Also in this letter:
■ Twitter takedown orders proportional to user base: MeitY report
■ Temasek may slow down India play to ride out storm
■ 5ire raises $100 million, and other done deals
Government pulls up edtech firms over glut of complaints
The government has taken a serious view of alleged mis-selling of courses and other dubious practices by edtech firms.
Driving the news: The consumer affairs department aired its concerns regarding this and various other issues during a meeting with edtech firms on June 24, sources told us.
Officials said during the meeting that they had received 147 consumer complaints against edtech startups, the sources said.
Byju’s in focus: Complaints against Byju’s and its group entities were highlighted during the discussion, as the edtech leader caters to a large student base, they added.
Senior department officials also relayed their concerns in a follow-up call the same day to executives at Byju’s – India’s highest-valued startup – saying most of the complaints they received were related to the company and its subsidiaries, the sources said.
The company’s cofounder Divya Gokulnath, wife of founder Byju Raveendran, also attended the call, they added. Afterwards, she and other senior executives shared with officials a detailed action plan to address the complaints, another source said.
Issues: “Aggressive mis-selling to parents is something that was discussed, apart from certain claims being made in advertisements. Byju’s was advised to work closely with the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI),” one of the people said.
ASCI said last month that of the 5,532 advertisements that it had processed in the previous fiscal year, 33% of the complaints were from the education sector, which includes edtech as well as traditional educational institutes.
We reported on June 30 that Byju’s was considering rebranding WhiteHat Jr, which has been under the scanner for some allegedly misleading ads.
Twitter takedown orders proportional to user base: MeitY report
The Indian government’s orders for content blocking and takedowns issued to Twitter comprise just 7% of the cumulative legal demands received by the platform in the decade up to 2021, and are proportional to its expanding user base in India, according to an official review.
“India’s 17,338 Legal demands between 2012 and 2021 account for 7% of the global legal demands (amounting) to 225,076 worldwide,” an internal report prepared by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) said. It noted that Twitter has 2.36 crore users in India — its third largest user base globally.
“India is 7% of Twitter’s global user base and so is the volume of removal requests, (from India),” according to the official analysis.
In comparison Japan, which accounts for 18% of Twitter’s global user base, has issued 32% of global legal demands while South Korea has issued 5% of removal requests with just a 2% user base,” the report revealed.
Face-off: The latest analysis comes even as Twitter and the central government are engaged in a faceoff over the increasing number of official demands for takedowns and account blocks.
Earlier this month, the social media platform approached the Karnataka High Court challenging at least 39 such blocking orders issued by the union IT ministry.
Temasek may slow down India play to ride out storm
Temasek, the Singapore government’s investment arm, said its pace of investments in India will likely slow down this year.
Ravi Lambah, head-investment group and head-India at Temasek, said, “If macro is bad, we can’t divest, so we just won’t invest as much, because we have a balance sheet, we can only invest what capital we have. And our funding comes from investments and dividends. And when those go down, we don’t invest that much. It’s as simple on a year to year basis.”
Temasek, which deployed over $1 billion in the country last year and counts new-age businesses such as PharmEasy, Licious, UpGrad, Unacademy, Shiprocket, and ShareChat in its portfolio, said returns for the latest fiscal year are down to 5.8% as of March 31 from 25% in the previous year, amid global macroeconomic headwinds and the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
“There are macro events that are beyond the control of anything that we do from an investment perspective,” Lambah said. “Of course, we will be cautious about how we invest because that’s the right thing to do in an environment of uncertainty. But long term, we are positive, and we will continue to invest in India,” he told ET.
ETtech Done Deals
■ 5ire, a fifth-generation level 1 blockchain network, said it has raised $100 million in a funding round from UK-based conglomerate SRAM & MRAM. The company is now valued at $1.5 billion. It was founded by Indian-origin entrepreneurs Pratik Gauri and Prateek Dwivedi, along with web3 financier Vilma Mattila, in August 2021.
■ Detect Technologies, an artificial intelligence-based software provider, has raised $28 million in a funding round led by Prosus Ventures (formerly Naspers Ventures), with participation from existing investors Accel and Elevation Capital. Shell Ventures, Bharat Innovation Fund and Bluehill Capital also participated in the round.
■ Wysa, an artificial intelligence platform for mental health, has raised $20 million from HealthQuad and British International Investment. Existing investors W Health Ventures, Kae Capital, Pi Ventures and Google Assistant Investments also participated in the round.
■ Fashion discovery startup Shouto has raised $1.6 million led by Saama Capital. Whiteboard Capital, Amit Singhal, the former head of search at Google; Arjun Vaidya, founder of Dr Vaidyas, and 25 direct-to-consumer (D2C) founder angels also participated in the round.
TWEET OF THE DAY
Internet body IAMAI to dismantle Blockchain and Crypto Assets Council
The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) has decided to dismantle the Blockchain and Crypto Assets Council (BACC), the only advocacy body representing the interests of India’s crypto industry, two sources told us.
Why? They said IAMAI decided to disband BACC, which was formed to represent crypto exchanges before authorities such as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), as it wanted to distance itself from crypto.
What it did: BACC acted as an umbrella entity for over a dozen crypto and blockchain companies to liaise with the government. Its members included leading cryptocurrency exchanges such as WazirX, CoinDCX, and CoinSwitch Kuber.
It also introduced a code of conduct for all crypto platforms to follow, which was likely to be updated to avoid run-ins with regulators, as we reported earlier this year.
Lifeline? One of the sources said BACC may continue to exist, albeit separate from IAMAI, as policy remains a key area of concern for the industry, one the exchanges want to work on collectively.
Other Top Stories By Our Reporters
Mindtree bullish despite Ukraine conflict, China issues: Mid-tier IT services provider Mindtree said even though some of its clients have been affected by the Russia-Ukraine conflict and supply chain issues emanating from China, the overall sentiment remains bullish. A few clients are deferring discretionary spends, as they wait for supply chain issues and market sentiment to improve, chief executive Debashis Chatterjee told ET in an interview.
More R&D spending needed, says Kris Gopalakrishnan: The share of spending on research and development as a percentage of GDP should increase with private companies and institutions stepping up their contribution, said Infosys cofounder Kris Gopalakrishnan. “We need to invest more money in research. Research spending should hit 3% of GDP from 0.7% currently,” he said.
Proptech’s PE boost: According to a report by Housing.com, private equity (PE) investments in proptech firms rose an impressive 35% to $741 million last year, courtesy a rise in investor interest due to increasing tech adoption in the realty sector. The report said that since 2010, PE investments in proptech firms have been growing at a compound annual growth rate of 55%.
Global Picks We Are Reading
■ A new attack can unmask anonymous users on any major browser (Wired)
■ Google’s campus is trying the hardest, but can perks compete with WFH? (The Washington Post)
■ Elon Musk and Twitter each face challenge to define what makes an account fake (WSJ)
