India’s 22-year-old Information Technology Act is now dated, and the country needs a “new digital law” that takes into account things like online privacy and data monopolies, union minister of state for electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said at a Nasscom event earlier today.

Also in this letter:
■ Udaan aims to go public by May 2023, says CEO
■ Fate of Paytm, Zomato forces Oyo, Delhivery to delay IPOs
■ Goqii raises $50 million and other done deals

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India needs a modern digital law, says minister of state Chandrasekhar

India needs a new digital law, union minister of state for electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Wednesday.

IT Act outdated: The country’s two-decade-old Information Technology Act is now dated and the country needs a law that takes into account things like citizens’ right to privacy, Chandrasekhar said at Nasscom’s annual event India Leadership Forum 2022. He added that people were increasingly becoming aware of the importance of privacy online.

Flexible law needed: He also cautioned that any new law should not be rigid or too focused on the present. Rather, given the evolving nature of technology, it should be flexible and open to wide interpretation, he said.

He also said that the regulations should not put excessive compliance burdens on startups.

Connected world: Chandrasekhar also said it is essential to ensure that the world sees Indian cyberspace as safe and that there is predictability in jurisprudence.

He added that while India must be part of the global digital economy, safety measures must be created to protect the privacy of Indian consumers. “There is no such thing as being an island of safety and harmony and tranquillity in cyberspace,” he said. “That just does not exist.”

Data are the new soldiers, says ‘Sapiens’ author: Historian and author Yuval Noah Harari also spoke at the Nasscom event. He said as governments and corporations around the world rush to adopt technology, it is important to prevent individuals’ and economies’ data from being concentrated and misused.

“In the 21st century, to conquer a country, you don’t need soldiers, you need data. There are no longer independent countries but data colonies. Economically the danger is that if you harvest the data of customers, you can monopolise an industry. Don’t concentrate too much data internally to create a digital dictatorship. But also don’t concentrate too much data outside to become a data colony,” he said.

In a conversation with NITI Aayog chief executive Amitabh Kant, Harari also noted that artificial intelligence and big data are the most influential and powerful technologies developed in recent decades, but that safeguards are needed to protect data from misuse.

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Udaan aims to go public by May 2023, says CEO

Udaan cofounders (from left) Amod Malviya, Vaibhav Gupta and Sujeet Kumar

Vaibhav Gupta, CEO of business-to-business (B2B) ecommerce firm Udaan told ET on Wednesday that the company aims to launch its initial public offering (IPO) by May 2023.

Gupta said he was fairly confident that Udaan would be ready for an IPO by the end of 2022 and that it had been improving its gross margins every quarter.

Since Udaan is a Singapore-headquartered company the company may look at listing abroad, though it is still deciding where to list.

After Gupta was appointed CEO last September, Udaan had said it was looking to IPO in the next 18-24 months.

“I feel good about the journey towards the IPO and we are targeting [it] in May next year,” he said. “I feel that on the business side, on the team side, and on the capital side, we are progressing well towards that.”

Gupta said that Udaan has made “massive improvements” in its unit economics. “We have doubled our gross margin over the past 100-120 days,” he said.

Choppy waters: The stock markets have been volatile lately and tech stocks worldwide have borne the brunt. Indian tech firms that had IPOs recently — Paytm, Zomato, Nykaa — have all seen their valuations drop to record lows.

Stock options for all employees: Udaan also said on Wednesday that it would give stock options to all its 4,600 employees, and that they can now vest stocks every quarter, instead of having to wait at least a year. All future Esop allocations at Udaan will also vest every quarter, the company said. Last year, PhonePe also announced that it had allotted Esops to all its employees.

Lead’s $3 million Esop liquidation: Edtech unicorn Lead School announced a $3 million Esop (employee stock options plan) liquidation programme on the back of its recent funding round, which catapulted it into the unicorn club.

The Mumbai-based firm has distributed Esops to 20% of its employees. It has in the past used Esops to reward employees for their performance.

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Fate of Paytm, Zomato forcing Oyo, Delhivery to delay IPOs

A boom in technology initial public offerings in India risks grinding to a halt after several of the country’s highest-profile startups tanked soon after listing.

A raft of prominent tech startups, including Oyo Hotels and logistics provider Delhivery, are pushing back their public debuts and preparing to reappraise target valuations, according to people familiar with the situation. The IPOs of the two companies, both backed by SoftBank Group, had been among the country’s most highly anticipated offerings.

