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Student falls prey to cyber kidnapping in US | What is it?

LivemintLivemint · 1y ago
Student falls prey to cyber kidnapping in US | What is it?
Medial

A Chinese exchange student in the US fell victim to a rising criminal trend called 'cyber kidnapping'. The student was reported missing and later found scared and cold in a tent. In cyber kidnapping, criminals force victims to isolate themselves and send pictures as if they are held captive, which are then used to extort money from their families. Perpetrators use threats, isolation orders, and ransom demands to coerce families into compliance. Police collaborated with the FBI and Chinese officials in the search for the student and his family paid $80,000 in ransom before he was found. Measures to protect against cyber kidnapping include verifying the location of loved ones during emergency calls and using secret phrases or code words.

Zepto launches Zepto Atom and Zepto GPT

TwitterTwitter · 2m ago
Zepto launches Zepto Atom and Zepto GPT
Medial

The Zepto Atom subscription is a top-up to the already existing Zepto Brand Portal (which gives brands listed on the Zepto platform basic day-to-day data on their performance on Zepto and is available for free). The value of the Zepto Atom subscription is the next level of insights brands can derive from this tool, most of which are not available on any e-commerce platform in India today. For example: 1) PIN-code-by-PIN-code market share data and brand performance: Through Zepto Atom, brands can examine a live map of every neighbourhood and PIN code they have presence on Zepto and derive hyperlocal insights on their performance. For example, a brand can see on Zepto Atom Maps that their sales are under-indexed in the western neighbourhoods of Hyderabad and double down on pricing, marketing, or distribution efforts in those geographies to unlock growth. 2) Live metrics visibility refreshed every minute: On Zepto Atom, brands can see minute-by-minute sales, customer impressions, and conversion data and optimise advertising campaigns, pricing, and their product range according to different consumption trends for their products throughout the day and week. 3) Zepto GPT: Zepto Atom has an in-house Natural Language Processing (NLP) assistant that is trained on the Zepto Data set to give brands insights that can improve their performance. For example, brands can ask Zepto GPT "How can I grow my market share in Bengaluru for the protein bar category?" or "What are the key consumer preferences driving energy drink sales among Gen Z in Mumbai?". Zepto GPT then analyses the vast datasets within Zepto Atom to provide actionable answers, strategic recommendations, and even generates data reports on behalf of the brand. 4) Advanced Behavioural Data: Zepto Atom goes beyond basic sales and conversion data. We are now providing brands data on customer repeatability and retention, share of voice in search and home page, full-funnel visibility on customer purchase behaviour with their product etc.

XOBOX aims to tackle residential last-mile delivery hurdles

EntrackrEntrackr · 1y ago
XOBOX aims to tackle residential last-mile delivery hurdles
Medial

