Week in Review – Top 10 updates from the Startup-verse

It can be tough to keep up with all the startup news released every week. But you’re in luck — Inc42 takes care of that for you, serving you with the hottest news updates about acquisitions, fundings and a lot more for the coming weekend.

Scroll down and Enjoy!

1. Ibibo group acquires online bus ticket portal redBus for a whooping $140 million

The biggest deal in the Indian internet startup scene is on the verge of completion. ibiboGroup, a joint venture between South Africa’s Naspers and Chinese Internet company Tencent has acquired a controlling stake in online bus ticketing firm RedBus, valuing it at about Rs.800 crores or $138 million.

Redbus, founded in 2006 by BITS Pilani Alumni Phanindra Sama and Charan Padmaraju, is India’s largest bus ticketing platform, issuing 10 million tickets with gross sales nearing $200 million annually.

Check out our coverage of this story here.

2. Delhivery acquires cash collection service ‘Gharpay’, pivots to Clink

Delhi based Ecommerce Logistics Service Delhivery has acquired GharPay’s Cash collection services. With this update, ‘GharPay’ brand will now be a part of Delhivery. However, the GharPay team will now focus on building a payment services, Cash on Delivery software and management solution called Clink.

GharPay launched in 2011 by Arpit Mohan and Abhishek Nayak, worked in facilitating cash payment for online merchants.

With the Addition of offline cash collection network to its services, Delhivery will be able to provide a complete package of logistic services required by any E-Commerce company.

Check out our coverage of this story here.

3. Yahoo, continues on its acquisition spree – Acquires two more companies GhostBird and Rondee

Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Mayer is at it again. This time with the acquisition of a Toronto based app maker ‘GhostBird’ and a free conference calling service ‘Rondee’ – two startups working in a completely different market.
Rondee was a Palo Alto, California based free online conference calling service provider for SMEs, families, students and other businesses professionals. The company was founded in 2006.

GhostBird is involved in picture-taking apllications for iPhones. The move will help Yahoo to enhance its Flickr photo service.

4. Nexus Venture Partners invests $ 2.5m in real estate analysis portal Housing.co.in

Mumbai based map based real estate search portal, Housing.co.in has announced $2.5mn of Series A funding from Nexus Venture Partners. The raised fund will be used to establish Data Science Lab (DSL) and to aggressively expand data sciences.

Launched in 2012, by a group of 12 IIT Mumbai Alumni, Housing.co.in works on idea to help people to book or rent flats. It makes house hunting easy through its unique and exceptional user interface which empowers users with the ability to view a house without necessitating physical presence.

5. Amazon launches its online marketplace in India

Amazon Seller Services Private Limited, an Amazon.com company, today announced the launch of Amazon’s marketplace in India, www.amazon.in, allowing third party sellers to list their products on it. For sellers Amazon is offering a free listing for a year with INR 10 commission per sale, the competitive pricing which can add misery to currently struggling marketplace in India.

Currently the scene for online marketplace in India has heated up with lot of retailers pivoting to this model. Flipkart still leads the pack with its better delivery and other services.

6. Google at last announces Acquisition of Isreal based Waze

Finally, after months of rumors, Google on Tuesday announced on its blog, the acquisition of Waze, the Israel based mapping software company.

The Waze product development team will remain in Israel and operate separately for now. Google now plans to enhance Google maps with some of the traffic update features provided by Waze and enhancing Waze with Google’s search capabilities.

Claiming to have + 50,000 users, Waze is basically a community based social traffic and navigation app where millions of drivers around the world sharing real time road info so that everyone can be benefited.

7. Flipkart scraps more categories, stops shipments worth more than INR 10,000 in UP areas

Online marketplace Flipkart after downscaling its team size & discontinuing Flyte music store is now going further to optimize its approach to tackle challenges prevailing in ecommerce in India by discontinuing its consumer electronics category which include TVs, audio systems and large electronics including air conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines.

Adding up to all this, company had also announced that from now it won’t be shipping products more than INR 10,000 to customers in Uttar Pradesh and its nearby NCR regions.

8. Google X Announces Project Loon: Balloon-Powered Internet For Rural, Remote And Underserved Areas

Google X, the secretive lab behind projects like Google Glass and Google’s self-driving cars, announced its latest project today: balloon-powered Internet access for those areas of the earth where regular terrestrial Internet isn’t a good option.

Currently, Google says it is using 30 balloons in this pilot project and about 50 testers in New Zealand are using the service on the ground. These testers have special antennas that can connect to the balloons when they are within a 20km radius.

Google hopes that this balloon-powered network can help bring down the price of Internet access in many countries where it’s currently unaffordable for many people.

Read more about this project on the official page here. 

9. OpenTable Acquires US/Mumbai Based JustChalo for $11 Million

OpenTable, an online restaurant reservations provider has acquired JustChalo Inc., a mobile technology company focused on the US restaurant industry in a stock and cash deal of approximately $11 million. Since the introduction of its mobile solutions in November 2008, OpenTable has seated more than 60 million diners through reservations booked via mobile devices.

“Mobile is increasingly important to our business and the JustChalo team’s expertise will help accelerate our development efforts in this area,” said Joseph Essas, Chief Technology Officer of OpenTable.

10. Nanobi, Intellocut and Trutech are the top 3 tech startups at Microsoft Bizsparks’13

Microsoft Bizspark’s hunt for best technology startup in the field of Cloud computing and Mobile technology in India has culminated this week. Nanobi was announced as the winner of Microsoft Bizspark startup challenge with Intellocut & Truetech as its first and second runners up respectively.

Nanobi Data and Analytics provide businesses with analytic solutions using modern technology, which will help them better manage their business, customers and other parts of their ecosystem.

IntelloCut is a cloud based material planning software from sewn products industry. The company, with its advanced algorithms and complex data analysis claims to help manufacturers reduce their cost upto 10% in the process of buying, cutting and use of material.

Trutech Webs Private Ltd is a cloud based web computing solutions provider to Organizations in Education, Finance, Business and Real Estate.

Hope you enjoyed this edition of ‘Week in Review– Top 10 updates from the Startup-verse’. See you until the next weekend!