Then the bubble burst: The startup ecosystem in India faces a reckoning just weeks after it closed out a record year for IPOs. Investors have soured on new tech offerings after the calamitous public debut of Paytm, as well as the battering received by newly listed e-commerce operators Zomato Ltd. and Nykaa. Regulators have stepped up scrutiny of IPO candidates after investors got burned, contributing to the delays.

Also Read | Behind Paytm’s dismal IPO and its constant valuation catchup

India’s first-ever tech IPO rush marked a monumental year of exits for global investors in 2021. Paytm’s parent company, One 97 Communications Ltd., raised a record $2.5 billion when it went public in November. But its shares have plummeted 60% from their IPO price, infuriating investors and fueling concerns among regulators. A broader decline in tech stocks in India and beyond has only added to the gloom.

In the pipeline: Also up in the air are the IPO timings of Pharmeasy, which goes by API Holdings Ltd., and automobile marketplace Droom Technology Ltd., which filed initial IPO documents in November.

Twitter partners with Paytm: The microblogging platform said that it partnered with Paytm’s payment gateway to ramp up its ‘Tips’ feature in India. With Paytm Payments Services partnering with ‘Tips’, users will also be able to use a host of payment services provided by Paytm, including its Paytm digital wallet, Paytm Postpaid (buy-now-pay-later service), debit and credit cards, and net banking, it said.

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Health tech startup Goqii raises $50 million in round led by Sumeru

Healthtech startup Goqii has raised $50 million (Rs 375 crore) in a funding round led by Sumeru Ventures. The round comprised a mix of equity including preference share and debt investments.

What will the funds be used for? Goqii will use the proceeds to strengthen its current offerings, which include a wearable fitness tracker, an app, health store, real-time coaching, and insurance services, the company said. It will also use the funds to expand in insurance, digital therapeutics and international markets.

Other investors in the round included UK primary health care and community services provider Modality (Digality), venture capital funds such as 9Unicorns, Venture Catalysts, funds advised by MegaDelta, Mitsui, The Times Group, Ascendo, Rain Instant Pay chief executive Akbar Khan and restaurateur Sanjay Narang.

(Disclaimer: The Economic Times is part of The Times Group.)

ETtech Done deals

■ Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has participated in an $80 million funding round in Lummo, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company that helps small companies get online, much like Shopify. Based in Jakarta and Bengaluru, Lummo was formerly known as BukuKas. The extended funding, done through Bezos’ personal investment firm Bezos Expedition, comes a month after the company said it raised $80 million in a funding round led by Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital India.

■ Actyv.ai, an AI-powered enterprise software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform, has raised $5 million in a funding round from Dubai-based 1Digi Investment management firm, the family office of Raghunath Subramanian, its global CEO.

■ Employee welfare insurtech startup HealthySure has raised $1.2 million in a funding round that saw participation from Campus Fund and networks like Inflection Point Venture, WeFounder Circle, Dexter Angels and HEM Angels.

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Facebook to pay $90 million to settle privacy lawsuit over user tracking

Facebook agreed to pay $90 million to settle a decade-old privacy lawsuit accusing it of tracking users’ internet activity even after they logged out of the social media website.

A proposed preliminary settlement was filed on Monday night with the US District Court in San Jose, California, and requires a judge’s approval. The accord also requires Facebook to delete data it collected improperly.

What was the issue? Users accused the Meta Platforms Inc unit of violating federal and state privacy and wiretapping laws by using plug-ins to store cookies that tracked them when they visited outside websites containing Facebook’s ‘Like’ button.

Facebook then allegedly compiled users’ browsing histories into profiles that it sold to advertisers.

Facebook coworkers now ‘Metamates’: Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg laid out revamped company values Tuesday, urging workers to be “Metamates” who treat one another with respect and look to the future. “As we build the next chapter of our company as Meta, we just updated the values that guide our work,” Zuckerberg wrote.

Disney hires for metaverse: The Walt Disney Co has appointed an executive to oversee its metaverse strategy, according to an email chief executive Bob Chapek sent to staff. Mike White, an executive in the Media and Entertainment Distribution group, has been named to the new role of senior vice president of Next Generation Storytelling and Consumer Experiences, where he will help define how consumers experience Disney’s coming metaverse.

Today’s ETtech Top 5 newsletter was curated by Arun Padmanabhan in New Delhi and Zaheer Merchant in Mumbai. Graphics and illustrations by Rahul Awasthi.