Turbulence ahead: The rising inflation concern has led to a global tech selloff, resulting in a loss of $18.6 Billion and $17 Billion for SoftBank and Tiger Global respectively, in Q1’22.
Another tech IPO: Speaking of SoftBank, after portfolio companies Paytm and Policy Bazaar’s failed IPOs, another Indian tech unicorn in its portfolio - Delhivery went live with its IPO, having been subscribed 1.63 times by the last day. But, as loss making tech IPOs continue, the big question is whether loss making startups are a fit for equity markets in India, or anywhere across the globe for that matter?
Not everything is in Red: 23 out of India’s 100 unicorns are profitable, as per data from Tracxn. We think it’s a great number.
Another Soonicorn: Ather Energy, the 2-wheeler EV manufacturer, which proudly announced that its vehicles don’t catch fire unlike its peers, raised $128 Million from long time investor Hero MotoCorp and NIIFL.
Enough is enough: Speaking of EV fires, the GOI is planning to come up with a battery policy to put in place quality controls for batteries used in EVs.
More benefits: Speaking of policies, the Delhi cabinet has approved a startup policy under which financial assistance will be given to set up new startups. MP govt. followed suit, announcing their own policy and online portal, offering many benefits.
Whatsapp gets a go ahead: Payments regulator NPCI allowed Whatsapp to roll out its UPI service to 60 Mn new users, taking the tally to 100 Mn users. This move comes as NPCI is closely monitoring the UPI transactions and wants no single player to obtain an advantage over others.
New rules of the game: Legacy players like Kotak Securities and Mirae Assets have come up with Zero Brokerage plans for intraday trades. While this move promotes equity investments and financial literacy in India, it is seemingly a big blow to discount brokerages like Zerodha, Upstox and Groww, who have been charging fees on intra-day trades.
Who got the cheese?
Here's a compilation of the Top 15 funding rounds in the Indian Startup Ecosystem (excluding Unicorn funding) during the month Apr'22:
This article is a part of the April'22 edition of our Startup Newsletter. Here's the complete publication:
