Looks like the house of brands strategy is FTW!
CarDekho has acquired the self-drive car rental platform Revv in a bid to enter the shared mobility space. The autotech group, which houses brands including BikeDekho, ZigWheels, and InsuranceDekho, aims to offer a one-stop automobile-focused ecosystem to customers.
Also, Ola Electric sold a record 30,000 e-scooters in November, its Founder Bhavish Aggarwal announced on X. The EV maker, which recently converted to a public limited company ahead of IPO, has shown 30% month-on-month growth in sales, Aggarwal said.
ICYMI: Here’s how spatial computing is going to change the way we watch sports.
Lastly, YourStory recently concluded the inaugural Delhi edition of startup-tech summit TechSparks. The conference saw entrepreneurs and industry stakeholders including Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Deepinder Goyal, and Kunal Bahl talk about the future of the Indian startup ecosystem.
You can check out the full coverage here.
In today’s newsletter, we will talk about
- InsuranceDekho’s new plans
- Decoding the HPV vaccine
- India’s love for pizza
Here’s your trivia for today: Which is the longest movie ever made?
Techsparks
InsuranceDekho eyes lending, credit cards
Insurance policy aggregator platform, InsuranceDekho, has plans to venture into other financial products, including lending and credit cards, revealed Founder and CEO Ankit Agrawal.
The CEO divulged the company’s future diversification plans during a fireside chat with YourStory Founder and CEO Shradha Sharma at TechSparks 2023 in Delhi.
Key takeaways:
- Having raised a whopping $200 million in the last nine months, InsuranceDekho doubled its operating income to Rs 96.5 crore in FY23 while reducing losses by 29% to Rs 52 crore.
- The startup targets onboarding two lakh agent partners on its platform by March 2024, and claims to be on track to achieve overall premiums worth Rs 3,600 crore this fiscal.
- At present, 75% of its revenue comes from selling motor insurance, followed by other segments like fire, marine, health, travel, and pet.
<Top deals of the week>
Startup: EMotorad
Amount: $20M
Round: Series B
Startup: PhiCommerce
Amount: $10M
Round: Series A1
Startup: ShipGlobal
Amount: $2.5M
Round: Seed
Health
Decoding the HPV vaccine
Cervical cancer is the second-most common cancer in India, where an estimated 1,23,907 new cases are reported each year, leading to 77,348 deaths.
While HPV vaccines can prevent infection as well as many HPV-related cancers, misinformation, stigma, and healthcare disparity have been major obstacles in the path of awareness around HPV vaccination.
Breaking barriers:
- The early signs of cervical cancer include abnormal vaginal bleeding, pelvic pain, and pain during intercourse, and experts suggest regular cervical cancer screenings for its early detection.
- Gynaecologist Dr Teena Anne Joy says that misinformation about the vaccine often raises concerns about its safety and efficacy.
- The National Technical Advisory Group for Immunisation (NTAGI) has recommended introducing the HPV vaccine in the Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP) for adolescent girls aged 9-14 who will be administered primarily through schools.
Food
India’s love for pizza
In 1996, when Domino’s Pizza and Pizza Hut arrived in India, the country was quick to accept the dish since it had a striking similarity to roti (Indian flatbread). With the addition of local vegetables and meat, it became a meal in itself.
In 2019, India’s pizza market stood at $1.5 billion according to Euromonitor International, owing to the popularity of the ‘international’ dish.
Live for pizza:
- Domino’s is the market leader in the organised pizza market with a 50% market share and 70% share in the pizza home delivery segment in India.
- Not just global brands, but homegrown QSRs Brik Oven, Chicago Pizza, and Fat Lulu’s are also betting big in the pizza market.
- Two pizzerias from Delhi-NCR—Da Susy (Gurugram), which offers Naples-style pizza, and Leo’s Pizzeria (Vasant Vihar)—made it to the highly-anticipated list of top 50 pizzerias in the Asia-Pacific for 2023.
News & updates
- At last: Tesla is set to start deliveries of its long-delayed, much-hyped Cybertruck electric pickup after its CEO, Elon Musk, earlier cited problems in ramping production. Cybertruck will be priced starting at $60,990, over 50% more than what Musk had touted in 2019.
- Keeping scores: Google has called on the UK’s antitrust regulator, CMA (Competition and Markets Authority), to take action against Microsoft, claiming its business practices had left rivals at a significant disadvantage. Microsoft and Amazon have faced mounting scrutiny over their dominance of the cloud computing industry.
- Back on track: Smartphone sales will mount a comeback starting in 2024, defying growing warnings of a prolonged slump across the mobile sector, according to separate projections by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. The latter predicts global smartphone shipments will rebound by nearly 4% in 2024 and by 4.4% in 2025.
Which is the longest movie ever made?
Answer: The Cure for Insomnia, directed by John Henry Timmis IV. Released in 1987, the movie runs 85 hours.
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