Connect with us

Technology

How India’s most valuable startup became worthless

Published

on

Byju

There is more bad news for Byju. In a research note, HSBC estimates that the Indian edtech giant, once valued at $22 billion, is now value nothing. The estimated write-down makes Byju considered one of the most spectacular startup slides in memory, and comes after a really difficult 12 months for what was not way back India’s most valuable startup.

After raising $100 million, artificial intelligence startup LoanSnap is facing an avalanche of lawsuits and has been evicted from its primary office. At least seven creditors, including Wells Fargo, have collectively alleged that the corporate owes them greater than $2 million. Employees who spoke to TechCrunch now worry concerning the company’s future.

An appeals court ruled that VC film Fearless Fund cannot award grants to Black women business owners, sparking outrage amongst diversity advocates within the startup and enterprise ecosystem. Fearless Fund CEO Arian Simone released a press release saying the muse is committed to continuing to fight the lawsuit.

News

What to expect at WWDC 2024: Apple’s annual developer conference begins on June 10 at 10 a.m. PT. From iOS 18 to the debut of macOS 15 and lots of AI talk, here’s what you may expect. read more

Rivian’s Path to Survival: Rivian has announced completely revamped versions of its first two consumer vehicles. For the primary time for the reason that company broke stealth technology in 2018, the electrical automobile maker’s immediate future is really vibrant. read more

Carta gets a giant valuation cut: TechCrunch has learned that Carta is working on a secondary sale that might value the corporate at $2 billion, dramatically reducing its valuation by $6.5 billion. read more

Artists flee to Cara: The anti-AI social media app for creators skyrocketed to the highest of the Apple App Store this week as artists grow increasingly fed up with Meta’s AI training policy. read more

Robinhood acquires Bitstamp: The stock trading app is delving into cryptocurrencies with the acquisition of cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp. The company expects the ultimate deal value to be roughly $200 million. read more

Meet Apple Recycling Robots: TechCrunch visited Apple’s manufacturing facilities to learn more concerning the company’s efforts to construct a greater recycling robot to make its supply chain carbon neutral by 2030. read more

You cannot skip these ads: Instagram has confirmed it’s testing a brand new feature that can prevent users from browsing the social media platform until they’ve watched a non-skippable ad in its entirety, sparking criticism. read more

“Don’t mess with parents of little kids”: Popular kid’s YouTuber Ms. Rachel’s Cameo fundraiser resulted in frustration because, under the corporate’s results policy, fans received credits as a substitute of videos. read more

Trump runs on TikTok: Donald Trump has joined TikTok to higher connect with young voters, signaling a decisive shift in opinion on the short-video app he once tried to ban. read more

Revel makes one other twist: After abandoning its moped-sharing business in favor of an all-Tesla, all-employee passenger transportation business, Revel is shedding greater than 1,000 drivers to adopt a contract employee model much like those utilized by Lyft and Uber. read more

Walkie-talkie is undergoing modernization: This French startup went viral due to its walkie-talkie app that enables teenagers to send voice messages to friends – even when their phones are locked. read more

Analysis

Can Generative AI Save Siri?: Apple is predicted to announce a partnership with OpenAI at WWDC and has set broader goals to deeply integrate generative AI into Siri. As Brian Heater reports, Siri has did not deliver the revolution Apple promised 13 years ago — and at this point, Apple cannot beat OpenAI at its own game. read more

It seems that AI models have favorite numbers: Gramener engineers conducted a casual experiment wherein they asked several core LLM chatbots to decide on a random number between 0 and 100. But, as Devin Coldewey notes, the outcomes weren’t random. All three models had a “favorite” number and even showed human bias towards other numbers. read more

Unicorn-rich VC tells everyone: Over the course of his enterprise capital profession, Wesley Chan has invested in over 20 unicorns similar to Canva, Flexport, and Robinhood. In an interview with Christine Hall, Chan says he owes his success to his hard-working immigrant family and his job on Craigslist washing laboratory beakers. read more

AI Bias Testing: A recent study tested several open text analytics models to see how they might reply to questions on LGBTQ+ rights, social welfare, surrogacy, and more. They found that the models tended to reply questions inconsistently, which they consider reflects biases embedded in the information used to coach the models. read more

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
Continue Reading
Advertisement
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Technology

Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal is leaving PhonePe’s board

Published

on

By

Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal has stepped down three-quarters from PhonePe’s board after making an identical move on the e-commerce giant.

Bengaluru-based PhonePe said it has appointed Manish Sabharwal, executive director at recruitment and human resources firm Teamlease, as an independent director and chairman of the audit committee.

