News Roundup: 8 Indian Startup News That You Don’t Want To Miss This Week [4 -9 Dec]

We bring you the weekly dose of important Indian startup news of the week.

One of the most interesting Indian startup news of the week was, PhonePe reporting, that it has processed over 1 Mn daily transactions worth over $15.4 Mn (INR 100 Cr) every day in November. Also, the app has achieved a total Payments Volume (TPV) annual run rate of $6.1 Bn (INR 40K Cr) within 14 months of its launch. The company is targeting to double this metric by March 2018.

Another important story of the week was Amazon Wholesale India, reporting $1.08 Bn (INR 7000 Cr) worth sales in FY 16-17. Interestingly, Amazon India has credited this success to current ecommerce FDI guidelines.

Important Indian Startup News Stories Of The Week

Paytm Infuses Funds Into Payments Bank And Paytm Mall

Paytm Payments Bank planning to expand its offline distribution network by allowing trusted local partners to act as potential cash-in and cash-out points. For the same, it has committed to invest $466.5 Mn (Rs 3000 crore) in the next three years. The announcement came in just a week after launching the banking process formally and announcing an investment of $500 Mn in KYC (Know Your Customer) operations. Making it an important Indian startup news for the week.

In another development, Paytm also indicated its sights on becoming a leading ecommerce player in the country with its unit Paytm Mall. It was announced that the company will infuse $2.5 Bn into the ecommerce unit in the period of next five years and is eyeing the top spot that is currently being fought over between Flipkart and Amazon.

Google Launches New India Specific Products

Underlining its intention to woo the world’s second-largest Internet economy, the tech giant will roll out the latest version of its payments app Tez in coming months. The new version will allow users to make payments of utility bills directly through the app. The company unveiled a couple of more India centric products such as Android Oreo – a new smartphone experience for entry-level devices, Google Go-a new search app and a new “two-wheeler mode” in Google Maps for India.

Scoopwhoop Is ‘NOT’ Scaling Down News Operations

Kalaari Capital and Bharti SoftBank backed digital media startup Scoopwhoop has denied reports regarding company scaling down its news operations amid investor instructions. As per CEO Sattvik Mishra, ScoopWhoop is not scraping news operations and is rather reinventing and focussing on new content categories.

UPI Transactions Saw 38% Hike In November 2017

According to the data released by NPCI (National Payments Corporation Of India), the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) hit a record high of 105 Mn transactions last month. The jump is mainly because of the better adoption UPI based digital payments solutions by consumers as well as the entry of global technology players like Google and Paypal.

Ola Launches Yet Another ‘Green Initiative’ Ola Pedal

After launching 600 Ola bicycles in the campus of IIT Kanpur at various docking stations on pilot basis, the cab aggregator has formally launched Ola Pedal. As the name suggests, it is a bicycle sharing service and will come in handy for short journeys allowing users to complete the final leg of their journey within the large college and office campuses.

India Opposes Any Negotiations On Ecommerce At WTO

One week ahead of WTO ministerial meet, India cleared its stand on cross border digital trading. A formal document was submitted to the organisation stating that India will participate in cross border trading as per the WTO norms adopted in 1998 and believes that it may not be wise enough to begin talks since many countries don’t fully understand the implications of negotiating binding rules.

Other Indian Startup News Stories Of The Week

China-Based Bicycle Sharing Startup Ofo Enters India

Ofo operates in 200 cities across 19 countries, including China, Australia, Singapore, Japan and the UK. It has a fleet of 10 Mnbikes, powering 32 Mn rides a day. The company’s entry into India is a significant development given that it is the first foreign player in the segment.

Ola, Uber Drivers In Mumbai Go On Strike

In order to voice their grievances against the falling income, and increasing suicides, the drivers of cab aggregators like Ola and Uber declared an indefinite strike which is scheduled to begin on 10 December. The drivers claim that the ride-hailing platforms are providing the customers with attractive schemes, while the drivers are not getting many incentives, which has led to financial stress.

More Than 90% Of The Job Postings In FY17 Are by The Indian Unicorns

A study by the Job posting site, Indeed, revealed that the top four unicorns in the Indian startup ecosystem comprise 90.57% of the total job postings on its website. Snapdeal, despite having a disappointing 2017, accounts for more than 50% of the total postings. The study included an analysis of job postings from Flipkart, Hike Messenger, InMobi, Mu Sigma, Ola, Paytm, ShopClues, Snapdeal, RenewPower and Zomato, which were identified as the top Indian startups valued at over $1 Bn.

Grofers Launches Postpaid Grocery Services

Grofers joined hands with Simpl in order to introduce the ‘’Postpaid Grocery Shopping’’ feature, through which a user can buy grocery at any time during the month and pay the entire amount with just one bill at the month-end. This feature is said to be the first initiative in the FoodTech space. Earlier, Grofers had also tied up with Sodexo in order to facilitate seamless payments on its platform.

ParallelDots Releases Two New Products

Delhi-based venture-funded startup ParallelDots launched a new visual API and an Excel add-in for NLP APIs in order to realise its mission of novel algorithms and high impact products for real-world problems. The visual API will help journalists and bloggers to determine the featured image of their article or by third-party apps to help their users upload the best photo. The NLP based add-in will help the users to convert all the data into simple spreadsheets that can be easily analysed.

Samsung Partners With MoEngage

The collaboration aims to drive more engagement for Samsung’s My Galaxy application, and further hopes to utilize MoEngage’s forward-looking, AI-driven marketing automation platform to a better use. With this partnership, Samsung India will be able to leverage MoEngage’s push notifications, in-app messages, and email marketing capabilities to keep My Galaxy application users engaged and encourage app usage

True Balance Launches Mobile Wallet Service

Delhi -based lifestyle startup True Balance marked its entry into the fintech business by launching its digital wallet service after receiving a nod of approval from the RBI earlier this year. The app, which started as a mobile balance management service for pre-paid users, has already garnered more than 50 million downloads. With the new mobile wallet feature, users can freely deposit money to their True Balance Wallet thus facilitating easy phone recharges.

Stay tuned for the next edition of the News Roundup: Indian Startup News Of The Week!