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Good morning!

A lot of things changed with the dawn of the new normal following the coronavirus outbreak, but for the fintech industry, things turned around quickly.

Bengaluru-based fintech startup PhonePe pivoted rapidly and announced work-from-home even before the nationwide lockdown. Other employee initiatives, from ESOPs to fun team collaborations were also brought about as the company went about “reorganising the workplace”. The digital payments provider also recognised the behavioural shift in fintech from person-to-person to merchant-led digital payments. It went on to add several new functionalities to its platform.

Speaking at YourStory’s recent Future of Work conference, PhonePe Co-founder and CTO Rahul Chari said that fintech leader’s key takeaways from the pandemic is that there is more to gain from rapidly investing across the urban and rural user base, than taking a linear approach to business.

With employees in organisations across the globe experiencing pandemic fatigue and deteriorating mental health, PhonePe moved quickly to conduct virtual sessions to keep its workforce engaged and introduced ‘Do Not Work From Home’ days to help maintain their work-life balance.

Manmeet Sandhu, Chief People Officer at PhonePe, said at the Future of Work event that the company is also focused on creating a diverse and inclusive work culture. PhonePe places a high premium on the openness of thought, collaboration, and holistic approach to work, she said.

The Interview

COVID-19 brought about a quick change in consumer behaviour and new trends emerged due to rapid digitisation. Varun Alagh, Co-founder, MamaEarth says that the startup reached positive unit economics riding on organic and direct traction through D2C channels. The impact of the pandemic has largely been positive, he adds, with 90 percent of MamaEarth’s businesses coming from new users in Tier-II and III towns.

Editor’s Pick: India Quotient’s investment bets

For homegrown early-stage venture capital fund India Quotient, it doesn’t matter if the founders approach them with unfinished plans on paper; it is ready to take bold bets. The VC firm recently announced the launch of its fourth fund with a corpus of $80 million, which will be directed at very early-stage startups. Since 2012, IQ has invested in 70 startups, with the average cheque size ranging from $250,000 to $1.25 million. Read more.

Startup Spotlight

Bridging the gap in experience-based learning through academic and extracurricular classes

Growing up, many of us ended up rote learning to make our way through the school curriculum. Realising the gap in the current education system, Yashovardhan Poddar and Akshay Rampuria launched Openhouse in 2018 to help students with academic lessons and extracurricular learning. The startup, which earlier ran offline coaching centres, moved online due to the pandemic. Read more.

News & Updates

Before you go, stay inspired with… 

“Make sure that the problem statement you’re solving is a real problem statement, and that it is a problem that needs to be solved. And if, at any given point, you get the signals that you shouldn’t be chasing this, make sure that you’re ready to pivot.”

— Rahul Chari, Co-founder and CTO, PhonePe

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