Last-mile delivery hasn’t been perfect. Not that the likes of Dunzos of this world haven’t tried to address this. Recently, we saw Zomato experimenting with last-mile delivery through a unique concept of ‘walkers’ for corporate parks. Bengaluru-based XOBOX is one of the few startups that is trying to fix the last-mile delivery challenges especially for people living in urban areas. The company handles packages for residents in apartment complexes. Some of the features are securing the packages in smart lockers and dropping them to customers’ doorstep when they are back to their homes, and home delivery of essential items. We spoke to XOBOX founder and CEO Kiran Shivappa about his startup, what distinguishes it from the competition and the roadmap ahead. Here are the edited excerpts: How did you come up with this idea? I live in an apartment complex and even before the Covid deliveries were left scattered in front of the door and stray cats use to destroy especially milk packet which cause everyone to talk about it hours in community Whatsapp group, this made me think to find/adopt a solution to secure the deliveries when residents not able to receive it or may be they are not around. How does the platform work? Please help simplify the process. When we started the service, we started taking the request from residents to handle their packages and we coordinated with delivery guys to take the package, pay them if it is a COD [Cash on Delivery], and secure them in the locker until they come back, then we deliver it to their doorstep. We went one step ahead and made a contract with 3PL [Third-party logistics] and ecommerce companies to take every delivery coming to the society and our dedicated resources would hand them over to the residents, if the resident is not available then secure the package in the locker and hand it over once they come back. What are the key challenges in the industry that have not been addressed yet? And how do you plan to address them? Ecommerce companies have tried many solutions to optimize the last leg of the delivery process and achieved the Kirana model also, but they never got a chance to be inside the society exclusively and take care of the deliveries and achieve the customer delight to bring the most convenience to them in their package receiving time. We have dedicated resources inside each society to carefully handle the package and interact with residents and elderly people and become familiar to them so they feel comfortable to receive us at the doorstep at any time and feel secured as well. Industry major players tried to introduce the lockers but these lockers operate as a complete unmanned and fully automated, for this reason the adaptation was a big challenge and education was also a challenge. We adopted a 70/30 model where, way the lockers were built, operated and how people would feel easy to adopt this because the “30” percentage is the resources we introduced along with “70” percentage technology, our dedicated resource will work with all stake holders in the gated community to educate and make every one understand how to use the service. What are your short-term and long term goals in terms of product and business expansion and diversification? In the short term, we are looking to expand the service to 35 more gated communities in Bengaluru in 2nd and 3rd quarters of 2024 and then go to other cities. As far as long-term plans go, we are going to sign contracts with major ecommerce and 3PL companies to increase the volume in each society and serve the needs of elderly population in the community. We would want to reach 700-1000 gated communities and generate 150-180 cr annually.

Trading app Investmint goes for liquidation process

EntrackrEntrackr · 1y ago
Trading app Investmint goes for liquidation process
Medial

The road for signal-based trading app Investmint has come to an end as the Nexus Venture-backed startup has started its voluntary liquidation process provisions of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016. The board at Investmint has passed a resolution with the consent of its shareholders to go through the voluntary liquidation process under the IBC Regulation 17, 2016, its regulatory filing accessed through the Registrar of Companies shows. The two-year-old startup also got the approval to transfer all its intellectual property and distribution of assets from the board and its stakeholders, the filing further added. The early-stage firm also appointed Anagha Anasingaraju to finalize the terms of engagement, information sourced from filings show. Last month, Entrackr exclusively reported that Investmint halted its services as the firm didn’t manage to find a reliable business model. Launched in February 2022 by Aakash Goel and Mohit Chitlangia, Investmint used to assist users in arriving at investment decisions and managing wealth with data backed information. In October 2022, the company raised $2 million in a seed round led by Nexus Venture Partners, with participation from several angel investors. As per sources, Investmint may return remaining capital to its backers. Of late, a clutch of new age startups went out of business after they failed to find product market fit and substantial traction. Vernacular microblogging platform Koo became the latest to shutter operations even after raising over $50 million. Paras Chopra’s Nintee, crypto exchange OKX, neobank Muvin, and FrontRow also made to the list.

SoftBank’s holding in Paytm down to 2.83% from 13.24% in 10 months

EntrackrEntrackr · 1y ago
SoftBank’s holding in Paytm down to 2.83% from 13.24% in 10 months
Medial

SoftBank has divested its stake worth Rs 580 crore in Paytm. This marks the fifth instance of SoftBank’s disposal of its shares in the company in the ongoing fiscal year. Now, the VC’s stake in Paytm has reduced to nearly 3%. The board at Paytm has approved the disposal of 1,37,84,787 equity shares in a series of disposals between January 23 and February 26, breaching the specified threshold of 2% of SEBI’s takeover regulations. During this disinvestment, SoftBank disposed of its 2.17% stake which contracted its shareholding from 5.01% to 2.83%, regulatory filing accessed from National Stock Exchange shows. SoftBank has already disposed of Rs 3,800 crores of worth shares in the current fiscal year ( May, July, December, and January). The disposal sums up to Rs 4,380 crore (as per the share price on the date of transactions). SoftBank has been on a stake-selling spree in companies that filed IPOs in the past two to three years. It has exited completely from PolicyBazaar while SoftBank’s Singapore entity also divested entirely from Zomato. Even as SoftBank is grappling with a financial crisis, Paytm is also in the soup over regulatory concerns. Earlier this year, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) imposed a set of business restrictions on Paytm Payments Bank over non-compliance and regulatory concerns. The business restrictions are set to impact Paytm’s different business verticals related to the payments bank. Since then, Vijay Shekhar Sharma has stepped down from his position as part-time non-executive chairman and board member of Paytm Payments Bank. The company also announced that it has reconstituted its board of directors with the appointment of former Central Bank of India chairman Srinivasan Sridhar, retired IAS officer Debendranath Sarangi, former executive director of Bank of Baroda Ashok Kumar Garg, and retired IAS Rajni Sekhri Sibal. “…PPBL has informed us that they will commence the process of appointing a new chairman,” Paytm-parent One97 said in a disclosure earlier this week.

