#StartupsVsCovid19: Layoffs, Live Classes And Essentials In The Limelight On Lockdown Day 22

As the country settles down into phase 2 of the countrywide lockdown, the impact of Covid-19 in day to day operations and slacking overall industry performance is getting more visible.

The challenges of surviving the crisis have continued to impact the job market. Mumbai-headquartered social commerce company Shop101 has asked nearly 40% of its total employees to resign while others have been asked to take pay cuts.

A source within Shop101 said that out of total 400-500 employees, nearly 200 employees across teams have been asked to leave. The company also terminated nearly 100 contractual employees, who were involved in call centre operations.

The impact of the crisis was also the focal point of Inc42’s Ask Me Anything with Sequoia Capital India’s managing director GV Ravishankar, Talking about evolving ecosystem, Ravishankar said that investors generally looked at the large addressable market, team, viable business model and more to assess startups, but what has changed with Covid-19 is that investors will now ask more tough questions about unit economics, profitability model and team management.

“Because capital won’t be available easily, you would have to figure out how to stand on your feet,” said GV.

Expanding The Availability Of Essentials

Bengaluru-based EV startup Yulu is enabling the delivery of everyday essentials for companies such as BigBasket, Licious, Dunzo, Medlife, Lalamove and AutoBrix among others. Yulu is utilising its manpower and fleet of Miracle electric scooters to fulfil the delivery of essential. Yulu is currently supporting home delivery companies in Bengaluru and will be shortly extending its support to other cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Pune & Ahmedabad.

Further, to bring more shopkeepers online, LoveLocal (previously, m.Paani) said it will offer its services for free to local grocery, food and vegetable shop owners, enabling them to set up online shops, take orders digitally and make contactless delivery.

Housing complex management platform MyGate has partnered with a number of companies across sectors in an attempt to restore as many essential services at its over 7000 gated communities. The current line-up of partners includes FMCG major ITC Limited, ecommerce companies Grofers and Perpule, a total of 17 media publications, and two online telemedicine companies, DocsApp and mfine.

It previously announced a smart framework for contactless deliveries at all its societies through tie-ups with multiple food and grocery delivery companies, including Swiggy, Zomato and Licious.

Backing Those On The Frontline

OYO said it is offering its hotels and free stays to doctors, nurses and other medical first responders who are helping in the fight against coronavirus in India. Starting with select OYO Townhouse hotels in Gurugram and Bengaluru, medical first responders who are in need of a place to stay and are facing any accommodation issues will receive free accommodations on the display of identification cards.

Further, Droom said it has expanded the purview of its Germ-Shield service to facilities including hospitals, offices, school, daycare residential complex, retail spaces, elevators, and ATMs. While it was earlier used for deep sanitisation of automobiles, Droom is now ramping up its tech-driven service to protect sensitive areas of physical facilities

GitHub has made private repositories with unlimited collaborators available to all GitHub accounts. All of the core GitHub features are now free for everyone. The teams can now manage all their work including project management, code review and packages.

Further, Signzy has launched its secure video conferencing tool for secure, private one-to-one communication between banks and other financial institutions on one hand, and their customers on the other. The Signzy tool uses AI to enhance security and reliability and thus aims to deliver seamless business continuity for organisations during the ongoing pandemic. It has been designed for enabling front-end processes that necessitate a face-to-face conversation with the customer.

Fitternity has announced the launch of ‘Fitternity Live’ following the new wave of virtual fitness classes. These offerings include ‘Fitternity Live’, ‘Personal Coach’ along with their initiative of helping the industry by providing aid to the suppliers and small businesses.

Supporting Education And Donations

Admission24 announced the launch of its Live Virtual Classes for students and educator, like schools and educational institutions. The students and teachers will get the live class timetable a day before and will get a notification 10 minutes before the class starts.

In a bid to support education amid coronavirus, Edumarshal has launched a comprehensive e-learning platform for schools to bridge the education gap. It provides access to online learning and virtual classroom features to enable interactive communication between teachers and students. Based on school and college approval, students will get on-the-go access to study materials and tests.

Uber has expanded its UberMedic services across 10 cities with 18 hospitals. Further, Dineout’s community-driven initiative, ‘Project Thali’ has distributed over 100K KG of rations and food to thousands of individuals in less than three weeks.

Helo has rolled out a series of an initiative like providing users with credible information and real-time updates from credible authorities and official sources, collaborating with NGOs to providing necessary supplies to families of daily wagers, making a contribution to PM CAREs fund. Mobility unicorn Ola has now pledged a sum of INR 50 Lakh towards the Delhi Chief Minister’s Relief Fund (CMRF) to support Covid-19 relief measures in the national capital. Further, Bosch Group in India has donated INR 5 Cr to PM CARES FUND and pledged additional INR 45 Cr for various community welfare initiatives.