News Roundup: 7 Stories You Don’t Want To Miss This Week [20July – 25July]

According to reports, Amazon is planning to launch a $5 Bn (INR 31,700 Cr) warchest, subscription-based ecommerce services(Amazon Prime) and Amazon Instant Video (AIV) in India.

Lets have a look at the important developments of the week:

PM Modi Launches Job Portal National Career Service For Job Seekers

National Career Service is a comprehensive job portal, which focuses on connecting all existing employment centers as well as on creating one of a kind online employment exchange board.

Paytm Forays Into Industrial Supplies Space

This move will help the company to connect its merchants with SMEs and thereby tap India’s over INR10,000 Cr industrial supplies market and focus on the small and medium enterprise segment.

Ola To Offer Shuttle Bus Service To Commuters

Company is reported to have tied up with tourist and chartered buses to realise this service. It is expected to launch in the next two months and will be integrated with company’s app allowing riders to choose between cab, auto and bus as mode of transportation.

Gujarat Govt To Modify Its Startup Policy In Two Months

State Finance Minister,Saurabh Patel accepted that the State’s startup policy focuses more on the manufacturing startups and needs to be modified for the benefaction of  whole startup community.

Zomato Introduces Online Payments & Zomato Credits In India

The updated version of the Android and iOS app now allows people to pay  via credit cards, debit card and other net banking options.There is also a feature of Zomato Credits, where your referral credits go (or refunds, when things don’t go as planned). With this, the company has also added features like applying promo codes.

Ola Launches Standalone Hyperlocal Delivery App, Ola Store

The App offers 12,000+ products under 13 product categories in grocery and other lifestyle products. Service is currently available only in Bangalore.

Lets have a look at other developments of the week:

RoomsTonite Hires Airbnb’s Mohit Srivastava As Its New Revenue And Partnerships Head

A mobile-based marketplace for last-minute hotel bookings, RoomsTonite has roped in former Airbnb executive Mohit Srivastava as the company’s new revenue and partnerships head.

Food-Tech startup InnerChef’s Three Co-founders Quit

Three out of the five co-founders namely – Heena Karia Thakkar, Uday Bansal and Rahul Samat, have left the company.

Urban Ladder has roped in Komli’s Apurva Dalal as technology head

Urban Ladder has appointed Apurva Dalal as its chief technology officer, who was up till working with the digital media technology firm Komli’s chief technology officer.

Myntra names McKinsey’s Ananth Narayanan as CEO

Ananth will be taking over from Myntra’s co-founder Mukesh Bansal, who will now assume the role of board chairman, as per company’s statement.

Koovs Appoints Ex-ASOS Director Mary Turner As New CEO

Mary is the former director of British online fashion venture ASOS and former CEO of Internet of Things (IoT) firm AlertMe.com.

Apart from CEO, Housing is hunting for CFO too

SoftBank being the largest stakeholder in Housing, is leading the selection process. According to reports, both these key positions are likely to be filled in by August.

Snapdeal Ties Up With Tata Capital To Loan Upto 2 Crore To The Merchants

Snapdeal’s merchants and online merchants can take  loan from Tata Capital for anywhere between INR 5 Lakh to 2 Crore.

Industry Veterans Join Practo To Lead New Product Verticals

Practo, Asia’s leading healthcare platform, today announced appointment of Anshumani Ruddra and Tarun Bhambra to lead new product teams to expand Practo into professional networking and prescription space respectively.

Zopper expanded into three cities

Zopper, a hyper local mobile marketplace for consumer electronics, has launched its operations in three more cities, namely – Hyderabad, Chandigarh and Kolkata. The current expansion is in line with Zopper’s strategic vision to be present with its superlative services across 30 Indian cities within the next 12 months.

CouponDunia launches First-Ever Newspaper Coupons for Instant Discounts at Supermarkets for FMCG products

The first edition runs Saturday, July 25, 2015 in Bombay Times, Delhi Times and Bangalore Times. Discounts on products from 40 brands in categories like food & beverage, personal care and home care will be available. To avail the discounts, consumers need to cut out the coupons and redeem it at CouponDunia’s partner supermarkets in these three cities.

Paytm Ties Up With Aditya Birla Finance To Introduce Collateral Free Loans For SME Merchants

A collateral free loan offers SMEs an extended arm to build and grow their business. The Ministry of Finance came up with this scheme to support ecommerce companies who can leverage their seller network to help banks and NBFCs identify the Indian SME customer base.

Rocket Internet To Replace Jabong MD & CEO

In a major organisational shuffle at Jabong, the current CEO Arun Chandra Mohan and Managing Director Praveen Sinha will be replaced. Organisation seems to be looking out for fresh leadership to strengthen its stance in the online retail market.