Also in this letter:
■ KKR’s Ananya Tripathi may be next WhiteHat Jr CEO
■ Cred reports Rs 96 crore revenue in FY21
■ Amazon, Future lawyers agree to settlement talks
ET panel to discuss startup IPOs on March 12
A group of industry leaders will soon discuss ‘The IPO Opportunity: How Indian startups will transition from private to public markets’.
Where and when? At The Economic Times Startup Awards (ETSA) in Bengaluru on March 12.
Who’s on the panel? Some of the biggest names in the Indian startup scene, such as:
- Deepinder Goyal, founder & CEO, Zomato
- Nithin Kamath, founder & CEO, Zerodha
- Lizzie Chapman, cofounder & CEO, Zest Money
- Sahil Barua, cofounder & CEO, Delhivery
- Shekhar Kirani, partner at venture capital fund Accel
What’s on the menu? Our panelists discuss how Indian startups planning IPOs can move ahead with the next phase of their lifecycle as they become publicly listed companies.
Zomato’s year: We announced the winners of ETSA 2021 on September 27, after our jury, led by Infosys cofounder and non-executive chairman Nandan Nilekan, met virtually to choose winners across nine categories from a shortlist of 44 contenders.
- Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar, cofounders of Ixigo, won the Comeback Kid award. The jury was inspired by their decision to not change course in the face of several adversities.
KKR’s Ananya Tripathi may join Byju’s Whitehat Jr as CEO
Ananya Tripathi, a managing director at KKR Capstone and former chief strategy officer at Myntra, is in talks to join edtech major Byju’s Whitehat Jr as its CEO later this month, multiple sources told us.
Details: She has resigned at KKR and is expected to start at Whitehat Jr in the middle of March, the sources added. The news comes amid a larger restructuring at the company. KKR Capstone helps investment teams and portfolio firms of private equity major KKR globally.
Criticism: Whitehat Jr, a coding platform for children, has faced severe criticism for its business practices, especially how it sells its courses to parents. It has also sued people for publicly criticising its practices.
Last August, Whitehat Jr’s original founder and CEO Karan Bajaj left the firm and Byju’s customer experience head Trupti Mukker named the new CEO.
It is not clear what role Mukker will be given within Byju’s once Tripathi joins.
Mandate: A significant portion of Tripathi’s mandate will be to expand the business of Whitehat Jr worldwide, sources said. Byju’s, which has been on an acquisition spree and expanding in global markets, has relied heavily on Whitehat Jr to build its Byju’s Future School, which it launched in April 2021. Byju’s had said at the time it will take Byju’s Future School to markets like the US, the UK, Brazil, Mexico and Indonesia.
Cred reports Rs 96 crore revenue in FY21, plans account aggregator play
Cred’s parent firm Dreamplug Technologies has reported total revenue of Rs 95.5 crore for the financial year ending March 31, 2021 (FY21), up from Rs 18.14 crore in FY20.
Details: The company reported a total loss of Rs 523.8 crore on a consolidated basis, compared to Rs 361.1 crore for the year-ago period. Total revenue from operations grew to Rs 88.6 crore from about Rs 52 lakh.
Losses were due to employee expenses, which stood at Rs 134.7 crore in FY21. Cred’s employee expenses were Rs 72.8 crore in FY20.
Other expenses, including marketing, touched Rs 418 crore in FY21, up 43% from Rs 237.2 crore in FY20.
New play: The company is applying for an account aggregator (AA) licence from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), regulatory filings showed.
An account aggregator (AA) is a type of RBI-regulated entity that helps an individual securely and digitally access and share information from one financial institution they have an account with to any other regulated financial institution in the AA network.
ET was the first to report that Cred was in talks to also apply for a payment aggregator licence from the RBI. A payments aggregator helps merchants receive digital payments from multiple platforms without having to enter into individual tie-ups with service providers.
