8 Indian Startups Selected For First Ever Google Launchpad
Eight Indian startups are a part of Google’s first ever Launchpad Accelerator that began on Monday in Silicon Valley.
Category: News
Housing Appoints Cofounder Snehil Buxy As Chief Product Officer
Housing.com has appointed Snehil Buxy as its Chief Product Officer. Buxy was a part of the original 12 member founding team of Housing. The 26 year old was also close to former CEO Rahul Yadav.
GoDaddy Launches Personal Domains To Capture Small Businesses
Website domain and hosting provider giant GoDaddy has now launched Personal Domains, a feature for small businesses and individuals to strengthen their digital assets.
TRAI Reprimands Facebook For Its Free Basics Campaign In The Most Epic Way Possible
“Your urging has the flavour of reducing this meaningful constructive exercise designed to produce informed decisions into a crudely majoritarian and orchestrated opinion poll.” This isn’t a school headmaster admonishing an errant student. It’s TRAI letting Facebook know what it thought of its Free Basics poll that generated 9 million responses.
Indian Business Chat Apps Have Some Serious Competition; WhatsApp To Focus On B2C
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.
It’s Curtains For Friends Reunited
The original social networking site, Friends Reunited, is being shut down. Launched in 2000 by Steve Pankhurst and Jason Porter, the site allowed its users to get in touch with old acquaintances by searching for people who shared a school, university or workplace.
Karnataka Govt. Enforces Luxury Tax On Hospital ICUs
In a bizarre move, the state of Karnataka has enforced a luxury tax on Intensive Care Units (ICUs), at hospitals. The tax would be levied at 8% per bed priced above Rs. 1000.
Makemytrip Accused Of Tax Evasion To The Tune Of Rs.75 crores
While the founder Deep Kalra was in spotlight at the startup India event, the Nasdaq-listed travel company MakeMytrip had a run-in with the tax authorities of India. According to the Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence (DGCEI), MakeMytrip has failed to deposit all of the service tax the online travel aggregator has collected from the public. An executive from the company was taken into police custody for the same and later released on bail.
Mumbai Dabbawalas To Launch Own Delivery Company
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.