Here are the top stories that made the news in July'21 in India's Startup Ecosystem:
Byju’s travels to the US, again – The Indian edtech behemoth acquired US based edtech firm Epic, a digital reading platform, which focuses on kids under 12. The company’s collection of 40,000 good quality books from 250 publishers across the Globe will now also be available in India.
Byju’s is on a shopping spree – The firm also acquired its Edtech competitors Toppr and Great Learning. It has acquired 12 edtech companies now, which makes us think..how come the Competition Commission of India is silent about it?
Betting big on Crypto – India crypto exchange CoinSwitch Kuber has raised $25 Mn in a Series B funding round from Tiger Global Management, the latter making its first investment in an Indian cryptocurrency company.
Just as Zomato raised $1.26 Bn from its IPO, Swiggy raised $1.25 Bn from SoftBank and others, pushing its valuation to $5.5 Bn. What does the CEO think about it? "Our biggest investments will be in our non-food businesses that have witnessed tremendous consumer love and growth in a short span, especially in the past 15 months of the pandemic".
Protest against Food Aggregators – Speaking of food delivery, the restaurant association of India has started #OrderDirect campaign as an alternative model to food aggregators.
Making India Proud – Success story of India’s UPI continues as Bhutan becomes the second country to adopt the state-of-the-art payments system, after Singapore.
It’s raining Startup IPO – Paytm and Mobikwik, both Fintech startups, filed their IPO papers in July. Looking ahead – Nykaa, the D2C unicorn and Oyo, the hotel aggregator are also planning to file for IPO.
Oyo gets a breather – Speaking of Oyo, the company raised debt financing to the tune of $0.66 Bn from global institutional investors. It is also set to raise fresh funds from Microsoft at a valuation of $9 Bn.
This article is a part of July'21 edition of our Startup Newsletter. Here's the complete publication:
