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Also in this letter:
■ Cloudtail accuses CCI of illegally detaining its employees
■ Amazon to pull out of $7.7 billion race for IPL rights
■ SAP Labs to open new campus by 2025, double India team
Another senior BharatPe exec set to quit as top management churn continues
BharatPe is set to lose another senior executive, less than a month after two others quit the troubled fintech firm.
Driving the news: Satyam Nathani, an IIT-Delhi graduate, is set to leave BharatPe, sources told us. He has been with BharatPe since its early days and headed several technology functions, including the launch of the company’s recent offerings such as PostPe and 10% Club.
In his current role he has been overseeing the technological integration of BharatPe and Unity Small Finance Bank, in which it has a minority stake.
“Nathani has put in his papers and plans to leave. The company however is still negotiating with him on the exit,” a person aware of the discussions said.
Run for the hills: We reported on June 8, citing sources, that BharatPe’s chief revenue officer Nishit Sharma and head of institutional debt Chandrima Dhar left the company last month, citing personal reasons.
Chaos and controversy: BharatPe has seen intense investor and media scrutiny this year, after cofounder Ashneer Grover sought damages from Kotak Mahindra Bank managing director Uday Kotak in January, alleging that the bank refused him financing for a personal investment in Nykaa’s IPO last November.
At the end of January, BharatPe’s board hired independent auditors A&M and PricewaterhouseCoopers after receiving complaints from an internal whistleblower on alleged financial malpractices and corporate misgovernance at the firm.
This led to the ouster of the company’s head of controls, Madhuri Jain, who is also Grover’s wife. Grover himself resigned from the company and its board in March.
Cloudtail accuses CCI of illegally detaining its employees
Cloudtail, which was until recently a top seller for Amazon in India, has accused the Competition Commission of India of illegally detaining its employees during a raid over suspected competition law violations, Reuters reported, citing court documents it has seen.
Cloudtail was among a handful of online sellers raided in late April, in an investigation of Amazon and Flipkart over suspected preferential treatment on their ecommerce platforms.
It argued in a court filing the detentions were cause for disallowing materials seized in the raid.
“[Three] employees from the senior management were detained for over 30 hours through the night till the completion of the search & seizure operation,” the May 30 filing said. The operation was conducted on April 28 and 29.
CCI rejects allegations: A senior source at CCI, which conducted the raid, rejected the allegations, telling Reuters it had obtained the required legal approvals and was in line with the watchdog’s regulatory processes.
Escalation: Cloudtail’s filing marks an escalation in the tussle between India’s increasingly assertive authorities and the foreign ecommerce players that, along with their affiliates, dominate the country’s booming online retail sector.
For years, small traders have alleged that foreign giants favour selected sellers online, in violation of Indian laws. The companies deny those allegations.
Not just ecommerce: Online retail isn’t the only sector where Indian authorities have been involved in public spats with foreign companies.
In early May, Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi alleged in a filing that its top executives faced threats of physical violence and coercion during an investigation of remittance payments by the Enforcement Directorate. The agency denied the allegations.
Amazon to pull out of $7.7 billion race for IPL rights
Amazon plans to withdraw from a heated competition for the rights to stream Indian Premier League matches, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
In doing so, Amazon is ceding one of the world’s most popular sporting contests to rivals Walt Disney Co and Reliance.
No bidding war: The rights had been estimated to fetch an unprecedented $7.7 billion but Amazon is planning to throw in the towel rather than get into a bidding war, the sources said.
While Amazon has already invested more than $6 billion in India, more spending merely for the online streaming rights to the league didn’t make business sense, they added.
Amazon had initially identified IPL among half a dozen global sports franchises it was interested in. It has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on European soccer rights, and has forged a deal to broadcast Thursday Night Football in the US for $1 billion per season until 2033.
High stakes: Amazon’s surprise pullout leaves the field open to Reliance, Disney and Sony, which are betting on cricket to help them dominate the Indian consumer market, which is increasingly going online.
Whichever company scores the deal could also bolster their position as a leading media player in a country of 1.4 billion where the cricket enjoys cult-like status.
The IPL was valued at about $5.9 billion in 2020 by Duff & Phelps, now known as Kroll. That number could now be 25% higher, according to Santosh N, managing partner at D and P India Advisory Services, the Bloomberg report said. The BCCI estimates it’s worth $7 billion.
Tweet of the day
SAP Labs to open new campus by 2025, double its team in India
SAP Labs – the German software giant’s research and development arm – will double its India workforce by 2025 and open a new campus with a capacity of 15,000 people in Devanahalli, Bengaluru.
What’s the plan? The company has acquired 41 acres in the area, which is located close to its global clients in the city. SAP Labs currently has 14,000 employees across five Indian cities – Bengaluru, Pune, Mumbai, Gurgaon and Hyderabad. It plans to hire 3,600 employees this calendar year and says it has already reached the halfway mark.
Quote: Thomas Saueressig, SAP SE’s executive board member said on his visit to Bengaluru, “The hiring is not due to labour arbitrage or cost benefit purposes but reflective of huge growth seen in the cloud business.”
“It will be a perfect ecosystem because we have our customers such as Unilever, Shell and Boeing located there. It means working closely with our customers for collaboration and innovation,” said Sindhu Gangadharan, senior vice president and MD of SAP Labs India.
ETtech Deals Digest
Edtech startup Physics Wallah and online beauty retailer Purplle became the latest startups to join India’s growing unicorn club this week. Cred and Kissht were the other startups that raised money. Here’s the link to all deals of the week.
Today’s ETtech Top 5 newsletter was curated by Zaheer Merchant and Aishwarya Dabhade in Mumbai. Graphics and illustrations by Rahul Awasthi.
