Fireside is cashing in on its Mamaearth investment.
The early-stage VC firm sold Honasa Consumer shares worth Rs 230.2 crore on Tuesday in a bulk deal, according to data available with the NSE. The fund sold 60.88 lakh shares, or 1.9% stake, at Rs 378 per share, booking a profit of more than 4,500%.
In other news, ZestMoney is winding up. The BNPL startup is reportedly shutting down operations and letting go of its remaining 150 employees.
Addressing employees at a town hall meeting on December 5, the fintech company announced its decision to wind down operations and has promised employees two months of severance pay and outplacement support. The crisis at ZestMoney started after the Reserve Bank of India barred non-banks from loading credit lines into prepaid payment instruments, typically e-wallets.
Meanwhile, Vedantu has a new COO. Following a nearly two-year tenure at another edtech unicorn Unacademy, Arnab Dutta has assumed the role of Vedantu’s Chief Operating Officer.
Lastly, how much money does the world owe? Here’s a look at our global debt of $97 trillion.
In today’s newsletter, we will talk about
- Swiggy shakes things up ahead of IPO
- Paytm dials down on small-ticket loans
- Helping enterprises make sense of data
Here’s your trivia for today: Which cricketer was the first to score a century for India?
Foodtech
Swiggy shakes things up ahead of IPO
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Image credit: Shutterstock
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Foodtech startup Swiggy has been making a series of changes as it gears up for its initial public offering (IPO) sometime next year. On Wednesday, the company said it has appointed Anand Kripalu, Managing Director and Global Chief Executive Officer of packaging firm EPL Limited, as an independent director and chairperson of the board.
To woo price-conscious customers, it has launched a feature called Pocket Hero, which offers extra cashback and discounts of up to 60% on food orders from select restaurants.
Get ready:
- Kripalu was previously the MD and CEO of alcohol beverage company Diageo India and has held various leadership positions in consumer goods firms including Unilever and Mondelez India (formerly Cadbury).
- Swiggy introduced several new features in pilot mode this year. In April, it launched the ecommerce service Maxx, which promised to deliver utility goods such as pet care supplies, electronics, and stationery items within an hour.
- Last week, Prosus—one of Swiggy’s earliest and biggest backers—said in its annual report that the startup’s food delivery business grew 17%, delivering a gross merchandise value of $1.43 billion in the first six months of the year.
<Funding Alert>
Startup: The Sleep Company
Amount: $22M
Round: Series C
Startup: VoiceClub
Amount: $700K
Round: Seed
Fintech
Paytm dials down on small loans
Fintech company Paytm will slow down on disbursing small ticket loans less than Rs 50,000—referred to as Postpaid loans—and focus on high-ticket lending for consumers and merchants.
The move will lead to a nearly 40-50% drop in the volume of loans given out through the platform’s post-paid product, said President and COO Bhavesh Gupta.
Changing track:
- For high-ticket personal and commercial loans, Paytm has partnered with one large bank and two non-bank financial companies (NBFCs).
- Merchant loans, which are given to MSMEs as business loans, will continue to be a focus for Paytm
- The development comes as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) tightened norms for personal loans and credit cards in the form of higher capital requirements for banks and NBFCs by increasing the risk weightage by 25 percentage points.
Startup
Helping enterprises make sense of data
Chennai-based Ongil.ai provides businesses with AI-driven solutions for agile and data-informed decision-making to empower more dynamic business processes.
The instant messaging platform helps senior management across industries speed up analytics tasks by up to 95% using data collection insights generated with features like real-time visualisation and predictive analytics.
Harmonising data:
- Founded in 2017, the startup was among YourStory’s Tech30 2023 list of the year’s most promising Indian startups announced at the Bengaluru edition of its flagship startup-tech summit TechSparks.
- Ongil.ai has so far raised around $400,000 from angel investors including Lakshmi Narayanan, former Vice-Chairman and CEO of Cognizant.
- It currently operates in Southeast Asia, Japan, and the US.
News & updates
- Spying: Unidentified governments are surveilling smartphone users via their apps’ push notifications, warned a U.S. senator. In a letter to the Department of Justice, Senator Ron Wyden said foreign officials were demanding the data from Alphabet’s Google and Apple.
- Buyback: ByteDance, parent of TikTok, is offering to buy back up to $5 billion from investors. The new offer, earlier reported by the South China Morning Post, is pitched at $160 per share, the same level as ByteDance offered to employees in November.
- Upgrade: Google announced the launch of its latest, most powerful AI model, Gemini, which has three sizes. The company is planning to license Gemini to customers through Google Cloud for them to use in their own applications.
Which cricketer was the first to score a century for India?
Answer: Lala Amarnath, who scored 118 against England at the Bombay Gymkhana in 1933.
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