Credit: Giphy
Also in this letter:
■ Tiger, A91 participate in Box8’s $30M secondary funding
■ Flipkart sorry for promoting kitchen appliances on Women’s Day
■ Bain Capital Ventures launches $560-million crypto fund
CCI clears Amazon’s proposal to buy Catamaran’s stake in Cloudtail parent
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has cleared Amazon’s proposal to acquire Catamaran Ventures’ entire stake in Prione Business Services, which houses Cloudtail, one of the largest sellers on the ecommerce major’s Indian platform. The CCI said it had approved the transaction in a tweet.
We reported on December 22 that Amazon had sought the competition regulator’s nod for the deal.
Top Amazon India executives are expected to hold a meeting on the matter on Thursday, sources aware of the developments said.
In December, Catamaran — the investment office of Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy — and Jeff Bezos-led Amazon announced the proposed deal in a joint statement.
In 2019, in order to comply with the new foreign direct investment regulations for ecommerce, Amazon had been forced to reduce its stake in Prione from 49% to 24%, with Catamaran owning the rest.
In January, domestic traders’ body the Confederation of Indian Traders’ Association (CAIT) petitioned CCI to block Amazon’s takeover of Cloudtail India, saying the proposed acquisition would adversely affect the market if it went through.
“This acquisition is not only in violation of competition law but is also a violation of FDI norms,” it added.
Tiger, A91 participate in Box8’s $30-million secondary funding
EatClub Brands cofounders Anshul Gupta and Amit Raj
Cloud kitchen startup EatClub Brands – formerly known as Box8 — will soon finalise a $30-million secondary round of funding that will see Tiger Global increase its stake, sources told us.
Details: A91 Partners will also participate in the secondary purchase of shares, which will see existing backer IIFL sell part of its stake in the company, the sources said.
- IIFL Seed Venture Funds, the venture capital and private equity arm of IIFL Wealth & Asset Management had first backed Box8 in 2016.
- IIFL and A91 will also purchase new shares as part of a primary infusion in EatClub Brands.
In December 2021, Eatclub had raised $40 million from New York-based Tiger Global at a valuation of $340 million. The secondary transaction is an extension of that round.
Mumbai-based EatClub Brands was founded in 2012 by IIT-Bombay graduates Gupta and Amit Raj. Launched as a Mexican quick-service restaurant chain, it pivoted to the multi-brand cloud kitchen business in 2014. It now has eight brands, including Box8 and Mojo Pizza, and operates in five cities including Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Pune. It also runs 150 cloud kitchens.
Consolidation in the air: There has been heightened activity in the cloud kitchen space in recent months, with two back-to-back mergers since January. Curefoods, which raised $62 million in January, announced its merger with rival Maverix the same month. Meanwhile, Kitchen Center and Kitchen@ also merged to expand their cloud kitchens across India.
ETtech Done Deals
■ Online financial services provider Money View said it has raised $75 million in a fresh round of funding from Tiger Global, Winter Capital, Evolvence India and Accel. Other investors included South Park Commons, Trusted Insight and Dream Incubator. With the latest fundraise, the company is valued at $625 million.
■ Jiffy.ai, a business-to-business (B2B) automation platform, has raised $53 million in a funding round led by Eight Roads Ventures. The round saw participation from venture firms Iron Pillar, R-Squared, and existing investors Nexus Venture Partners, Reaction Capital and Rebright Partners.
Flipkart apologises for promoting kitchen appliances on Women’s Day
Flipkart apologised on Wednesday for a promotional message asking customers to “celebrate” themselves on Women’s Day by buying kitchen appliances.
The company tweeted, “We messed up and we are sorry. We did not intend to hurt anyone’s sentiments and apologise for the Women’s Day message shared earlier.”
What happened? On March 7, the eve of International Women’s Day, Flipkart sent the following promotional message to customers: “Dear Customer, this Women’s Day, let’s celebrate You. Get kitchen appliances from Rs 299.”
The company faced a huge backlash on social media, especially Twitter, after a user shared a screenshot of the message and wrote: “Can you spot the problem here?” The tweet quickly went viral, gathering nearly 5,000 likes and hundreds of comments.
Many Twitter users called out the ecommerce platform for reinforcing stereotypes about women.
One user said, “Epic Failure on Women’s Day by @Flipkart – reducing women to the kitchen and making it sound like a favor!
Foot-in-mouth marketing: Flipkart isn’t the only company to have faced criticism for a poorly judged Women’s Day message.
Last year, Burger King faced a backlash in the UK after tweeting “Women belong in the kitchen”. Though meant sarcastically (the tweet was promoting a new culinary scholarship for women), the company’s approach came in for severe criticism. Burger King eventually deleted the tweet and issued an apology.
In August 2021, Zomato was criticised for an ad that depicted delivery workers as too busy to take selfies with celebrities such as Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif. Zomato said in response to the ensuing backlash that the ads were “well-intentioned”.
Bain Capital Ventures launches $560-million crypto fund
Bain Capital Ventures is launching a $560 million fund focused exclusively on crypto-related efforts.
The fund closed in December, and the firm has already invested $100 million in a dozen efforts, which it hasn’t yet disclosed, said Stefan Cohen, a managing partner at Bain Capital Crypto.
Familiar territory: Bain Capital Ventures has been investing in crypto for the past seven years, pouring money into crypto lender BlockFi Inc., decentralised-finance lender Compound, and Digital Currency Group, which runs a slew of crypto-related businesses. But its new BCV Fund I is the first fund focused just on this market.
Bitcoin rallies after Yellen accidently leaks crypto policy: Bitcoin led a rally in cryptocurrencies on Wednesday after what appeared to be a prematurely published US Treasury statement allayed market worries about a sudden tightening of US rules around digital assets.
Bitcoin climbed 7.2% to $41,515 and was on track for its biggest gain since February 28, while smaller peer ether added 5.3% to touch $2,715 and was also set for its best day this month.
US siblings charged in $124M crypto fraud: US authorities filed criminal charges against a cryptocurrency executive and civil charges against him and his sister, accusing them of defrauding retail investors out of millions of dollars with a digital token known as Ormeus Coin.
The Justice Department said John Barksdale lied about the value and profitability of Ormeus Coin’s mining assets, including that the coin was backed by a $250 million mining operation generating more than $5 million of monthly revenue.
Better.com fires thousands of workers in US and India
Better.com CEO Vishal Garg
Digital mortgage company Better.com, run by Indian-American CEO Vishal Garg, on Wednesday started laying off thousands of employees in the US and India. The employees found out they had been sacked when they received severance cheques in the payroll app.
The news comes three months after the company Garg fired over 900 employees on Zoom call. The video went viral on social media, forcing Garg to take a brief break from the company.
Mass layoff: An estimated 3,000 of the company’s 8,000 employees in the US and India are being asked to go. The earlier figure reported was about 4,000 but it is now “just over 3,000”, according to a company spokesperson.
Botched again: The latest layoffs were meant to be announced on March 8, but one employee told TechCrunch that “they accidentally rolled out the severance payslips too early.” Better.com reportedly planned the layoffs for March 8 but moved the date to March 9 when news of the initial date was leaked in the media.
The company apparently forgot to change the date on its accompanying Workday app and employees reportedly saw severance cheques appearing in the app at midnight on March 8.
Today’s ETtech Top 5 newsletter was curated by Arun Padmanabhan in New Delhi and Zaheer Merchant in Mumbai. Graphics and illustrations by Rahul Awasthi.
