Also in this letter:
■ K’taka HC tells Bengaluru civic body to set up ward-wise grievance cells
■ Microsoft backs Travis Kalanick’s CloudKitchens: report
■ Venture Catalysts partners with Credai for $100M proptech fund
Final IT Rules amendments to be rolled out soon: Rajeev Chandrasekhar
The government will soon come out with the final version of its proposed amendments to the Information Technology Rules, 2021, minister of state for IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Wednesday.
There’s more: Over the next few months, the government will also come out with laws and rules on the national data governance framework and Digital India Act, and reintroduce a new data protection bill in Parliament, Chandrasekhar said at an event organised by the US-India Business Council.
All the new laws and rules, he said, would be brought out only after intense consultations with stakeholders and the general public. The new laws will supersede the old laws and rules currently in place, he added.
“These new laws, in a sense, supersede existing legislation. So, the Digital India Act will clearly supersede the IT Act (of 2000). There is no question of both of them existing. If there are any contradictions with the existing and legacy laws, we will get them amended,” the minister of state said.
Catch up quick: In August, the IT ministry withdrew the version of the data protection bill that was first introduced in Parliament in 2019. Senior government officials had told us at the time that the new version of the data protection bill was at a “very advanced stage”.
Similarly, in June, the ministry completed open house discussions on the proposed amendments to the IT Rules, 2021. It then asked all stakeholders to submit their comments on the proposed changes by July 6.
Digital currency pilot by year-end: At the same event, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Deputy Governor T Rabi Sankar said the central bank would launch its digital currency as a pilot project this year, while Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said India’s digital revolution offers investment opportunities for US companies and investors.
Bengaluru floods: HC tells civic body to set up ward-wise grievance cells
The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday directed Bengaluru’s civic body BBMP to set up ward-wise cells to hear the grievances of residents, including those in the tech suburbs of Mahadevapura and Bommanahalli, who have faced hardships owing to unprecedented rains over the past several days.
A division bench of acting Chief Justice Alok Arade and Justice S Vishwajith Shetty asked the BBMP to notify an engineer for each ward to respond to grievances.
The BBMP’s advocate told the high court that the government would install sluice gates at all lakes in the city to regulate the flow of water and prevent flooding in the event of heavy rains.
Wednesday meeting: Meanwhile, Karnataka’s IT/BT Minister CN Ashwath Narayan – who said earlier that the government would work with the industry to find a solution to the flooding – called for a meeting with technology companies at Vidhana Soudha on Wednesday evening. Top government officials, including from the BBMP, were expected to attend.
Also Read | CM pledges to fix water woes as rainfall batters Bengaluru’s tech suburbs
Founders, VCs bemoan lack of infrastructure: On Wednesday morning we reported that several startups, including Flipkart, Myntra, PhonePe and Vedantu, have been hit by the devastating floods in India’s technology capital. Many founders and CEOs have chronicled their struggles on Twitter, and employees of most companies have been asked to work from home.
“Ten years ago people moved away from Mumbai because of rising cost of living and started setting up headquarters in Bengaluru or Pune. Today, there is no advantage that Bengaluru brings since the cost of living is rising and the civic infrastructure is crumbling,” said Jitendra Gupta, founder and chief executive of fintech startup Jupiter.
Not over yet: On Wednesday, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) predicted more rain in Bengaluru city over the next five days. On Tuesday it raised a yellow alert for the city.
Also Read | Unacademy CEO Gaurav Munjal’s family evacuated on tractor
Microsoft backs Uber cofounder Travis Kalanick’s CloudKitchens: report
Microsoft is said to have backed CloudKitchens, the ‘dark kitchen’ startup of Uber’s cofounder and former CEO Travis Kalanick, according to a report in the Financial Times.
The investment was part of CloudKitchens’s $850 million funding round that closed in November 2021.
Supercharged: Since receiving the cash injection, CloudKitchens has been able to supercharge its growth globally, the Financial Times report said, and it now has more than 4,000 employees across the US, Latin America, the UK and the Middle East.
