India’s food delivery companies are quickly getting approvals to test their drone delivery technology, but it doesn’t mean that it’ll all be smooth sailing to the skies. Zomato has parted ways with TechEagle, the drone startup it had acquired in December 2018. A Zomato spokesperson confirmed that the two companies would now operate as separate entities. “The company is thankful to Vikram for building a strong engineering foundation for its drones team, but we are no…

The coronavirus pandemic has dealt severe blows to several industries — commercial real estate, cab companies, and movie theatres are struggling from the effects of the global lockdowns. But the pandemic has also opened up business opportunities that would’ve been thought unthinkable until as recently as 6 months ago. Amazon and Big Basket have become the latest companies to foray in the alcohol delivery sector. Both companies have got go-aheads from the West Bengal government…

The coronavirus outbreak has changed the education paradigm, perhaps for all times to come. As schools and colleges in India enter their fourth month of forced closure, edutech companies are making deep inroads into imparting education in online modes. At a time when a Nasscom survey brings out that about 90% startups are reporting a decline in revenues, 30-40% temporarily halting operations or are in the process of closing down, and 70% having a cash…

Much has been written about how this is the Chinese century, and now there’s more and more data to support it. The top two most valuable startups in the world are now both Chinese. The most valuable startup in the world at the moment is Tik-Tok parent company Bytedance, which has a valuation of $75 billion (Rs. 5.6 lakh crore). It is followed by Chinese ride-hailing company Didi Chuxing, which is valued at $56 billion….

The world economy has been hit hard by the Covid pandemic, but the first signs of a recovery are now beginning to emerge.  Didi Chuxing, which is China’s biggest ride-hailing company, has seen its ride sharing orders in China this month recover to levels seen over the same period a year earlier, its founder and Chief Executive Cheng Wei said. Didi’s peak daily ride sharing orders surpassed 30 million, Cheng said in a statement on…

When Reliance Jio had first launched in 2016, Mukesh Ambani had hinted that it would be the world’s biggest startup. Four years later, his words are coming true. Jio Platforms has now raised nearly as much money in the last 6 weeks as all Indian startups together did in 2019. Jio Platforms today announced its sixth deal in six weeks, raising Rs. 9093 crore from Abu Dhabi fund Mubadala in exchange for a 1.85 percent stake….

India’s telecom sector might just be about to get a whole lot more interesting. Days after it was reported that Google was eyeing a stake in Vodafone-Idea, Amazon is now reportedly looking to buy a stake in Airtel. Amazon could buy a $2 billion stake in Bharti, which would represent 5% of the company. Both Amazon and Bharti have not confirmed the development, which was reported by Reuters. Last week, Financial Times had reported that…

Even as India is slowly opening up after the two-month-long coronavirus lockdown, there are signs that that economy is slowly whirring back to life.  India’s UPI payments infrastructure has witnessed its second-best month in May in terms of the money transacted. A total of Rs. 2.18 lakh crore was transacted through the UPI platform in May, which was the second-highest figure since the platform was introduced. The best-ever month had been Februrary 2020, when Rs….

The news of the coronavirus layoffs keeps streaming in, even as lockdowns are slowly being lifted across the world. MakeMyTrip has said it’s laying off 350 employees in the aftermath of the corona pandemic. MakeMyTrip’s business has been hit by the travel bans across the country, and the company said that it was unclear as to when traveling will again become a way of life, as it was in the pre-Covid period. The layoffs were announced…