India

Capillary Technologies (a B2B SaaS platform for customer engagement and loyalty) today announced its strategic partnership with KPMG in India for loyalty and customer engagement solutions. Focused on delivering AI-based cloud native loyalty and customer engagement solutions to businesses, the partnership will include a certified and trained team of KPMG consultants. In an increasingly changing world, brands are looking for new ways to interact and engage with customers by understanding their ever-evolving behavior, preferences and expectations. To support them through this navigation, the Capillary-KPMG in India alliance partnership will help businesses to look beyond discounts, offer differentiated customer experience and keep their customers delighted at every touchpoint. Empowering marketers to execute exceptional experiences Anindya Basu, National Managing Partner, Head of Advisory, Clients & Markets, KPMG in India shared, “Organizations are increasingly focusing on … [Read more...] about Capillary partners with KPMG in India to deliver leading loyalty and customer engagement solutions

Vimal Venkatram, MD, Snowflake India Until 2020, Urban Company was stuck with its previous data warehouse, unable to smoothly and cost-effectively scale their computing resources to meet daily demand. When they bought additional capacity to cover peak demand, they ended up paying for what was not being used as well. The home services startup’s IT team then zeroed down on Snowflake. The decision was made in February 2020. Within a month, the migration from the previous data warehouse was complete and the new platform was ready to go live from late March. Urban Company staff were now able to resolve queries in less than two minutes. It was taking more than 20 minutes earlier. Snowflake, which was founded in 2012 in San Mateo, California, is a multi-cloud managed Software-as-a-services (SaaS) company. The company enables customers with tools and platforms to collect and analyse their data and even monetise it. An NYSE-listed company , its revenue grew 83 percent … [Read more...] about We don’t do 24-month projects, we can deliver in a few weeks: Snowflake India MD

Ashutosh Sharma, Head of Investment for India, Prosus Ventures Prosus Ventures, an investor in some of India's prominent consumer tech unicorns such as Swiggy, Meesho, PharmEasy and Byju's , is now seeking deals in the business-to-business (B2B) and software as a service (SaaS) space as well, a top executive said, signifying a shift in strategy. B2B and SaaS firms spend lesser money and generate revenues early on, factors that could be playing on Prosus' (previously Naspers) mind as caution kicks in after a year of excess in India's startup ecosystem. The global technology investment firm has also started participating in early-stage funding, although it insists that cheque sizes of $50–60 million and above remain its sweet spot. In an interview with Moneycontrol , Ashutosh Sharma, Prosus Ventures’ Head of Investments for India, talks about corrections in start-up valuations, the business models of its portfolio firms Meesho and PharmEasy and its investment strategy. … [Read more...] about We’re late to the SaaS party, but we’ll continue to make more investments there: Prosus Ventures’ India Head

It's a story that Licious co-founder Abhay Hanjura loves to retell, and it leaves you shocked and amazed in equal parts. Because, while being rejected by investors is commonplace for startup founders, can you be rejected because of their dietary preferences? Back in the day, when Licious wasn't the feted online meat delivery unicorn that it is today, it faced a storm of resistance from venture capitalists (VC), so much so that founders Hanjura and Vivek Gupta came up with their own monikers for VCs, dubbing them 'vegetarian capitalists.’ Most investors that Hanjura and Gupta met were not consumers of the category, and ended up projecting their biases on them. While one suggested they make paneer instead of meat, a second asked them to show a similar model that worked in the US or China. A third backed out as one of the fund's backers was a large Gujarati family that did not want to invest in the sector. "Meat continues to languish in the kali thaili (black plastic bag) with … [Read more...] about The meat category suffers due to India’s cultural hypocrisy: Licious co-founder

Representative image. India’s central bank is encouraging state-run refiners to reduce dollar buying in the spot market to contain a sharp fall in the rupee, two sources said, adding they have been asked to lean on a special credit line instead. The Reserve Bank of India has ensured $9 billion has been made available at overseas branches of some Indian banks for the country’s three state-run refiners to tap, said the sources who have direct knowledge of the matter, adding that the funds are available at market rates. “Since last 2-3 days RBI has been asking companies to tap this credit line,” one of the sources said. The credit line is available only for Indian Oil Corp, Hindustan Petroleum Corp and Bharat Petroleum Corp, which together control more than half of India’s 5 million barrels per day refining capacity. Monthly oil purchases from overseas account for about 30% of India’s overall imports. Close Banks participating in the credit-line scheme include … [Read more...] about India’s central bank encouraging state refiners to cut spot dollar buying