RBI clarifies the move to halt business payments through commercial cards

EntrackrEntrackr · 1y ago
RBI clarifies the move to halt business payments through commercial cards
Medial

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued a clarification on Wednesday regarding the decision to halt business payments through commercial cards. In a press release, the central bank stated that a card network had an arrangement permitting businesses to make card payments through “certain intermediaries” to entities that do not accept card payments. “Under this arrangement, the intermediary accepts card payments from corporates for their commercial payments and then remits the funds via IMPS/RTGS/NEFT to non-card accepting recipients,” it added. The RBI observed that this arrangement qualified as a payment system, and needed authorization under Section 4 of the Payment and Settlement Systems (PSS) Act, 2007. And in such cases, this authorization was not obtained. Such activity raised concerns like pooling large amounts of funds into an account which is not authorized under the PSS Act. Also, the bank was concerned that transactions happening under such an arrangement did not adhere to the “originator and beneficiary information requirements, as stipulated under Master Direction on KYC issued by the Reserve Bank.” “As the matter is under detailed examination, the Card Network has been advised to keep all such arrangements under abeyance, till further orders. It is clarified that the Reserve Bank has not placed any restriction with respect to normal usage of business credit cards,” the bank added. Earlier, Visa and MasterCard had reached out to the central bank seeking clarification regarding the move. It is worth noting that businesses usually make business payments through the net banking systems, including RTGS. However, a few fintech companies, in partnership with the card companies, began facilitating payments through commercial cards. These payments could be for purposes such as payment to suppliers or vendors. Some companies operating in this space are Enkash and Paymate. Paymate, which has in-principle approval from the RBI for a payment aggregator license, told the Economic Times that they are making alternate arrangements compliant with regulatory norms to ensure seamless payments on their platform. “…Such regulatory hurdles can be avoided by adhering to the regulator’s rules and guidelines through innovative KYC solutions. It becomes imperative for financial institutions and fintech players to ensure that all financial transactions taking place are within the regulatory ambit and that no fraudulent or unauthorized transactions are occurring on the digital platform while maintaining the security posture,” Signzy CEO and cofounder Ankit Ratan said in a statement.

How profitable InCred stands out among bleeding fintech lenders: Interview with Bhupinder Singh

EntrackrEntrackr · 1y ago
How profitable InCred stands out among bleeding fintech lenders: Interview with Bhupinder Singh
Medial

