PancakeSwap via its website (through a browser extension like MetaMask, an inbuilt browser in Trust Wallet, and so on).
- Since its launch, PancakeSwap has seen several upgrades and feature additions. The current version is referred to as PancakeSwap (V2), and simplifies the process of adding more features to the DEX.
Making education more data-driven
India’s education system is driven by scoring marks so much so that students often forego attaining knowledge for it, especially in lower-tier cities where availing the right resources can be difficult.
Educationist Sushil Agrawal decided to bridge this gap and launched Saarthi Pedagogy in 2018. The B2B edtech startup leverages technology to assist schools, teachers, and students with a learning management system.
Saarthi Pedagogy provides schools with a dashboard that gives an overview of the entire school’s performance, including students and teachers. Apart from tracking attendance, the platform tracks every student’s performance on tests.
What’s on offer:
- The dashboard identifies common problems students face and gives teachers visibility into learning gaps.
- It uses an AI-based auto homework generator to produce homework for students based on their performances on tests.
- Academic kit and a STEM kit for students.
“Technology enables the identification of the tiniest data points, which helps to fill the gaps in teaching and learning,” Sushil says.
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