ElasticRun’s revenue doubles: Meanwhile, business-to-business (B2B) ecommerce platform ElasticRun saw its revenue grow 2x to Rs 1,087 crore in FY21, financial details sourced from business intelligence platform Tofler showed. Its revenue was Rs 510 crore in FY20. Losses widened 10% to Rs 101 crore in FY21 from Rs 91 crore in the previous financial year.
ETtech Done Deals
.jpg "invester_Money_startup_idea_VC_funding (1)")
■ Digital payments and children’s pocket money app Junio has raised $6 million led by UAE-based NB Ventures, with significant participation from the Rajiv Dadlani Group. The company said it would use the fresh funds to expand its team, roll out new product features and scale customer acquisition initiatives.
■ Audio streaming platform Pocket FM has raised $65 million in a funding round led by Goodwater Capital, Naver, and existing investor Tanglin Venture Partners. The company plans to use the fresh funds to strengthen its leadership position, expand into new languages, invest in AI capabilities and build a large audio creator community.
■ Instant live tutoring startup Filo has raised $23 million in a funding round led by Anthos Capital.The edtech startup plans to use the fresh capital for product development, expanding the team, tapping new categories, and scaling its tutor base across the country.
Amazon, Future lawyers agree to talks for out-of-court settlement
Lawyers for Amazon and Future Group on Thursday agreed to initiate talks to reach an out-of-court settlement of the 18-month-old dispute, sparked by Future Group’s plan to sell its assets to Reliance Retail.
Driving the news: Amazon’s lawyer Gopal Subramanian set the conciliatory tone in the Supreme Court on Thursday morning. “We have always been willing to have a dialogue, a conversation. Let us put our heads together and find a solution,” he said.
Harish Salve, appearing for the Future Group, said in response, “Now if he has seen the light of the day and he wants to have a conversation. What prevents the big boss from Amazon calling up Mr. (Kishore) Biyani?”
What’s next? The Supreme Court said it would hear the matter again on March 15, and told the three parties— Amazon, Future Retail and its promoter Future Coupons— to thrash out a settlement.
“We will simply adjourn the matter for 10 days. Meanwhile, work out a gentlemen’s understanding,” Chief Justice N V Ramana said.
The court also said that related proceedings in the Delhi High Court and the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) could go on as scheduled.
India’s YouTube’s creators generated Rs 6,800 crore in 2020: report
Indian creators on YouTube contributed Rs 6,800 crore to the country’s economy in 2020, and supported the equivalent of 6.83 lakh full-time jobs, according to a report by independent consulting firm Oxford Economics.
The study involved creators who receive funds directly from YouTube, generate funds from other sources with their YouTube videos, and/or permanently employ other people to support their YouTube activities.
These revenue sources not only support jobs and income for creative entrepreneurs themselves, but also wider activity in supply chains, the report said. Interestingly, the number of channels in India with over 100,000 subscribers now stands at 40,000, up 45% year on year.
Other Top Stories By Our Reporters
Reliance arm teams up with Sanmina to make electronics: Reliance Strategic Business Ventures (RSBV) and Sanmina Corp, an integrated manufacturing solutions company, have entered into a joint venture (JV) for electronics manufacturing. RSBV is a wholly-owned arm of Reliance Industries. (Read more)
Daimler Truck’s innovation & development centre: Daimler Truck, one of the world’s largest commercial vehicle makers, has set up an innovation and technology development centre in India. The Daimler Truck Innovation Centre India in Bengaluru will serve as the backbone for all technology development for Daimler Truck globally. (Read more)
Global Picks We Are Reading
■ How bitcoin and a crypto exchange became part of Ukraine’s war effort (WSJ)
■ HTC pivots from blockchain to the metaverse for its next smartphone gimmick (The Verge)
■ Twitter expands crowdsourced fact check experiment ‘Birdwatch’ (Reuters)
Today’s ETtech Morning Dispatch was curated by Zaheer Merchant in Mumbai and Judy Franko in New Delhi. Graphics and illustrations by Rahul Awasthi.