CloudKitchens buys or leases warehousing space, converting these premises into dark kitchens — units that can be rented by restaurant businesses to cook food to be sold via delivery apps such as DoorDash and UberEats.
Controversial move: Kalanick, who was ousted from Uber in June 2017 after a series of scandals, took over the real-estate company City Storage Systems, which runs CloudKitchens, in 2019.
Microsoft invested around $100 million in Uber in 2015, when the ride-hailing firm was valued at around $50 billion.
But the software company’s decision to once again back Kalanick, whose exit from Uber was prompted by a series of ethical scandals and management failings, appears to set Microsoft apart from other prominent Silicon Valley investors who have previously backed the controversial entrepreneur.
‘Toxic’ work culture: According to the Financial Times report, CloudKitchens earlier suffered from many of the same cultural issues once found at Uber, and was experiencing high attrition as a result.
One senior figure, who had also previously worked at Uber, described CloudKitchens as “the most toxic place I’ve ever seen or experienced.”
Tweet of the day
From SaaS to Web3 & more, sector roundtables to follow at ET Soonicorns Summit
The two-day virtual ET Soonicorns Summit, powered by AWS and Intel, goes live from 11:30 am tomorrow, bringing together around 50 speakers across 20 sessions, including several sector roundtables focused on fintech, SaaS, Web3, healthtech, agritech, gametech, and more.
At the sector roundtables, the founders of Indian unicorns and soonicorns will come together with investors and other stakeholders to delve deep into the opportunities and challenges facing Indian startups and find out what’s needed to help them solve pressing problems in various industries and create impact at scale.
For an overview of the session lineup and key speakers, check out the ET Soonicorns Summit preview. You can also register here to join the event as we stream it live on September 8 and 9.
Venture Catalysts partners with Credai for $100-million real estate startup fund
The Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India (Credai) and startup incubator and accelerator Venture Catalysts have partnered to set up a $100 million proptech fund to invest in real estate startups.
The fund will invest in early- to growth-stage startups catering to all the major real estate segments, including residential, commercial, institutional (hotels, schools, hospitals), and industrial (warehouses, factories).
Details: As part of the programme, Credai will provide startups with mentorship and access to its network of over 13,000 members from 256 different industrial fields in real estate, such as developers, vendors, channel partners, promoters, and others.
Venture Catalysts is an early backer of hospitality unicorn Oyo. In August 2020 it also roped in Oyo founder and chief executive Ritesh Agarwal as a mentor and advisor.
ETtech Done Deals
■ Mental health start-up Evolve said it has raised Rs 3 crore in funding led by Rajesh Ranavat, executive director of Fund Strategic Holdings, with participation from other prominent angel investors including Ankit Mehrotra and Nikhil Bakshi, founders of Dineout.
■ Daalchini, a retail tech startup, said it has raised $4 million in its Series A funding round led by Unicorn India Ventures. The round also saw participation from existing backers like Artha Venture Fund; Ajay Kaul, former CEO of Dominos India; and VSS Investco, the investment vehicle of Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma.
Instagram to scale back shopping features amid commerce retreat: report
Instagram is planning to drastically scale back its shopping features as it shifts the focus of its ecommerce efforts to those that directly drive advertising, The Information reported, citing an internal memo.
What’s next? According to the report on Tuesday, the staff was notified that Instagram’s existing shopping page would eventually disappear.
Over the next few months, Instagram will test a simpler and less personalised version of the shopping page known internally as “Tab Lite”, the report said.
The company will launch a public test, starting Wednesday, on the changes to its app designed to switch users to the “Tab Lite” version of the shopping page, it added.
Big picture: The scaling back comes amid a broader internal pullback on ecommerce initiatives across Meta’s platforms.
Today’s ETtech Top 5 newsletter was curated by Gaurab Dasgupta in New Delhi and Zaheer Merchant in Mumbai. Graphics and illustrations by Rahul Awasthi.
