🚀 Medial Secures Investment on Shark Tank India - Fueling the Future of Professional Social Networking. 🔥
Login

News on Medial

Related News

To India with love: boAt founder Aman Gupta to delve deep into product innovation, building a household brand, challenges, and lessons at the ET Soonicorns Summit 2024

Economic TimesEconomic Times · 11m ago
To India with love: boAt founder Aman Gupta to delve deep into product innovation, building a household brand, challenges, and lessons at the ET Soonicorns Summit 2024
Medial

The ET Soonicorns Summit 2024 is scheduled to take place on September 20 in Bengaluru. This edition of the summit will focus on celebrating soonicorns - startups on the verge of becoming unicorns. A special Fireside chat with Aman Gupta, founder and CMO of boAt, will be held, discussing the journey of building a successful D2C brand. The summit aims to provide insights into product innovation, consumer-centric approaches, appealing to Gen-Z, data-driven strategies, and entrepreneurial resilience. The event will feature key industry leaders, investors, founders, and policymakers sharing their expertise. Registration for the summit is available.

Shraeyansh Thakur resigns from Peak XV after a decade

EntrackrEntrackr · 5m ago
Shraeyansh Thakur resigns from Peak XV after a decade
Medial

Shraeyansh Thakur resigns from Peak XV after a decade During his tenure at Peak XV, he was board member and observer for startups like Atlys, Meesho, Cars24, ApnaMart, Unacademy, Zetwerk, Urban Piper, Bijnis, among others. Shraeyansh Thakur, an investor at Peak XV Partners, has resigned after nearly 10 years at the venture capital firm, sources told Entrackr. This marks the fifth high-profile exit from Peak XV in the past year. “Shraeyansh Thakur has decided to quit the firm and is likely to launch his own venture soon,” said one of the sources requesting anonymity. Queries sent to Peak XV and Thakur did not elicit any response until publication of the story. "After an incredible 9+ years at Peak XV / Sequoia India, I have decided to embark on a new entrepreneurial journey. The next 10 years are going to be India’s golden digital decade and our founders now have true belief to create the world’s best companies from India," said Thakur in a Linkedin post. Last month, Peak XV’s managing partners, Shailesh Lakhani and Abheek Anand, stepped down after serving for more than a decade. Prior to that, Anandamoy Roychowdhary, a partner at Peak XV's Surge, departed after over 11 years at the firm, while Piyush Gupta, then Managing Director, left after seven years to launch his secondary-focused fund, Kenro Capital. Meanwhile, Rishen Kapoor, co-founder and CEO of SaaS startup Toplyne, has returned to Peak XV Partners after his three-and-a-half-year-old venture shut down. In October last year, Peak XV reduced its $2.85 billion fund by 16% as part of a strategic shift towards investing in a more measured manner amid elevated valuations in the Indian market. This development came a year after Sequoia Capital rebranded as Peak XV.

Jason Kothari’s new startup Mythik raises $15 Mn in Seed round

EntrackrEntrackr · 3m ago
Jason Kothari’s new startup Mythik raises $15 Mn in Seed round
Medial

Jason Kothari, the former Snapdeal executive, has raised $15 million in a seed funding round for his new startup, Mythik. The round saw participation from Sakal Media Group, BITKRAFT, VC Grid, Visceral Capital, Jason Kothari, Shah Rukh Khan’s family office, Patni family office, Saif Saeed Ghobash, Jayanti Kannai, Pravin Jain, Marc Younan, Deepen Parikh, Samir Vora, Samarth Parekh, Anurag Goel, Nishant Aggarwal, and others. Launched by Kothari last month, Mythik is a tech-first global entertainment company aiming to bring Eastern mythology, history, and folktales to a worldwide audience for the first time and to create a "Disney from the East." Jason Kothari, Founder of Mythik, said, “We are excited about the world-class and strategic investors we have brought together and look forward to realizing Mythik’s vision and mission—to bring Eastern mythology, history, and folktales to the forefront of global entertainment and inspire happiness, peace, and hope.” The company’s founding team includes former senior executives from Disney, Netflix, Amazon Studios, Jio, and Tencent. Kothari’s entrepreneurial journey began at Wharton, where he acquired the bankrupt comic book publisher Valiant Entertainment and led its turnaround. He later sold the company to DMG Entertainment for $100 million and served as executive producer of Bloodshot, a film based on a Valiant character, starring Vin Diesel. Kothari joined Housing.com in 2015 and was named CEO following the exit of founding CEO Rahul Yadav. He later served as CEO of FreeCharge for eight months and as Chief Strategy and Investment Officer at Snapdeal for one and a half years.

