Paytm can’t seem to get into enough verticals. After the e-commerce company started selling everything from bus tickets to movie tickets, it seems to be on the verge of expanding into a territory that’s completely foreign to Indian e-commerce providers – flight tickets.
Practo’s become one of the first Indian startups to go truly global. While Indian companies have been taking baby steps in their international expansion plans by testing out the waters with countries in South East Asia, Practo’s raised the bar a whole notch – it has launched in faraway Brazil.
Kishore Biyani has never been a fan of e-commerce. Now it seems like he’s putting his words into action – while Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon have been squabbling with each other through ads and discounts, he’s decided to take on the entire industry at once.
Sachin Bansal is a soft-spoken man. His words are usually measured, and his tone is usually conciliatory. But when Economic Times published reports claiming Flipkart might’ve been in sale talks with Amazon, the Flipkart cofounder was in no mood to play the nice guy. Tweeting right back at ET, he came up with this zinger.
Real estate portal Commonfloor that was acquired by Quikr, after months of dilly-dallying, has finally dealt a harsh blow to the 100 employees who have been laid off. Allegedly, post Quikr acquisition the employees could not be absorbed at Quikr and the company had started the process of letting them go since Feb.
While biggies like Flipkart and Snapdeal are figuring out where their next round of funding is coming from and looking at the very real possibility of down rounds, a relatively unknown player is the space is all set to get money from public markets. Infibeam, founded in 2007 by Cornell and MIT Sloan alumnus Vishal Mehta, is all set to IPO on 21st March from which it hopes to raise Rs. 450 crore.
Freshersworld is somewhat of an anomaly in today’s fast-paced startup ecosystem. For starters, it’s barely a startup, having started off way back in 2006. Also, it hasn’t yet joined the funding rat race, and remains proudly bootstrapped to this day. And most importantly, unlike other vaunted, well-publicized startups, it’s profitable – it had revenues of Rs. 19 crore last year.
As I sit down to write this blog entry on why our offline model failed, a realization sets in. All the hundreds of conversations with mentors, friends, colleagues and investors across the globe over the last three years discussing this business is now seeing a closure.
After selling hotel rooms, buses, and even gold loans on its platform, Paytm is now going to be offering movie tickets for sale. The company has tied up with PVR, INOX and multiple other cinema houses to sell movie tickets.