The Delhi Government has rejected  ride hailing company, Uber’s application for registration under the updated Radio Taxi Scheme 2006. Applications of Uber’s rival companies, Ola and TaxiForSure were also rejected by the Delhi Government’s transport department. The news came right after the news of another case of  woman molestation by an Uber driver in Delhi. Cab aggregators rejection came due to their failure in complying with a Home Ministry-imposed ban on their services last year. Now the traffic cops have downloaded the apps of these companies and are booking rides so as to catch the faulty drivers.

Snapdeal hits a sales run rate of $3.5Bn in May 2015

Online marketplace Snapdeal has marked a sales run rate of $3.5Bn this month, also known as gross merchandise value (GMV), bringing the company closer to the scale of Flipkart, India’s largest e-tailer. A Snapdeal spokesperson told TOI that sales done by merchants on its platform have rose four times in the current month as compared to the same period last year, propelling the e-tailer’s numbers.

Paytm GMV Hits $1.5 Bn, 10k Merchants Received Orders + 10 Mn Products Listed

Delhi-based mobile commerce startup Paytm has been witnessing a lot of attention from sometime now. The company, today said that it has clocked a whooping $1.5 Bn GMV run rate by targeting its 80 Mn wallet users.  As per the company, over 10k merchants had received orders via Paytm. Further, Paytm is targeting to reach GMV of $3-4 Bn by the end of March next year.Paytm currently has over 10 Mn products and 40k merchants listed on its online marketplace. The company claims to add about 2-3 Mn products every month.

Uber Hires Amit Jain as its India president

Uber has hired Amit Jain, a B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Delhi and MBA from Stranford University. He will be running all business strategy, operations, and growth in a market of global strategic importance for Uber. Prior to joining Uber, Amit was President of Rent.com, a technology company in the US dedicated to giving renters a free and convenient way to find the perfect place to live.

Government Launches A Portal To Help Find Missing Children, KhoyaPaaya

Each year, over 70,000 children go missing in India and to fight these numbers, government has launched a portal dedicated to filing reports about missing/found children. KhoyaPaya, is an initiative of Indian Government to use technology to bring down the number of missing children. It is a perfect example of Modi’s Digital India scheme, the primary function of the portal is to allow citizens to report cases of missing/found children, while also providing users with details of cases being registered.  It will also enable parents to upload images of their missing children which can be viewed in real time by watchers, to help reduce the time devoted in solving a case.

IndiaProperty bets big on Mobile – Launches new mobile first Property search paradigm ‘Discover’

The world is going mobile and so is Property search. IndiaProperty today has taken property search a significant step by unveiling a revolutionary mobile-first Property search experience – ‘Discover’. A property seeker has a multitude of questions in their mind and not many clear answers. Discover makes this process of finding the answers and making a choice easy by automatically bringing the answers directly to the user. The advantage Discover brings to a user is easy access to relevant information which is readily accessible in the Discover feed and over time making traditional search less important.

Lets have a look at other developments of the week:

Snapdeal to now allow customers to pay via credit and debit cards on delivery

With increasing competition in ecommerce in India, the players are trying their best to come up with new services which could cheer up their customers or merchants.SoftBank backed online marketplace, Snapdeal has announced a new feature i.e. Pay-On-Delivery (POD) for its customers. The new feature will allow, Snapdeal customers to make  payment through credit and debit cards on delivery. Presently the facility will be available in 120 cities followed by another 80 cities out of its 5000 delivery locations. Snapdeal’s co-founder and COO Rohit Bansal said, “The company is looking at a 10 fold growth in the next 2-3 years, which will translate into delivery of about 80-100 Mn  packages a month.

After pay-on-delivery, snapdeal has introduced 90 minutes return pickup service

This development came from Snapdeal’s logistic arm Gojavas, in which it acquired 20% stake in March this year. With this, Snapdeal’s customers’ will be able to return or replace their online orders within 90 minutes of intimation. The facility is presently being provided in 15 cities with swift, hassle-free returns and refunds. Moving further, the service will expand to all the 300 cities within a span of three to five months.

VP-Products Saran Chatterjee quits Flipkart

Saran Chatterjee,Flipkart’s vice-president of products quits the company after an association of three-years. Chatterjee joined Flipkart in 2012 and was heading the company’s product management and design for its consumer experience and platform team. According to his Linkedin profile,he was also a part of  Flipkart’s new advertising business’ building team.

Flipkart launches dedicated app for merchants

Ecommerce marketplace, Flipkart has launched a mobile app, Seller Hub, to enable its merchants to manage their businesses. As per a press statement, the app would provide real-time data on all aspects of their business such as listings, orders, returns, payments and order fulfillment. In the next few months, the company plans on  adding more new features to the app that will help new sellers to register and also help existing ones streamline the entire process of online business.

MobiKwik’s founder conducted a Reddit AMA

In his AMA, Bipin was seen pretty active in responding to the queries posted by people. Queries varied from his motivation behind starting MobiKwik to the intrinsic blocks of MobiKwik’s platform. However, there were many complaints posted by frustrated customers post the Reddit AMA which went unanswered by Bipin. The customers were frustrated from the Mobikwik inaccessible customer care, inefficient dealings of payment such as payment failures and the issues on the merchant’s side.

Uber driver is again accused of molestation

While the company has taken a number of steps to increase passenger’s safety, an incident regarding molestation by an Uber driver has come up. The driver was accused of forcibly kissing a woman passenger who used the cab service in Gurgaon at night. The victim’s brother complained to the company but got a templated reaction from the company.To prevent these incidents, Uber took some measures like partnering with First Advantage to have a deeper background checks on its drivers and introduction of an SOS button in all its cabs but it looks like these measures are of no avail when the driver does something inappropriate.