No hurry to sell, indefinite horizon on Zomato holding: Sanjeev Bikhchandani

EntrackrEntrackr · 1y ago
No hurry to sell, indefinite horizon on Zomato holding: Sanjeev Bikhchandani
Medial

Info Edge, India’s largest and most storied recruitment portal, has had a stellar run in the last three years with its portfolio company Zomato’s market cap surging almost 2.3X since its stock exchange debut. The firm’s bet on fintech unicorn Policybazaar is also paying off well. The company has made it clear it is in no hurry to book profits on these investments, even as it continues to nurse its own brands beyond Naukri to profitability. The firm, one of the few to survive the dotcom boom and bust cycle of 2000, has been led by founder and chairman Sanjeev Bikhchandani for a large part of this journey. And today, Bikhchandani has earned the right to be looked up to as the statesman for the sector. Entrackr caught up with Bikhchandani in his Gurugram office and he spoke on a range of topics including Naukri, Info Edge’s investments, serial entrepreneurs and corporate governance. Here are the edited excerpts. As a listed firm that carries a heavy overhang from its investment portfolio, does it worry you that it might impact the valuation of the core Naukri business? Not really. Institutional investors are smart. We give them adequate data so that they analyze Naukri thoroughly before making a conclusion about valuation. We don’t run Naukri for valuation every day or month or quarter. We look at how we create value for our shareholders in the long run. And that’s how we run our businesses. So, this hypothesis about our core or even group business doesn’t stand. Info Edge has been an investor in Zomato for over 14 years and despite the latter’s share price rising nearly 14o% from its listing price, Info Edge didn’t sell its shares. What level of return are you anticipating from Zomato? Actually, we don’t calculate Investment Return Rate (IRR). Info Edge invested in Zomato because of our conviction that it could become a great company. And if you are convinced about your conviction then it will happen. So, IRR is the happy incidental outcome of investing early behind companies that you want to help. That’s my belief. We are not in any hurry to sell and have an indefinite horizon. Every VC firm has a fund cycle and pressure to return capital to their limited partners but that’s not the case with Info Edge as you are investing from your own balance sheet. Could you elaborate on this? That pressure does not make this choice. We have a long term horizon and we call it patient capital. To be a successful early stage investor in India, you have to be quite patient because companies take anywhere between 10-15 years to go to IPO from seed stage. So if you have funds for only 6-10 years, you will not realize the full fruits of your investment. If you have a 20 year fund, you tend to perform better. However, such a horizon could be possible only when you’re investing from your own whole balance sheet. Do you believe that Blinkit could become bigger than Zomato? I think both are large but Blinkit is going to be fairly large. If we look at Zomato’s quarter-on-quarter numbers, online food ordering appears to have stagnated in top 10-15 cities. What’s your take on this? Obviously, there is the base effect. But, we don’t see stagnation. Also, you need to compare year-on-year, not quarter-on-quarter. When YoY numbers are compared, there is growth. I think full fiscal year performance is more important than quarter. We used to commonly hear about Naukri’s recruitment business that it was not the online presence, but your sales force or feet on the street that made the difference. Does that still hold true? Online sales have never been a big part of our strategy. When you want to sell more expensive products, you need face-to-face contact. At Naukri, we have clients whom we bill several crore rupees for annual subscription and such accounts need heavy offline touch. While the product will be consumed online, the stuff around it very often will be offline. Over the years, several players have tried to crack the recruitment business in the blue collar segment but most of them died. What are the challenges in the segment? Blue collar segment has broadly three challenges. First, it’s hyperlocal. The job seekers in this segment don’t move to different cities as they look for opportunities in and around their locality. Second, very often there isn’t a detailed text CV which makes the process slow and inefficient. Third, potential workforce in the segment do not search for jobs on the laptop and use vernacular languages. They are mostly on mobile. So you’ve got to adapt to all these things and still somehow get revenue and profit. We have been trying to get inroads in the blue collar segment for over two years now but we have just started monetizing it. Our future position in the segment depends on monetization. Some of the celebrated entrepreneurs are launching a second or third company without their first startup churning profit. How do you see this trend? I think this isn’t a progressive trend. As an entrepreneur, you need to focus on one thing and do really well. Once you’ve cracked that you can add on a second thing in the same company. Over the past couple of years, we have witnessed corporate governance issues with some startups. Even Info Edge saw serious lapses at 4B Networks. What’s your opinion about this? By and large, my belief is that 95-98% of Indian founders are genuine but there will be a few bad examples. Investors make sure that when something wrong happens in their portfolio, it is highlighted and actions are taken to ensure that such incidents do not repeat. Any governance issue isn’t good for anyone including limited partners, investors, founders and the startup ecosystem. What factors contributed to the lack of success with Info Edge’s e-commerce investments 99labels, MyDala, and Happily Unmarried? Limitation of raising foreign direct investment (FDI) and heavy investment into competition were two major reasons for failure of 99labels while MyDala had a product market fit (PMF) issue. Happily Unmarried is now a part of VLCC and we are still a shareholder there.