Bansal played a key role in Flipkart’s acquisition of PhonePe in 2016 and has since served on the fintech’s board. The Walmart-backed startup, which operates India’s hottest mobile payment app, spun off from Flipkart in 2022 and was valued at $12 billion in funding rounds that raised about $850 million last 12 months.

Bansal still holds about 1% of PhonePe. Neither party explained why they were leaving the board.

“I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Binny Bansal for being one of the first and staunchest supporters of PhonePe,” Sameer Nigam, co-founder and CEO of PhonePe, said in a press release. His lively involvement, strategic advice and private mentoring have profoundly enriched our discussions. We will miss Binny!”

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
Continue Reading

Technology

The company is currently developing washing machines for humans

Published

on

By

Forget about cold baths. Washing machines for people may soon be a brand new solution.

According to at least one Japanese the oldest newspapersOsaka-based shower head maker Science has developed a cockpit-shaped device that fills with water when a bather sits on a seat in the center and measures an individual’s heart rate and other biological data using sensors to make sure the temperature is good. “It also projects images onto the inside of the transparent cover to make the person feel refreshed,” the power says.

The device, dubbed “Mirai Ningen Sentakuki” (the human washing machine of the longer term), may never go on sale. Indeed, for now the company’s plans are limited to the Osaka trade fair in April, where as much as eight people will have the option to experience a 15-minute “wash and dry” every day after first booking.

Apparently a version for home use is within the works.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
Continue Reading

Technology

Zepto raises another $350 million amid retail upheaval in India

Published

on

By

Zepto, snagging $1 billion in 90 days, projects 150% annual growth

Zepto has secured $350 million in latest financing, its third round of financing in six months, because the Indian high-speed trading startup strengthens its position against competitors ahead of a planned public offering next yr.

Indian family offices, high-net-worth individuals and asset manager Motilal Oswal invested in the round, maintaining Zepto’s $5 billion valuation. Motilal co-founder Raamdeo Agrawal, family offices Mankind Pharma, RP-Sanjiv Goenka, Cello, Haldiram’s, Sekhsaria and Kalyan, in addition to stars Amitabh Bachchan and Sachin Tendulkar are amongst those backing the brand new enterprise, which is India’s largest fully national primary round.

The funding push comes as Zepto rushes so as to add Indian investors to its capitalization table, with foreign ownership now exceeding two-thirds. TechCrunch first reported on the brand new round’s deliberations last month. The Mumbai-based startup has raised over $1.35 billion since June.

Fast commerce sales – delivering groceries and other items to customers’ doors in 10 minutes – will exceed $6 billion this yr in India. Morgan Stanley predicts that this market shall be value $42 billion by 2030, accounting for 18.4% of total e-commerce and a pair of.5% of retail sales. These strong growth prospects have forced established players including Flipkart, Myntra and Nykaa to cut back delivery times as they lose touch with specialized delivery apps.

While high-speed commerce has not taken off in many of the world, the model seems to work particularly well in India, where unorganized retail stores are ever-present.

High-speed trading platforms are creating “parallel trading for consumers seeking convenience” in India, Morgan Stanley wrote in a note this month.

Zepto and its rivals – Zomato-owned Blinkit, Swiggy-owned Instamart and Tata-owned BigBasket – currently operate on lower margins than traditional retail, and Morgan Stanley expects market leaders to realize contribution margins of 7-8% and adjusted EBITDA margins to greater than 5% by 2030. (Zepto currently spends about 35 million dollars monthly).

An investor presentation reviewed by TechCrunch shows that Zepto, which handles greater than 7 million total orders every day in greater than 17 cities, is heading in the right direction to realize annual sales of $2 billion. It anticipates 150% growth over the following 12 months, CEO Aadit Palicha told investors in August. The startup plans to go public in India next yr.

However, the rapid growth of high-speed trading has had a devastating impact on the mom-and-pop stores that dot hundreds of Indian cities, towns and villages.

According to the All India Federation of Consumer Products Distributors, about 200,000 local stores closed last yr, with 90,000 in major cities where high-speed trading is more prevalent.

The federation has warned that without regulatory intervention, more local shops shall be vulnerable to closure as fast trading platforms prioritize growth over sustainable practices.

Zepto said it has created job opportunities for tons of of hundreds of gig employees. “From day one, our vision has been to play a small role in nation building, create millions of jobs and offer better services to Indian consumers,” Palicha said in an announcement.

Regulatory challenges arise. Unless an e-commerce company is a majority shareholder of an Indian company or person, current regulations prevent it from operating on a listing model. Fast trading corporations don’t currently follow these rules.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
Continue Reading
Advertisement

OUR NEWSLETTER

Subscribe Us To Receive Our Latest News Directly In Your Inbox!

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

Trending