Lending has turned out to be the most obvious money making channel for fintech startups in India. Right from large to small fintech companies are resorting to distributing loans through own and third party lenders such as banks and NBFCs. Most growth stage fintech startups have been lending aggressively, but they still bear huge losses on a consolidated basis. However, the eight-year-old InCred is an exception as the firm’s operating revenue spiked 48% to Rs 1,267 crore in FY24. At the same time, its profit grew 160% to Rs 316 crore in FY24. InCred claims to have offered credit to 3,50,000 borrowers since its inception in 2016. InCred group operates three companies – InCred Finance, InCred Capital, and InCred Money. To understand InCred’s growth across segments, startup investments including Oyo and collection (recovery) among others, Entrackr spoke to the company’s founder and chief executive Bhupinder Singh. Here are the edited excerpts. How has the size of asset under management (AUM) across personal, education and business loans grown? Our asset under management or AUM grew 49% in FY24 and we closed FY24 with over Rs 9,000 crore in AUM, spread across personal loans which accounts for 44% of our AUM while micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) contributed 35% of the total disbursal. Educational loans formed 21% of the entire loan book including third-parties capital. Can you talk about growth numbers across three segments: personal, business and educational in the last fiscal year? We have had strong growth across all three segments in FY24: Personal loans grew at 57% whereas educational loans spiked at 86%. Business (MSMEs) borrowing increased 32% during the last fiscal. Which factors led to the upsurge in educational loans? Strong preference to study abroad for superior exposure and growth prospects, along with growing awareness in terms of universities and courses through social media and internet are some of the key driving factors, which have accentuated further over the last few years. InCred has started equity investment across startups. Why has it entered into what’s widely dubbed as risky equity investment? We invest in startups through InCred Capital where we focus on identifying attractive investment opportunities in private companies. However, we only put money in startups which are available at reasonable valuations and have long-term structural growth potential. Besides InCred Capital, we also have a private equity fund providing growth capital to startups and other businesses. You said that InCred Capital looks for reasonable valuation while investing into startups. InCred capital recently invested in Oyo at a $2.38 Bn valuation. Do you think this is the right valuation of Oyo? Any investment opportunity we identify for our clients is based on our fundamental thesis of providing an attractive risk-return profile for our wealth clients. We believe that Oyo falls in that category and provides an opportunity for long term value creation. Collection is the hardest part of any form of lending be it traditional or digital. How did InCred solve this and what’s the size of NPA? Agreed. I think it starts right from our strong, proactive focus on risk and analytics, and then collections, which is more reactive. We have over 150 pan-India collections teams across products that track repayments and employ multiple modes, depending upon the product-specific requirement and level of customer delinquency. For early defaulters, we use techniques like tele-calling to educate them about default implications such as credit score deterioration. For late-stage defaulters, focus is more on limiting losses through field visits, vendor engagement among others. We also use mechanisms like setting up escrow accounts for superior collections. InCred efficiency has been consistently tracking at 98%. Our March 2024 NNPA stood at 0.8% and was among the best in the industry. InCred merged with KKR Financial services in 2022. How has the merger panned out in terms of business? Let me start by giving you some context. While technically it was a reverse merger of InCred with KKR India’s credit arm, substance over form, InCred acquired KKR’s corporate loan book. It was a win-win for both InCred and KKR. What KKR got was a profitable exit from its corporate book, which they were looking for, and the opportunity to be part of a successful and long-term lending growth story with InCred in the driver’s seat. For InCred, the deal was purely an equity raising exercise with KKR joining our cap table and our net worth swelling 3X to over Rs 3,200 crore as of December 2023. At the same time, we were able to quickly wind down the corporate loan book and focus on building a granular retail franchise, which is our broad vision for InCred Finance.

BluSmart drivers face uncertainty amid company troubles, founder issues

EntrackrEntrackr · 3m ago
BluSmart drivers face uncertainty amid company troubles, founder issues
Medial