Dineout.co.in app integrates Paytm to offer loyalty and cash-back to users in real time

Paytm has partnered with Dineout.co.in, a table reservation platform. Through the Dineout loyalty programme users can enjoy the advantages of having a table reserved, discounts and additional savings in the form of cashback and loyalty points credited into their Paytm wallets. Loyalty points can be earned once the user books a table using the Dineout service. By completing simple tasks such as writing reviews, inviting friends and checking-in while at the restaurant through the Dineout app, users earn loyalty points. All these points are redeemable to Cash directly into a user’s Paytm wallet.

PayUMoney drives Punjab to become one of the fastest growing markets for Online Fee collection in India

PayUMoney, an online payment solution by PayU India has tied up with leading educational institutes as their preferred payment gateway partner in Punjab, infusing the cult of a cashless economy deep into the state.These top Institutes include Punjab Technical University, Punjabi University, Thapar University, Chitkara University, Lovely Professional University, NIPER (National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research) and many more. With this association, all these educational institutes have reached International standards in terms of fee collection.They now prefer to collect fees online whether its admission fees, hostel fees, bus fees, examination fees etc.

PayUmoney announces the launch of “India Growth Drivers”

PayUMoney, an online payment solution by PayU India, is set to hold an inspiring event called “The Startup Growth Masterclass” for the first time in Hyderabad. India Growth Drivers will also have an online presence as a platform where Startups and small businesses can engage, network and grow faster.  The forthcoming event is to be held on June 6, 2015, at IIIT-H Foundation, Gachibowli, Hyderabad.The Startup Growth Masterclass will be a high impact 4 hour workshop led by seasoned professionals who have experienced growth across mobile apps to web technologies and in traditional offline businesses too. At the event, the experts will share key case studies and interesting examples of how small businesses around the world have grown without spending a lot of money.The Masterclass will also have angel investors sharing what growth metrics they look for before investing into startups

Zomato has announced  final closure of urbanspoon; diverted brand’s traffic to zomato app

New Delhi-based online restaurant directory, Zomato has announced the shutdown of US-based restaurant discovery service, Urbanspoon, which it had acquired for around $60 Mn a few months back. Urbanspoon, which has been a dominant player for restaurant discovery in the US, Canada and Australian market will now have its traffic completely diverted to Zomato’s app. In order to make UrbanSpoons’ transition smoother after the shutdown Zomato has transformed its features into Zomato’s in-app.

UrbanClap Launches in Bangalore

UrbanClap, a mobile services marketplace, has launched their mobile app in Bangalore. The company currently offers services in 23 categories in Bangalore but it has plans to expand its reach and provide services in more than a hundred categories by the end of the year. The idea is to help consumers find the best services easily and provide the large base of individuals/small businesses with a platform to manage and grow their client network. From a plumber to a wedding photographer or a yoga teacher all can be found on UrbanClap.

Nazara Technologies Hires Former Reliance Games CEO Manish Agarwal

One of India’s oldest mobile game companies, Nazara Technologies, has announced that  Reliance Games CEO Manish Agarwal will be joining the company as CEO and  Nazara’s current CEO and founder, Nitish Mittersain will now continue as Managing Director. Nazara Technologies is reportedly looking to raise between $50 to $100Mn  in funding.  Also according to Ndtv, Manish Agarwal will receive equity in Nazara as a part of the deal.

StyleBuys.com starts India operations

StyleBuys.com, a fashion search engine has started its operations in India. The company   offers over 1,000,000 products and 10,000 brands from 22 of India’s top fashion shops. StyleBuys presently has  5,000 visits and  has around 50 sales a day on its partner websites. StyleBuys’ customers can search across multiple stores, browse categories and enjoy a huge variety of products without paying separate visits to each store. Customers can filter their search by available sizes, brand, size, price or colour they are looking for.

Edu- Tech Startup Superprofs.com Launches Mobile App

SuperProfs, India’s online platform for exam preparation, has announced the launch of a mobile app to connect India’s best professors for competitive exams with lakhs of students from across the country. The mobile app allows students to prepare for their exams anywhere, anytime, even on very slow Internet connections. Additionally, students can download the video lectures in the app on their phone and watch them offline. This would help students in tier 2/3 towns with poor Internet connectivity in carrying out their preparation without any hassles.

Rockstand partners with READ India to empower 2.5 lakh villagers through mobile learning

Rockstand,a mobile learning market place, has tied up with Read India’s initiative to provide access to education across rural areas at the grassroot level. The villagers will get free access to eBooks, eMagazines & eNewspapers for relevant content and develop particular skills through the Rockstand application on 100+ library tablets in 16 READ India centers. MLibrary Kiosk has been installed at the centre library where anybody can access eBooks, eMagazines and eNewspaper through Rockstand app on mobile & tablets. Presently, the initiative is piloted only in 3 centers; Delhi, Gurgaon and Jhajar by the end of June and in the rest of 13 centers it will happen over a span of 6 months.

A new platform for small commercial vehicles TruckSumo has been launched

TruckSumo is an on-demand platform for small commercial vehicles. It aggregates these vehicles and instantly connects them to businesses and individuals in need of local transportation. TruckSumo was conceptualized to cut through the clutter and bring reliability into the goods transportation experience. With specially trained drivers, safety-screened vehicles, and free insurance, they wish to bring an unprecedented level of professionalism to Indian transportation. With TruckSumo, customers can track their vehicles on-the-go, both before they reach the pick-up location, as well as until the drop-off. TruckSumo’s proprietary platform removes the inefficiencies in the transportation space by matching demand and supply in real time. This also allows them to offer mini-trucks at very low rate. Presently operational in Hyderabad & Bangalore, they offer rides at the starting rate of INR 99 for 3km!

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