Much has been written about Walmart’s $21 billion acquisition of Flipkart — some have called it Walmart’s gateway to its India ambitions, while others have called the purchase the coming-of-age of the Indian startup space. But Aswath Damodaran, professor of finance at NYU Stern School of Business, has distinctly unique take on the record deal. Damodaran feels that Walmart’s acquisition of Flipkart is simply the most expensive face-lift in history. “Walmart invested in a company which is burning…

Most entrepreneurs are usually running after entrepreneurs to fund their ventures, but Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal is reportedly reluctant to accept a cool $1 billion — and from Softbank, no less. Ola CEO Bhavish Agarwal is unwilling to accept the full $1 billion (Rs. 7,000 crore) that Softbank wants to invest in his firm, ET reports. “(Softbank CEO Masayoshi) Son and Aggarwal have met multiple times recently but taking such a big amount from SoftBank has…

Foodpanda might not yet have the order volumes to match up with the Swiggies and the Zomatos, but it’s trying to make up in distribution. Foodpanda says it has become India’s largest food delivery network after expanding into 100 cities. Foodpanda is now present in most Tier 2 and Tier 3 locations, and says it’s the first in markets like Aizawl, Shillong, Raipur, Jodhpur, Bhavnagar, Patiala, Nellore, Durgapur, Shimla, Rewa, Bokaro. It notched up its…

Many of India’s first-time entrepreneurs visiting VC offices and angel investors might not quite agree, but Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma says there’s no better place than India to raise a billion dollars in funding. The time for our country has finally arrived – there is no better place to start a company today,” proclaimed Sharma. “Today, it is easier to raise a billion dollars in India than anywhere else in the world,” he added. Paytm…

Oyo might now be worth $5 billion, valued more than the Taj Group, and the toast of India’s startup ecosystem, but not everyone’s pleased with its meteoric rise. India’s budget hotels are coming together to consider legal action against Oyo’s predatory pricing, ET reports. “Oyo has disrupted the entire market drastically,” said Budget Hotel Association of Mumbai president Ashraf Ali. “Rooms that we used to sell for Rs 2,000-2,500 are now being sold for Rs…

The jury might be out on how much India’s startups have benefited from Startup India, but the government sure seems to have learnt a thing or two from India’s startups. PM Modi’s Narendra Modi app, which has over 5 million installs and an overall rating of 4.6, is using referral codes to growth hack its way towards collecting donations for the party. Anyone making a micro-donation through the app — a sum between Rs. 5 and…

India’s stock markets haven’t been having the best time of late — the Nifty had touched a lifetime high of 11,700 in September, before crashing nearly 15% in the following months, and sectors like NBFCs and banks have also bled. But amidst all this, an unlisted stock has been doing pretty well for itself. The value of Paytm’s parent company One97’s shares have risen 60% in the unofficial stock markets, brokers have told ET. “Shares…

Five years after it entered India, Amazon appears to have finally gnawed past Flipkart’s first-mover advantage. Amazon has just beaten Flipkart for the first time in terms of gross sales or GMV, a Barclays report has said. Amazon generated $7.5 billion in gross sales in the year ended March compared with $6.2 billion generated by Flipkart. This number, however, doesn’t include sales from Flipkart’s fashion subsidiaries Myntra and Jabong.  In terms of revenue, however, Flipkart…

The guard is changing at WhatsApp, and it’s changing quickly. After WhatsApp cofounder Brian Acton had left the company last year, followed by fellow co-founder Jan Koum in 2018, yet another high-profile WhatsApp executive has put in his papers. Neeraj Arora, who’d joined WhatsApp nearly seven years ago and become one of its earliest employees, has now quit the company.  “It is time to move on, but I cannot be more proud of how WhatsApp…

After what’s felt like an eternity in gathering insights, loads of social media polls, and months of teasers, it’s finally emerged what FreeCharge founder Kunal Shah’s new startup will really do. Shah’s latest startup Cred, which he’d unveiled last month, will reward people each time they pay their credit card bills. Cred will let users pay their credit card bills through its platform, and reward them for timely payments with offers and discounts on shopping, health…