BluSmart suspended its operations in April in Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, and Bengaluru, asking its 10,000 driver-partners to return their vehicles. The move has left several drivers scrambling to find new sources of income. Rajesh [name changed], a 35-year-old man in Gurugram, secured a driving job with a heavily VC-funded electric vehicle cab hailing company which once aimed to take on the duopoly of Ola Cabs and Uber in India. An average income of Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000 per month, Rajesh admits, was not much for his family but managed to pay bills. Though, Rajesh, who also is a father of two young children, put in 10 hours to 12 hours daily - to reach the estimated monthly income. With his company now pausing the services, Rajesh has no source of earning, and does not know how he will pay his kids’ education fees. "... Now, I don’t know how I’ll manage. I missed my kids' school fees this month. My family depends on me, and I’ve never felt so helpless,” a visibly stressed Rajesh told Entrackr. One of the things that is agonising Rajesh the most is the deceptive way his employer pushed them out. “On Wednesday (April 16th), we [drivers] received a message saying the car needed to be submitted to the hub for a breakdown. We thought it was just a minor technical issue. When we got there, they told us it was a failure and we’d be informed later. But there was no word from the company after that. We just had to go home. We were left in complete shock," says Rajesh as his voice strains, reliving the fateful moment. Rajesh says he was among the first lot of employees, when the company had just 50 cars. Like many others, he too bought the company’s promise of stability. “Now, it feels like we’ve been left out to dry,” he said. “I’m considering working with Uber or Ola… I’m looking for something else, maybe a different field altogether. But BluSmart was my livelihood, and I’d go back in a heartbeat if they reopened. It was my only source of income,” he added. Rajesh’s story resonates with another thousands of drivers who are now scrambling to find new sources of income after BluSmart’s sudden suspension of its services. Entrackr has reached out to BluSmart seeking responses on how they plan to compensate the affected drivers. In case they respond, we will incorporate their inputs. Staging the protest On May 4, a group of BluSmart drivers raised their grievances at Jantar Mantar, a historic site for protests. They pressed for demands for alternative income avenues as well as called for crucial policy reforms to prevent similar abrupt dismissals. Additionally, they also sought a government intervention. Tajinder Singh, president of Parivahan Morcha Athavale and also among those spearheading the protest, told Entrackr that women drivers of BluSmart were among those bearing the brunt the most as other taxi companies refused to recruit them. He further said that some drivers were working on a per day basis as and when required but asserted that this was not a long-term solution. “We are demanding compensation for affected BluSmart drivers. We have also sought government intervention so that the drivers can continue to earn their livelihood,” Singh said. Singh also claimed that hundreds of BluSmart employees working at charging hubs were affected by the company’s sudden suspension of its services. A business model that promised to be different than rivals Even as ‘sustainability’ remained the headline grabber, BluSmart also deployed a rather different business model compared to rivals Ola Cabs and Uber. The company used a full-stack B2C model wherein they owned and managed the vehicles whereas Ola and Uber work with independent drivers. The model allowed BluSmart to have a better control on the quality of cars, maintenance, and subsequently better customer service. For drivers, the company offered a fixed salary along with incentives. An assured income was a big factor why a lot of drivers showed interest in joining BluSmart. Ola and Uber, on the other hand, operated on a familiar commission-based system, also common with several gig working-reliant service providers. Singh also highlighted this stark difference between BluSmart and its rivals. He said that the job of driver was to pick and drop the passenger and earn a regular income (per day payout and incentives). They needed to work 10 hours to 12 hours a day. Other things like maintenance and documentation was taken care of by the company, giving drivers a more relaxed environment to operate. Blusmart has raised over $180 million to date, including its $50 million series B round in January this year. Though, it received only Rs 61 crore out of $50 million. That said, a heavily-funded BluSmart juggernaut appeared unstoppable, until it did. Earlier this year, reports emerged that BluSmart delayed salary payments to cash crunch. It had also shut down operations in Dubai and also saw an exodus of top management employees, including CEO, CBO, and CTO. A month later, SEBI published findings of its probe into Gensol Engineering, BluSmart’s partner and EV lessor. The SEBI order highlighted misuse of funds, and also barred promoters Anmol and Puneet Singh Jaggi from accessing the securities market and holding key positions in Gensol Engineering. What next for BluSmart drivers BluSmart drivers facing joblessness due to the shutdown can go for legal remedy and urgently demand clearance of any unpaid dues and better severance compensation, if not given already. The legal course, which may take a relatively long time, may also help them investigate if BluSmart violated the contract by sudden halting of their services and returning vehicles. Moreover, they can also seek intervention from regulatory boards. Singh, however, did not appear enthusiastic about taking the legal course. “Companies like these make such contracts that they keep them protected in such incidents and don’t have to own any responsibility towards people working so hard for them,” he said [loosely translated from Hindi]. As far as the future of the company goes, it’s hard to predict considering the massive VC money riding on the company. Despite the major dent in public image and also several legal troubles, it’s likely that the company may stay afloat with a rather new management and new board - a few known steps troubled companies often take to course correct. It’s worth noting that quality of drivers and cabs were the top highlight of the platform, and if it resumes, it should continue with that. With the ongoing protests and lack of communication between drivers and management, it seems unlikely that the company will enjoy the same level of trust from its network drivers.

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