Author: Bart Eshwar

Over the last year, India has seen a mushrooming of chat apps that aimed to connect consumers directly with businesses. Services like LookUp, Haptik and Helpchat all had business models that involved setting up and easy, phone-based communication channel between users and local businesses, and had met with varying levels of success. But the industry is now likely to be upturned. Whatsapp, the global chat behemoth with 70 million Indian users, is looking to enter the space in a big way.

India’s fledging hyperlocal delivery startups now have some competition – and it’s not from another yet another superfunded startup trying its luck in the already crowded space. It’s from Mumbai’s iconic dabbawalas, who’ve been delivering food to Mumbai’s office-goers since 1890.

It’s an idea that’s going to make a lot of noise in the online payments world. Paytm is going to soon launch “Sound Pay”, a feature that will allow money transfers using ultrasonic sound waves.

With the government batting for startups with its Start Up India initiative, could banks have been far behind? India’s largest public sector bank, State Bank of India, has opened a branch that caters exclusively to the needs of startups. Called SBI InCube, the branch is quite appropriately situated in India’s throbbing startup hub of Bangalore.

After announcing that Binny Bansal would be its new CEO, Flipkart has also shuffled its senior management team. The company has restructured its core retail and marketplace business and moved many of the firm’s senior executives into new roles.