News Roundup: 12 Stories You Don’t Want To Miss This Week [7 – 12 September]

Rahul Yadav, ex Housing CEO, is back in action once again. The controversial star of the Indian startup ecosystem has on-boarded Azeem Zainulbhai, chief of staff at Housing and Suvonil Chatterjee, chief design officer as the co-founders for his next venture. Besides, six to seven senior officials, have also quit Housing to join his new venture.

Let’s have a look at the important developments of the week:

Ola To Launch Shuttle Service In Bangalore & Gurgaon

Ola Shuttle – a service to offer shuttle bus service to urban commuters will come equipped with features such as WiFi access, air conditioning and in-vehicle entertainment. Passengers can use the app to book their seats and make payment.

Amazon Gears Up For Upcoming Festivities, Invests In 7 New Fulfilment Centres

To gear up for the upcoming festivities, Amazon announced its investment in seven new Fulfilment Centres to ensure that thousands of sellers take advantage of Amazon’s FBA services.

Flipkart Re-Evaluates E-Books Strategy, Likely To Exit

Flipkart is evaluating its e-books strategy and is working toward redefining its digital offerings to customers. It is likely to exit the e-books business as it tries to focus more and more on retailing physical goods.

Quikr Deepens Its Verticalization Focus, Launches QuikrHomes

With over 2 lakh real estate transactions on Quikr, the company announced the launch of its real estate vertical, QuikrHomes. The platform will provide customer engagement and lead management tools for builders and brokers.

Tinyowl Fires Over 160 Employees In Pune, Bangalore

“Eliminating certain positions in the company have been made on a strategic level, to increase efficiency, productivity and re-direct our diverse talent to focused departments, providing the best innovative offerings to our customers” was the statement issued by Tinyowl when asked about firing numerous employees from its Pune and Bangalore office.

Lookup Collaborates With OYO Rooms; Crosses 1 Mn Users Mark

To discover and book OYO hotels just by texting is the new way to reach a wider range of hyperlocal areas for Lookup. The partnership between LookUp and OYO will help the former expand its vendor base.

Zomato Launches Whitelabel Platform To Help Restaurants Create Custom Branded Apps

The platform will enable restaurants launch custom-branded native mobile apps, and use the internet for easy access to their customers. The Whitelabel apps seamlessly integrate  into all of Zomato’s ancillary services.

FabFurnish Evolves Into Content-Driven Platform For Discovery & Sale Of Curated Home Products

FabFurnish aims at positioning itself as an end to end home and interiors solution provider. With its revamped business model, the company will offer design inspirations for greater customer engagement.

Snapdeal To Invest $100 Mn Shopo

Launched in July this year, Shopo, brings small and medium businesses (SMBs) on its portal offering zero commission model. With this, Snapdeal aims to make Shopo, a one million seller-strong platform.

Delhi Govt Makes Filing Transaction Details Mandatory For Ecommerce Companies

In order to curb tax evasion by ecommerce companies Delhi Government has made it mandatory for all such companies to file their transaction details on the website of the Department of Trade And Taxes while paying tax.

Paynear Launches Payment App For Individuals & Small Businesses

Paynear Solutions launched payment solutions app “Spot” for users to make mobile, DTH and datacard recharges, postpaid bill and utility payments, along with landline, electricity bills and insurance policy payments.

Let’s have a look at other developments of the week:

Uber Inks Mou With Tamil Nadu Govt. To Create Over 30K Entrepreneurial Opportunities

The partnership will create entrepreneurial opportunities for drivers, along with creating opportunity to work with the government. Uber together with the government will develop programs to improve technology as part of the region’s economic development.

Amazon Launches Its Private Label, Amazonbasics In India

Extending its private label brand in India, Amazon launched AmazonBasics for its Consumer Electronics store category. The category will have products like Apple-certified lightning cables, data cables for Android devices, audio video cables and adapters.

Goibibo Launches Flights + Hotels On Its Android & IOS App

Owing to its 60% hotel bookings & 40% flight bookings through mobile app, Goibibo launched book “flights + hotels” in a single cart through its mobile app.

Nasscom To Set Up Business Incubator Cum Accelerator In Kochi As Part Of 10,000 Startups

To boost the startup culture in the state, Nasscom ‘Startup Warehouse‘ will be inaugurated at Kochi. The campus will be an incubation facility where companies like Google, Microsoft and IBM will share their expertise in the technology field with the startups.

AskmeBazaar Launches Next Day Delivery

Competing with various ecommerce marketplace AskmeBazaar’s Next Day Delivery model in Hyderabad will  help its 14,000 sellers reach out to customers more quickly.

Myntra’s HR Chief & Head Of New Initiatives Quits

Myntra reported that its HR chief Pooja Gupta and head of new initiatives Ganesh Subramanian have quit. Subramanian claims to start something on his own in the consumer internet space.

China’s Mobvista To invest $100 Mn In India by 2018

In order to expand its India’s operations, Mobvista plans to establish a local India office by the end of this year. The local presence will enable the company to engage more with the local partners and stakeholders.

Zopper Gets Former Dominos Executive As CBO

Zopper roped in Harneet Singh as chief business officer. His stint in extensive consumer marketing and marketplace know-how will help the company shape its future strategies.

Flipkart’s HR Head, Mekin Maheshwari Moves To Advisory Role

After spending six years at Flipkart, Mekin Maheshwari will be moving into an advisory role. Mekin has deeply contributed to the overall leadership, strategy and execution at Flipkart.

TFS’ Arvind Singhal Joins Bluestone As COO

Arvind Singhal had quit Ola in July, four months after he was elevated as TFS’ CEO. At Bluestone he is expected to report to Gaurav Singh Kushwaha, Bluestone’s founder and CEO.

Ola Adds Free WiFi For Riders Through Its Select Loyalty Program For Prime Category

Ola has added free WiFi, ‘superior cars’, best rated drivers, and an opportunity to meet Narain Karthikeyan, Abish Mathew and Milind Soman through its ‘Select’ program for riders taking Ola Prime rides in Bangalore. The service is available in Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Pune, Chennai and Jaipur.

80% Of Monthly Active Users Of OLX On Mobile In India

The annual report released by Naspers showed that OLX had 240 Mn monthly active users in over 40 countries across the world. Out of which, 80% of traffic if from mobile users in India. Globally about 54% of OLX’s traffic comes from mobile.

DesiDime Joins Hands With International Social Commerce Network Pepper.com

The collaboration will give DesiDime a better power to negotiate deals as well as roll out features faster. DesiDime will continue to work in India, apart from rolling out its platform in Southeast Asia, starting with Indonesia within six months.