ET Startup Awards 2021, Oyo files for $1.2B IPO, and more : Tech News

From the ET Startup Awards 2021 to 28th Indian startup unicorn of 2021 and Oyo’s long-awaited IPO filing, it’s been an action-packed few days at ETtech. Here’s a roundup of our 10 biggest stories.

ETSA 2021: This big-bang year belongs to Zomato

Zomato, which had a trailblazing IPO in July, won top honours at the seventh edition of The Economic Times Startup Awards. Our high-powered jury, led by Infosys cofounder and non-executive chairman Nandan Nilekani, chose winners across nine categories from a shortlist of 44 contenders.

The winners included companies that aim to break new ground, demonstrate the ability to build large, scalable businesses, and have perseverance to tide over tough times—including a once-in-a century pandemic.

• “Zomato has broken the glass between the private and the public universe. These two have been parallel universes for a decade. The fact that somebody burst out of the private universe and had such a spectacular success on the consciousness of the public markets, that itself is an astonishingly mind-blowing achievement…,” Nilekani said.

With this, the Gurgaon-based company joins a list of eminent companies that have previously bagged the award: Ola, Freshworks, Swiggy, Oyo, Delhivery and Zerodha.

Role models: The decisive votes were cast for entrepreneurs that have shown a long-term outlook. The winners in categories such as Comeback Kid, Woman Ahead, and even Startup of the Year exemplified this quality, the jury said.

Select group: A select group of around 100 founders, investors and other stakeholders of the country’s startup ecosystem chose the initial pool of candidates for the awards. ET’s editors then worked with knowledge partner Tracxn to create the final shortlist, ensuring that the ET Startup Awards are a recognition bestowed by, for and on the best among peers.

The nine winners: Zomato was voted Startup of the Year by our star-studded jury, just a few months after it went public, setting an example for others in the industry.

The Midas Touch award for the best investor went to Sanjeev Bikhchandani. The Info Edge cofounder was almost the unanimous choice of the jury for his contribution to Zomato’s success as its very first investor back in 2010.

The Comeback Kid award went to Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar, cofounders of Ixigo. The jury was inspired by their decision to not change course in the face of several adversities, an attribute they said was the hallmark of a winner.

Lizzie Chapman, cofounder and CEO of ZestMoney, won the Woman Ahead award, narrowly edging out Sugar Cosmetics chief executive Vineeta Singh. ZestMoney, which Chapman cofounded in 2015, recently raised $50 million in its Series C funding round from global BNPL provider Zip Co Ltd.

Log 9 Materials’ future potential to massively disrupt two sectors eventually led the jury members of ETSA to pick it as the winner in the Top Innovator category.

Two very different companies fought a close battle for the top honours in the Best on Campus category at the ETSA 2021. After an animated discussion, the jury members picked FamPay over Pixxel as the top startup to emerge from a college campus in India.

Using cutting-edge technology to overcome some of the most deep-rooted social issues, such as manual scavenging, helped Genrobotic Innovations emerge as the winner in the crucial Social Enterprise category.

Kovai.co, went head-to-head with fellow Chennai-born SaaS company Cardinality.ai and eventually ended up on the top of the jury’s list for Bootstrap Champ, for its financial heft and ability to inspire entrepreneurs to build global businesses from smaller cities and towns.

The award for Covid-led Business Transformation went to the founders of Urban Company, Abhiraj Singh Bhal, Raghav Chandra and Varun Khaitan, who were able to significantly grow a high-touch services business amid the pandemic, even as most offline counterparts were severely affected.

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Oyo files for IPO, seeks to raise Rs 8,430 crore

Oyo founder Ritesh Agarwal

Oyo Hotels & Homes has filed the preliminary documents for a Rs 8,430-crore (about $1.2 billion) initial public offering (IPO), joining the rush of homegrown technology unicorns seeking to list on India’s stock exchanges.

According to the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP), the Oyo IPO is going to be a mix of primary and secondary shale sale: Rs 7,000 crore will be raised by issuing fresh stock and the rest via an offer for sale. In an OFS, existing investors sell their stake, in part or full. The company also has the option to raise Rs 1.400 crore in a pre-IPO placement.

A price band for the offering was not disclosed in the draft documents.

Also Read: Oyo IPO details: The DRHP, decoded

Invesco in talks to invest in Swiggy at $10-billion valuation

Swiggy CEO Sriharsha Majety

Swiggy is finalising a $500-600 million funding round, which is likely to be led by US asset manager Invesco, according to three people aware of the matter. The exercise is likely to catapult its valuation to as much as $10 billion. If the deal fructifies, Swiggy will rank among India’s most valued privately owned startups after Byju’s and IPO-bound Paytm.

The latest financing for Swiggy comes months after arch-rival Zomato’s bumper IPO and is being seen as a re-rating exercise for the Bengaluru firm, which is presently valued at $5.5 billion.