Funding and acquisitions in Indian startup this week [14 - 19 Oct]

EntrackrEntrackr · 10m ago
Funding and acquisitions in Indian startup this week [14 - 19 Oct]
Medial

During the week, 39 Indian startups raised around $449.33 million in funding. These deals count 12 growth-stage deals and 16 early-stage deals while 11 startups kept their transaction details undisclosed. Last week, 32 early and growth-stage startups cumulatively raised over $134 million in funding. [Growth-stage deals] Among the growth-stage deals, 12 startups raised $389.62 million in funding this week. Edtech startup Eruditus spearheaded with a $150 million funding round. Omnichannel beauty platform Purplle raised $60 million followed by cloud-based service intelligence platform Neuron7.ai, D2C jewelry startup Giva, and SaaS platform Everstage with $44 million, $30.3 million, and $30 million in funding, respectively. [Early-stage deals] Further, 16 early-stage startups secured funding worth $59.71 million during the week. Elder care startup Primus Senior Living led the list followed by cloud-based MLOps workflow orchestration platform Simplismart, a platform for teacher workforce development and global teacher mobility, Suraasa, AI startup Budy.bot, and gallium nitride (GaN) startup AGNIT Semiconductors among others. Meanwhile, Traqo, Brown Living, SuperUs, Evenflow, ANNY, Healspan, Magnus Farm Fresh, SportsSkill, PetStrong, Kingdom of White, and Medprime Technologies also raked in funding but did not disclose the transaction details. For more information, visit TheKredible. [City and segment-wise deals] In terms of the city-wise number of funding deals, Bengaluru-based startups led with 16 deals followed by Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad, et al. Segment-wise, E-commerce startups are on the top spot with 12 deals. Fintech, AI, Edtech, Healthtech, Logistics, and Biotech startups followed the list among others. [Series-wise deals] During the week, seed funding deals are on top, with 15 deals followed by Series B, pre-Seed, pre-Series A, Debt, and Series A deals among others. [Week-on-week funding trend] On a weekly basis, startup funding jumped 234.27% to $449.33 million as compared to around $134.42 million raised during the previous week. The average funding in the last eight weeks stands at around $353.43 million with 30 deals per week. [Fund launches] Anicut raised $11 million for its Private Credit Fund 3 through the GIFT City Structure. SBI Foundation and Villgro launched a fund called “Innovators for Bharat” focused on agritech startups. Tetr College of Business launched a $10 million fund to invest in early-stage student entrepreneurs. Additionally, Sundaram Alternates launched its PCOF – Series I fund. [Key hirings and departures] The startup ecosystem witnessed 6 notable hirings this week. AuthBridge onboarded Naveen Goyal as Chief of technology and products. Invest4Edu welcomed Manish Sahijwani as chief business officer, and DMI Finance hired Niraj Khandelwal and Rachit Gupta to take on different roles. Meanwhile, Mamaearth’s chief product and technology officer Jayant Chauhan, upGrad’s co-founder and managing director Mayank Kumar, and Krutrim’s business head Ravi Jain resigned. [Mergers and Acquisitions] This week, four notable acquisitions took place in the Indian startup ecosystem. Licious acquired My Chicken and More, IBM purchased Prescinto, Indium took over Experion, and Jetapult acquired UMX Studio. Visit TheKredible to see series-wise deals along with amount breakup, complete details of fund launches, and more insights. [Potential Deals] OYO eying $200 Mn funding for US expansion strategy Temasek’s Fullerton to take control of Lendingkart in distressed acquisition