Also in this letter:
■ Bombay Shaving Company CEO faces flak for ‘18-hour workday’ advice
■ Axis Bank eyes 10% stake in Go Digit’s life insurance business: report
■ Elon Musk adds whistleblower as new reason to cancel Twitter deal
Programming note: There will be no edition of ETtech Top 5 on August 31 and ETtech Morning Dispatch on September 1 on account of Ganesh Charturthi. Best wishes to you and your family!
Hyperpure could become bigger than food delivery, says Zomato
During its first annual general meeting (AGM) since going public, food delivery major Zomato said its business-to-business (B2B) supplies vertical Hyperpure could be as big as or even bigger than its food delivery business.
The company also reiterated its focus on growing its topline and reassured shareholders about its path to profitability.
“I think overall at a company level, we would say roughly about six months to one year is when we think we should become breakeven without Blinkit,” chief financial officer Akshant Goyal said.
By the numbers: For the first quarter of the fiscal year 2022-23 (FY23), revenue from operations for Hyperpure increased 40% to Rs 272.7 crore from Rs 194.2 crore in the previous quarter.
For the whole of FY22, adjusted revenues of Hyperpure stood at Rs 540 crore, while that of Zomato’s food delivery business stood at Rs 4,760 crore.
Last year, Zomato said it would pour $50 million into Hyperpure in the next 18-24 months.
Share price concerns: Shareholders quizzed the management about the company’s share price outlook, how it plans to use its cash, its path to profitability, and its outlook on growth and future plans. A common concern was the rapid decline in Zomato’s share price and how it might recover.
Zomato said it was focused on generating cash flows and would thereafter consider either returning cash to investors or looking at new avenues for investments “if that makes most sense”.
Bombay Shaving Company CEO faces flak for ‘18-hour workday’ advice
.jpg "Shantanu Deshpande(twitter)")
Shantanu Deshpande, founder and CEO of Bombay Shaving Company, ignited a social media controversy on Tuesday with a post advising freshers and young people to work 18 hours a day in the formative years of their careers.
Driving the news: Deshpande took to LinkedIn to advise young professionals to “worship” their work and put in the grind for the first four or five years to “build flex”.
“I see a lot of youngsters who watch random content all over and convince themselves that ‘work-life balance, spending time with family, rejuvenation bla bla’ is important,” he wrote, adding, “Don’t do random rona-dhona. Take it on the chin and be relentless. You will be way better for it.”
Criticism: But netizens looked in no mood to take Deshpande’s advice, and laid into him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Huzefa Bagwala, a furniture designer, wrote, “This is the kind of toxic work culture oldies provide. This is a classic case of industrial-age work toxicity. Where do you guys come from? Work is just a small part of a very huge life that you have. Do not fall victim to this uncle’s work culture.”
Seeking to quell the outage, Deshpande asked his critics to speak to employees at Bombay Shaving Company to understand the culture he was professing.
Work-life balance debate: Deshpande’s comments come at a time when many employees are questioning traditional ideas of “grinding it out” at all costs, particularly since the advent of pandemic-induced work-from-home culture.
“Quiet quitting” is the latest reflection of this. The trend has emerged in recent months, and while the definition is unclear, the idea is that more workers are no longer going above and beyond for their companies, choosing instead to focus on their work-life balance.
Axis Bank eyes 10% stake in Go Digit’s life insurance business: report
Axis Bank is in talks to acquire a stake in Go Digit Life Insurance, Reuters reported, citing two sources with direct knowledge of the matter.
Details: Axis is planning to invest around $9 million for a 10% stake in the startup’s upcoming life insurance business, effectively valuing it at $90 million, said the two sources. Digit, which already works in the general insurance business, is foraying into life insurance with its ‘Go Digit Life’ venture.
Queueing up: The news comes after India’s biggest private lender HDFC Bank said in a stock exchange disclosure last week that it planned to buy a 9.94% stake in Go Digit Life for up to Rs 70 crore ($9 million).
IPO-bound: Go Digit General Insurance recently filed papers to raise at least $440 million via an initial public offering, eyeing a valuation of $5 billion.
Online shift: The sale of insurance through traditional agents remains popular in India, particularly in small towns but insurance companies are increasingly luring customers with online offerings, promising instant policy issuance and easier claims.
Nazara buys US firm: Meanwhile, gaming and sports media company Nazara Technologies Limited has acquired WildWorks, a leading children’s interactive entertainment company in the US. Nazara will acquire 100% of the company and its IP from existing shareholders in an all-cash transaction.
TWEET OF THE DAY
Elon Musk adds whistleblower as new reason to cancel $44B Twitter deal
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has sent a second deal-termination letter to Twitter, after he subpoenaed a whistleblower seeking documents on how the platform measures spam accounts.
Catch up quick: Musk walked away from a $44-billion offer for Twitter in July, saying the company misled him and regulators about the true number of spam or bot accounts on the platform.
Driving the news: According to a court filing on Monday, Musk has sought information from whistleblower and former head of Twitter’s security Peiter Zatko, mostly about the way the microblogging site measures spam accounts.
A famed hacker known as “Mudge”, Zatko said in his complaint that became public last week that the company falsely claimed it had a solid security plan and prioritised user growth over reducing spam.
Following the disclosure, Musk’s legal team said allegations on certain facts – which Twitter knew about before July 8 did not disclose to them – have come to light and provide “additional and distinct bases to end the deal”.
Australia demands Big Tech firms share plans to stamp out child abuse material
Big Tech firms such as Meta, Apple and Microsoft have been served with letters from the Australia’s e-Safety Commissioner, a regulator that protects internet users, demanding they share their strategies for stamping out child abuse material on their platforms.
The regulator warned the tech behemoths they could be fined $383,000 a day if they failed to share the information within 28 days.
Hardline approach: The latest threat underscores Australia’s hardline approach to regulating Big Tech firms since 2021, which has so far included laws forcing them to pay media outlets to display their content, and to make them hand over details of anonymous accounts that post defamatory material.
YouTube CBO quits: Meanwhile, Robert Kyncl, YouTube’s chief business officer and its first ever hire in Hollywood, is leaving the company after a 12-year stint. His exit is the latest sign that YouTube has junked the traditional Hollywood playbook for media programming.
Today’s ETtech Top 5 newsletter was curated by Zaheer Merchant in Mumbai and Judy Franko in Bengaluru . Graphics and illustrations by Rahul Awasthi.