If America had the PayPal mafia, where a group of former employees and founders went on to start successful technology companies, India in the last decade has seen entrepreneurs mushroom from companies such as Flipkart, Paytm, Zoho, and Freshworks, among others. But the old economy is not far behind in minting first-generation entrepreneurs. In fact, a growing list of founders is emerging from ITC, a diversified conglomerate whose interests range from FMCG to hotels to software to agri businesses. And if there is a common thread that binds the ITC mafia, it is Sanjiv Rangrass. Rangrass spent 40 years at ITC, where he joined as a trainee and became the chief executive officer (CEO) of the company’s agri-business unit before retiring as its group head for R&D (research and development), sustainability and projects in June this year. He is also an active investor and mentor, with an envious track record of making investments in unicorns such as Zetwerk, OfBusiness and … [Read more...] about Meet Sanjiv Rangrass, the investor behind the ITC mafia in India’s startup ecosystem

MUMBAI – The Reserve Bank of India’s benchmark repo rate was raised by 50 basis points on Friday, the fourth straight increase in the current cycle, as policymakers extended their battle to tame stubbornly above-target retail inflation rate. The monetary policy committee (MPC), comprising of three members from the RBI and three external members, raised the key lending rate or the repo rate to 5.9 percent with five out of the six voting in favor of the hike. The RBI has now raised rates by a total 190 basis points since its first unscheduled mid-meeting hike in May but inflation continues to remain stubbornly high – a phenomenon that is affecting much of the global economy. “The inflation trajectory remains clouded with uncertainties arising from continuing geopolitical tensions and nervous global financial market sentiments,” Governor Shaktikanta Das said in his address accompanying the MPC’s decision. “In this backdrop, MPC was of the view that persistence of high inflation, … [Read more...] about India’s central bank hikes key rate by 50 bps, warns of rising price pressures

Sebi In the high-profile WhatsApp case, Sebi has dismissed insider trading charges against individuals, who circulated alleged unpublished price-sensitive information about the financial results of certain companies, including TCS and Ultratech Cement. Those individuals are — Shailendra Mehta, Aditya Omprakash Gaggar, Shruti Vishal Vora and Neeraj Kumar Agarwal, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said in five separate orders. The latest orders came after the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) had set aside Sebi’s insider trading charges against certain individuals in the WhatsApp leak case in March 2021 and the same was upheld by the Supreme Court on September 26 this year. The case pertains to the circulation of Unpublished Price Sensitive Information (UPSI) in various private WhatsApp groups about five companies — Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Ultratech Cement, Bata India, Tata Chemicals and Mindtree — ahead of their official announcements to the stock … [Read more...] about Sebi disposes of matter against 4 persons in WhatsApp leak case

(Representative Image) The Income-Tax Department carried out a search and seizure operation on August 24 on a prominent Kolkata-based transmission tower manufacturing group, it said on September 1. The search action has, so far, led to detection of total unaccounted income of more than Rs 250 crore, officials added. The group deals with manufacturing of power transmission & distribution (T&D) structure, steel structures, steel ERW pipes and polymer products, etc. The search action covered 28 premises spread over West Bengal and Jharkhand, the I-T department added. During the course of the search operation, various methods of tax evasion adopted by the group were unearthed, the tax department reveals. Further, it added that a large number of incriminating evidence in the form of documents and digital data demonstrating booking of bogus expenditure and undisclosed cash sales has been found. Evidence of use of unaccounted cash for acquisition of immovable property and … [Read more...] about West Bengal: I-T department detects Rs 250 crore ‘black’ income after raids on business group

- A + A KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 30): The Sulu sultanate heirs’ intention to enforce a questionable award in the Dutch courts against Malaysia’s assets in the Netherlands would be an abuse of any court process, said de facto law minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar. The Edge reported on Sept 29 that lawyers acting for the heirs of the late Sulu sultan, Sultan Jamalul Kiram II, are understood to be in the process of submitting an application to the Dutch courts to seize assets belonging to Petronas. Petronas via Dutch companies, such as Petronas Carigali Canada BV, Petronas International Power Corporation BV and PLI (Netherlands) BV, has extensive assets in Canada, India and Indonesia among others. In a statement, the minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Parliament and Law) said this latest attempt by “the purported heirs of the long defunct Sulu sultanate” to seize Malaysia’s alleged sovereign assets in the Netherlands “is nothing more than yet … [Read more...] about Petronas assets seizure attempt by Sulu sultanate heirs an abuse of court process, says Wan Junaidi