Early-stage venture capital firm Ventureast offloaded 22.27 Lakh shares of fintech SaaS startup Zaggle in a block deal worth INR 67.26 Cr. As per the NSE data, Ventureast Proactive Fund LLC sold the shares at INR 302 apiece on Thursday (May 2). The shares that flooded the market were lapped up by ICICI Prudential, ACM Global Fund, Astorne Capital and Tara Emerging Asia Liquid Fund. While ICICI Prudential picked up 11.58 Lakh shares for nearly INR 35 Cr, ACM Global bought 4.06 Lakh shares at INR 12.26 Cr. On similar lines, both Astorne Capital and Tara Emerging Asia Liquid Fund picked up 3.31 ..read more

From Bengaluru’s first robot-enabled restaurant grabbing headlines in 2019 to the recent videos of a robot serving ‘ice golas’ (flavoured balls of ice) in the streets of Ahmedabad going viral on social media, Indians are slowly getting used to the fact that robots have started replacing humans. Though the pace of adoption and deployment of robots in consumer-centric sectors is still slow in the country, the Indian hospitality industry today seems ready to level up its game in embracing automation, even for serving guests.  Amid this, Noida-based Alphadroid aims to stir up a storm in the ..read more

SaaS giant Zoho’s cofounder Sridhar Vembu believes that leading a public company is a “lot lot” harder than running a private company.  In a post on X, he termed helming a listed company akin to being on the treadmill all the time, adding that a private entity can invest in long-term research and development (R&D) and infrastructure without worrying about quarterly numbers. His comments came in the backdrop of Girish Mathrubootham stepping down as the CEO of Nasdaq-listed SaaS company Freshworks. Prior to founding Freshworks, Mathrubootham served as the vice president of product mana ..read more

Do you own a B2B brand and are looking for ways to boost your revenue? Then, it is certain that by now your Google suggestions and social media feeds will be flooded with unbelievable marketing hacks.  You might have even wondered if those carousel posts on ideas for increasing sales are true, but performance marketing is very much real. Before we learn about some unexpected ROI strategies in performance marketing, we need to ask the question: Why Performance Marketing?  As we know, performance marketing is a data-driven approach to B2B growth, ensuring you only pay for results in m ..read more

Continuing to show signs of revival in 2024 after a harsh funding winter, Indian startup funding grew in the month of April. Between April 1 and April 26, Indian startups raised $868 Mn, up 15% from $754 Mn in March. This is despite the funding hitting a five-year low of $512 Mn in January this year. Meanwhile, the deal count also grew to 90 in April 2024 from 63 in the preceding month.  However, on a YoY basis, startup funding declined 2% in April 2024 from $888 Mn in the year-ago month, while it was 66% lower than the $1.52 Bn raised by Indian startups in April 2022. It is pe ..read more

The Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) on Friday (May 3) released the guidelines for the implementation of the Indian Space Policy 2023. The norms pertain to the rules regarding authorisation for space activities in the country.  The guidelines detail various space-related activities that need authorisation from IN-SPACe. It also outlines various criteria and prerequisites mandatory to seek appropriate approvals from the space agency.  The norms encompass activities such as space-based communication services, operations of space transportation system ..read more

The Supreme Court (SC) dismissed an appeal filed by fintech major PhonePe seeking to restrain DigiPe from using the ‘Pe’ trademark. “We are not inclined to entertain the Special Leave Petitions under Article 136 of the Constitution of India… The Special Leave Petitions are accordingly dismissed,” the SC said in an order dated May 3. The directions were passed by a bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra. As per Economic Times, the SC refused to entertain PhonePe’s plea saying that multiple companies such as BharatPe are already using ‘P ..read more

Elon Musk’s automotive giant Tesla has filed a legal suit against Delhi NCR and the US-based battery company Tesla Power in the Delhi High Court over infringement of trademark and unfair trade competition. As per the case documents available on the Delhi HC website, EV major Tesla first found in April 2022 that Tesla Power India Private Limited and its US-registered entity were using “impugned marks” which encompassed the Musk-led company’s trademark ‘TESLA’ in its entirety, in addition to the descriptive phrase ‘POWER USA’. Besides, Tesla Inc. also highlighted that Tesla Power announced in 2 ..read more

Months after quitting fintech unicorn BharatPe, Ankur Jain has officially announced the launch of his new venture, generative AI (GenAI)-based startup Jivi AI. In a LinkedIn post, the former chief product officer (CPO) of BharatPe said that Jivi AI will look to use “generative AI to improve healthcare outcomes for 8 Bn people”. As per the startup’s website, it is led by an interdisciplinary team of physicians, data scientists, engineers, and designers, coming from Ivy League colleges, “all working towards leveraging AI to transform healthcare”. As per the startup’s LinkedIn page, Jivi was lau ..read more

Ace investor Shankar Sharma offloaded 2 Lakh shares or a 0.83% stake in drone startup DroneAcharya Aerial Innovations this week. Sharma, a pre-IPO investor in the startup, sold the shares in a bulk deal worth almost INR 3.1 Cr on the BSE on Thursday (May 2). Sharma held a 1.91% stake in DroneAcharya at the end of the September quarter of 2023. However, his name doesn’t feature in the startup’s shareholders list for the quarter ended March 2024. The total number of shares of DroneAcharya held by Sharma remained unchanged at 4.57 Lakh at the end of the September quarter last year compared to hi ..read more