Oyo eyes $12-15B IPO valuation; Unacademy gets a breather
Also in this letter:
- Relief for
Unacademy in Bombay High Court - All crypto transactions illegal: China’s central bank
- Lee Fixel’s Addition invests $125 million in
Delhivery
Oyo eyes over $12-15 billion valuation in IPO, founder won’t sell any shares
Oyo Hotels & Homes plans to go public in India at a valuation of $12-$15 billion, people aware of its plans told us. It is looking to raise anywhere between $1-$1.2 billion, mainly by issuing fresh shares, the sources added.
Existing investors will also sell parts of their holdings in the IPO but founder Ritesh Agarwal is likely to hold on to his entire stake, the sources said. Agarwal owns more than 30% of Oyo’s parent firm Oravel Stays.
SoftBank-backed Oyo was last valued at around $9 billion and in August raised a ‘strategic’ investment from Microsoft at the same valuation.
Yesterday, we reported that Oyo could file its draft IPO prospectus as soon as next week. But this could spill over into early October, sources said. It has appointed Kotak Mahindra Capital, JPMorgan and Citigroup to manage the public issue.
How’s business? Oyo’s business, which was decimated by the pandemic, has been recovering in India ever since the second wave began to wane. It has retreated from many markets and 90% of its partner hotels are now in India, Southeast Asia and Europe.
In the wake of the pandemic, Oyo has also stopped paying its partner hotels a minimum monthly payout regardless of occupancy.
The company told us last month that it was seeing a strong recovery in Europe due to high vaccination rates and that this would happen in India as well, once more people were vaccinated.
We reported in July that the company had raised $660 million in debt financing from global institutional investors to service existing loans. The list includes names like Fidelity, Citadel Capital Management and Varde Partners, among others who have subscribed to Oyo’s term loan B (TLB).
IPO parade: Oyo is the seventh Indian tech unicorn that has, or plans to, tap the public markets. Zomato and CarTrade successfully completed their IPOs in July and August, while Paytm, PolicyBazaar, Nykaa and Mobikwik have filed their draft IPO prospectuses with Sebi.
Bombay HC stays order that barred Unacademy from using PrepLadder
Unacademy CEO Gaurav Munjal
Earlier today, the Bombay High Court stayed the order of a city civil court that had barred Unacademy from using its PrepLadder app over allegations of plagiarism.
Quick recap: Medical Joyworks, a Sri Lankan startup, had filed a petition against Unacademy’s parent firm, accusing it of systematically copying and altering its proprietary information, expertise and technology, and presenting them as their own.
On Monday, the lower court had said that Unacademy could not use PrepLadder—which helps students prepare for various entrance exams—until it removed this from its website to the satisfaction of the Sri Lankan firm and an independent auditor. The court also said Medical Joyworks could claim compensation after assessing the loss, if any.
Jurisdiction or merit? Unacademy’s lawyers argued in the high court that the lower court’s order was “completely erroneous” since it did not have jurisdiction. “The civil judge failed to appreciate that the Bombay City Civil Court does not have jurisdiction to entertain suits or civil proceedings pertaining to intellectual property matters under the Bombay City Civil Court Act,” they said.
But lawyers for Medical Joyworks said the order was stayed on jurisdictional grounds and not on merit.
The court will hear the case next on October 20.
Investors named: The petition by Medical Joyworks, which offers digital products and solutions to the medical sector, named Sorting Hat Technologies, the parent company of Unacademy, and its investors including Blume Venture Advisors, Sequoia Capital India, SoftBank Vision Fund and Temasek Holdings.
Unacademy had acquired PrepLadder last July in a $50-million cash-and-stocks deal, upon which founders Deepanshu Goyal, Vitul Goyal and Sahil Goyal, and their 250-member team joined Unacademy.
All crypto-related transactions are illegal, says China’s central bank
All cryptocurrency-related transactions are illegal and must be banned, China’s central bank said today, sending the strongest signal yet on its determination to crack down on the industry.
The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) said it will bar financial institutions, payment companies and internet firms from facilitating
Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, dropped as much as 5% after the PBoC’s announcement, having earlier been down about 1%.
China’s State Council, or cabinet, vowed in May to crack down on bitcoin mining and trading as part of efforts to fend off financial risk.
High-pressure crackdown: Now, 10 Chinese government agencies, including the central bank and other banking, securities and foreign exchange regulators, said in a joint statement that they would work closely to maintain a “high-pressure” crackdown on speculative trading of cryptocurrencies.
Quote: The government will “resolutely clamp down on virtual currency speculation, and related financial activities and misbehaviour in order to safeguard people’s properties and maintain economic, financial and social order,” the PBoC said in a statement on its website.
The National Development and Reform Commission said it was launching a nationwide crackdown on cryptocurrency mining. Previous restrictions have been issued by local governments.
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Lee Fixel’s Addition invests $125 million in Delhivery
Lee Fixel, a former partner at New York-based investment firm Tiger Global, has pumped $125 million into new-age logistics startup Delhivery, one of his early bets.
Fixel was largely responsible for fuelling the first boom in the Indian consumer internet ecosystem, with investments in top-tier startups such as Flipkart, Ola and others. Addition, the investment fund he founded after leaving Tiger Global in 2019, has backed the company, Delhivery said in a statement.
The SoftBank-backed logistics startup is expected to file its draft red herring prospectus in the coming weeks and make its public market debut later this fiscal.
Earlier this month we reported, citing regulatory filings, that Addition had invested around $76 million in the company.
Fixel’s investment in Delhivery comes at a time when it is looking to raise $800 million to $1 billion through its IPO. We were the first to report in June that the Gurugram-based startup was aiming to list in India to raise around $500 million.
ETtech Deals Digest
This week, Cars24, an online marketplace for used cars, raised $450 million in a funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund II, Falcon Edge and existing investor Yuri Milner’s DST Global. The round included a debt component of $110 million.
Meanwhile, Medikabazaar, a business-to-business healthtech platform, raised $75 million in a Series C funding round led by Creaegis, along with CDC Group, making it the highest fundraising in the B2B healthcare space.
Here’s a look at the key startup deals and funding rounds that made news in the week to September 24. (read more)
Amazon has launched eight global and local streaming services on its video platform in India, in a move aimed at boosting subscriptions.
The move comes at a time of increasing competition from global and domestic rivals in what is an important market for the US company.
Entertainment hub: Prime Video Channels is launching with streaming services from partners including Discovery Inc., Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. and Mubi. India is the 12th country where it is being launched.
Subscription: Prime customers will still have to pay individually to subscribe to each streaming service, which are currently being offered at a discount.
For example, a subscription to movie streaming app Mubi costs Rs 499 a month (Rs 5,988 a year) in India but on Prime Video it is priced at Rs 1,999 a year.
Now, tip in bitcoin on
Twitter users around the world on iOS devices can now send and receive digital payments, which was previously limited to a small group of testers.
Battle for content: The product announcements are part of Twitter’s effort to compete with rival platforms such as Facebook and YouTube for popular content creators with large followings.
Twitter said it also plans to support authentication for NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, which will let people track and showcase their NFT-backed assets on the platform. Read our explainer or NFTs here.
Today’s ETtech Top 5 newsletter was curated by Arun Padmanabhan in New Delhi and Zaheer Merchant in Mumbai.
( News Source :Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Rashtra News staff and is published from a economictimes.indiatimes.com feed.)
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