Also in the letter:
■ Online gaming platforms against SRO backed by IAMAI
■ Early-stage VC 3one4 gets $200 million for new fund
■ ETtech Explainer: What does it take to build a semiconductor ecosystem?
Price war brewing as ONDC takes on food-delivery majors Zomato, Swiggy
ONDC appears to be challenging the duopoly of Swiggy and Zomato in India’s food delivery sector. The ecommerce delivery network has now triggered a price war across some of the country’s largest restaurant brands.
Driving the news: ONDC allows restaurants to sell food directly through buyer apps, which could disrupt the food-delivery market. For now, it is not charging delivery fees from consumers. Commissions charged by Swiggy and Zomato from restaurants range from 18% to 25%, while on ONDC, that would be about 8-10%, an executive representing industry body National Restaurants Association of India (NRAI) told us.
Discounts coming from? ONDC ordering platforms like Paytm, Magicpin, and PhonePe offer discounts of 30%-80% on brands like McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Behrouz Biryani, and Cafe Coffee Day compared to prices on Swiggy and Zomato.
Industry body push: NRAI, which in 2021 had first approached the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to look into ‘anti-competitive practices’ by Swiggy and Zomato, is now encouraging member restaurants to start exploring ONDC as an alternative to the existing delivery services.
WestBridge may invest Rs 800 crore in Milky Mist valuing it at Rs 7,000 crore
India-focussed investment fund WestBridge Capital is in the final stage of closing a deal to acquire a minority stake worth Rs 800 crore in Tamil Nadu-based dairy products brand Milky Mist.
Deal Details: WestBridge is likely to have valued the company at about Rs 7,000 crore, three people in the know told us. The fund which manages more than $8 billion in assets, had been focusing on investments in the new-age tech space over the past few years. But with a tech turbulent market prevailing, the fund is deploying capital in public markets and scouting for more predictable private businesses.
Milky Mist numbers: Milky Mist posted sales of around Rs 1,450 crore for the year ending March 31, 2023, rising 42% over the previous year. In FY22, the company reported sales of Rs 1,012 crore with a net profit of Rs 32 crore. Industry experts said, the company has been reporting an operating profitability of about 15% over the last three financial years.
Also read: Fintech startup Fundly.ai on Monday said it raised $3 million in a seed funding
Online gaming platforms against SRO backed by IAMAI: Sources
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In a fresh flashpoint between internet industry body Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and its members, prominent online gaming companies such as Dream11, Games24x7, Mobile Premier League (MPL) and Zupee are not in favour of a self-regulatory organisation (SRO) backed by the lobby group.
Driving the news: Companies in the sector are instead learnt to be working with specialised industry associations to prepare proposals for SROs, separately.
What’s the matter: Executives at online gaming firms that ETtech spoke with claimed IAMAI’s interests were not aligned with their own. Notably, gaming companies had a fallout with the industry association earlier this year when the body issued a statement opposing certain provisions of the draft gaming rules. Companies had, at the time, written to the IT ministry distancing themselves from IAMAI’s views, ETtech had reported exclusively.
What’s the big picture: The development comes at a time when the industry body is already in hot water with Indian startups for allegedly being in favour of Big Tech. ET reported last week that India’s top internet entrepreneurs are up in arms against what they term a lack of “credence” in the nodal industry grouping.
Early-stage VC firm 3one4 racks up $200 million for new fund
From left: 3one4 Capital founding partners Siddarth Pai and Pranav Pai
Early-stage investment fund 3one4 Capital, which has backed the likes of Licious and software firm Darwinbox, has raised $200 million to invest in a new set of startups across consumer, fintech, software-as-a-service (Saas) and digital health.
What’s new: Pranav Pai, founding partner at 3one4 Capital told us that around 50% of the capital in the new fund comes from Indian banks and mutual funds. As much as 90% of the fund was raised from institutional investors.
Catch up quick: The development comes as VCs like Sequoia Capital India, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Accel raised large funds last year and are sitting on a significant amount of undeployed money. Last week, ET reported that venture fund Chiratae Ventures announced the final close of its first growth fund at a little over $112 million.
Tweet of the day
ETtech Explainer: What does it take to build a semiconductor ecosystem in a country?
From mobile phones to missiles, semiconductor chips or simply ‘chips’, are an integral part of all digital devices. How did these integrated circuits come to gain so much importance in geopolitics?
Why are chips important? Chips power spaceships and rockets as well as the smallest light-emitting diodes and bulbs. Today’s devices are most likely to contain a few integrated circuits or semiconductor chips. All aspects of how we communicate, entertain, and run our lives involve semiconductor-related technology. During the Covid-19 pandemic, semiconductor manufacturing ground to a halt. With people beginning to work remotely, there was a sudden surge in their demand.
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