Zepto to rake in $100 Mn funding from Motilal Oswal and family offices [Financial results this week] Qure.ai revenue soars 83% to Rs 141 Cr in FY24, slashes losses Licious reports Rs 685 Cr revenue in FY24; cuts losses by 44% BharatPe revenue climbs to Rs 1,426 Cr in FY24, losses shrink 50% Tractor Junction revenue soars 2.3X in FY24; cuts losses by 51% Acko hits Rs 2,000 Cr revenue threshold with lower losses in FY24 Rentomojo posts Rs 193 Cr revenue in FY24; profits jump 3.6X [News flash this week] RBI bars NAVI, DMI Finance, and others from loan sanctioning and disbursal Navi breaks into top 5 UPI apps in September as PhonePe maintains lead 8i Ventures earns 12X return on full exit from M2P Fintech Mamaearth ranks as India’s 3rd largest skincare brand: Euromonitor Zomato to raise $1 Bn funds via QIP Temasek files notice to CCI for investment in Rebel Foods CleverTap and Mensa Brands plan India return to pursue IPO BlueStone plans Rs 2,100 Cr IPO by Q2 2025 PayU defers IPO plan to next fiscal year Ola Electric taps EY to address service challenges Zerodha launches fund to support open-source projects Government to introduce social security policy for gig workers Karnataka to impose a transaction fee on online aggregators Swiggy executives and investors sell shares worth Rs 670 Cr ahead of IPO [Conclusion] After two weeks of a slow funding inflow, the weekly funding bounced back with 39 startups raising $449.33 million this week. The week saw four startup-focused fund launches namely Anicut Capital, Innovators for Bharat, Tetr College of Business, and Sundaram Alternates. Ola Electric has engaged consulting firm EY India to help improve its after-sales service operations. EY is expected to provide advice on streamlining business processes, inventory management, and expanding the company’s on-ground presence. This move comes in response to increasing customer complaints and declining sales volumes. Zerodha, a leading fintech unicorn, has launched a new fund called FLOSS/fund to support Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FOSS) projects. The fund aims to provide financial assistance to these projects, which often face challenges in financial sustainability. Zerodha believes that open-source software played a crucial role in its growth and development. The Indian government is working on a new policy to provide social security benefits to gig workers. The policy is expected to be rolled out early next year and will include features such as a unique identification for gig workers, employer contributions to social security schemes, and a registration module on the e-Shram portal. The government is actively engaging with gig workers’ associations to gather their input and ensure that the policy adequately addresses their needs. Meanwhile, Karnataka is set to introduce a 1-2% transaction fee on online aggregator platforms like Zomato, Uber, and others. The revenue generated from this fee will be used to fund the welfare of gig workers in the state. The Karnataka Labour Minister confirmed the decision and clarified that the fee will not be applicable to products or goods purchased through these platforms but only on transportation services. Swiggy’s founder Sriharsha Majety and several investors sold shares worth Rs 670 crore in the days leading up to the company’s updated DRHP filing with SEBI. The transactions involved multiple entities, including Torroz Fintech, Norwest Ventures, Strootaay Unlisted Brokers, and Moksh Capital Partners. These sales likely provided partial exits for investors ahead of the highly anticipated Swiggy IPO, which has generated significant interest from HNIs and companies.

Download the medial app to read full posts, comements and news.