Separately, Swiggy has integrated its subscription-based service, Supr Daily, into a separate business unit within parent company Bundl Technologies, at a time when consumers are increasingly opting for home delivery of essentials. Swiggy’s newly elevated cofounder Phani Kishan will take over the reins of Supr Daily as chief executive officer, even as cofounders Puneet Kumar, Shreyas Nagdawane and Rohit Jain exit the firm.

Meesho raises $570 million, valuation more than doubles

Meesho cofounders Vidit Aatrey (left) and Sanjeev Barnwal

Meesho has raised $570 million in a new funding round led by US asset manager Fidelity and Eduardo Saverin’s B Capital, doubling the social commerce startup’s valuation to $4.9 billion in less than six months.

ET was the first to report on this deal on September 24. The fresh capital comes at a time when the company is looking to compete directly with Amazon India and Flipkart.

Existing investors SoftBank, Prosus Ventures, and Facebook participated in the fundraising. Other new backers include Footpath Ventures and venture debt fund Trifecta Capital, which has made an equity investment.

“We have grown three times in terms of number of orders over the last two quarters. The business has continued to expand at a very rapid pace,” cofounder Vidit Aatrey said. “We have been adding more categories and catalogues… We have now become a pure horizontal platform where people can find anything they want.”

ETtech Deals Digest

■ Ola Electric raised more than $200 million from Falcon Edge, SoftBank and others at a valuation of $3 billion amid bumper sales of its e-scooters and the ride-hailing firm’s plans to go public.

■ Vedantu raised $100 million in a new funding round led by Temasek-backed impact investing fund ABC World Asia, catapulting it into the unicorn club. The firm—the 28th Indian startup to achieve a billion-dollar valuation this year—joins edtech peers Byju’s, Unacademy, Eruditus and upGrad in the coveted club.

■ OfBusiness raised $207 million in fresh funding led by New York-based investment fund Tiger Global. Its post-money valuation has nearly doubled to around $3 billion from July, when SoftBank led a $160 million round.

■ Alteria Capital announced the final close of its second fund at Rs 1,800 crore, the largest venture debt fund to be raised in India so far. Separately, venture debt firm InnoVen Capital raised Rs 740 crore ($100 million) towards the first close of its new fund.

■ CredAvenue raised $90 million in the biggest Series A funding round in India’s startup history. Its valuation now stands at $410 million. Sequoia Capital led the fundraising, which also included Lightspeed Venture Partners, TVS Capital Funds and Lightrock India.

Flipkart, Amazon set to intensify battle in festive season

Amazon India and Walmart-owned Flipkart are expected to generate $9.2 billion in gross sales during the 2021 festive month, up 42% year-on-year from the same period last year, according to Forrester Research data.

Forrester estimated that the etailers will clock as much as $6.4 billion, or 70% of total sales in the festive month, over the coming week. The flagship sales will begin on October 3.

Amazon writes to Piyush Goyal clarifying legal fees

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos

In a letter to the Commerce & Industries Minister Piyush Goyal, Amazon said it has zero tolerance for corruption, and that it has initiated an investigation into allegations that its legal representatives in India bribed government officials. The company also clarified that its legal fees for FY20 were Rs 52 crore and not Rs 8,546 crore as reports had claimed.

Amazon was also dubbed “East India Company 2.0” by the RSS-linked weekly ‘Panchjanya’.

Also Read: Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is on the wrong Indian magazine cover

Startups bring in industry veterans as advisors to help scale up

Amid a rush of capital into Indian startups, a slew of fast-growing firms including Simplilearn, Bizongo, Zoomcar, Arya and Wakefit.co are roping in experienced advisors from India and abroad to help scale up to the next level of growth. Demand for such advisors in the startup ecosystem has soared 3-4 times from pre-pandemic levels, executive search firms have said.

Value of UPI transactions doubles to Rs 6.06 lakh crore

UPI-based transactions in India more than doubled in value in July over the year-ago period, outstripping payment by cards, which went up 42%, according to the latest Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data. The previous record of 5.47 lakh crore was set in June. A year ago, the figure stood at Rs 2.91 lakh crore.

The Tata super app now has a name

Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons Pvt. Ltd., gave senior employees a sneak peek at the Tata super app ahead of its pilot run among seven lakh employees of India’s largest conglomerate, The Rashtra News reported.

Called TataNeu, the super app will upon launch become a one-stop destination for all online services of the salt-to-software group. While some group brands like BigBasket, 1mg, Taj Hotels, Croma and AirAsia have boarded the app, others such as Titan, Tanishq, Cliq and Starbucks are yet to do so.

Karnataka to implement gaming ban in two months

The Karnataka government plans to implement its new online gaming law in about two months, after framing the rules, home minister Araga Jnanendra said.

Last week, the state legislature passed a set of major amendments to the Karnataka Police Act, 1963, banning online “games of chance”. It is now awaiting the governor’s assent. The government will notify draft rules under the amended law first, and issue a final notification after examining suggestions and objections from stakeholders.

The move has been criticised by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), which challenged the legality and constitutionality of such a ban, especially since Madras High Court struck down a similar law, the Tamil Nadu Gaming and Police Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021, as unconstitutional.

That’s about it from us this week. Stay safe and get that jab. 💉