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…

Several Indian startups have taken baby steps towards starting operations abroad — Zomato acquired US-based Urban Spoon a few years ago, Ola is now present in the UK and Australia, Redbus has operations in some south-east Asian markets, and Practo had once started its services in Brazil. But no startup appears to have so comprehensively embraced its international plans as has Oyo Rooms. Oyo Rooms has said that it now has more rooms in China than in its home…

Much has been written about the dramatic jump in India’s Ease of Doing Business rankings from 100 to 77 this year, but Indian executives and entrepreneurs claim that they also see a marked difference on the ground. “(The jump in rankings by 23 places) is incredible news,” said Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma following an event with PM Modi. “This is exactly how governments should function, helping improve the ease of doing business,” he added. “I have been…

Until a few years ago, Xiaomi was known for being an urban-centric phone brand. It was also known to be a company that had no on-ground presence, and sold phones only over the internet. But things can quickly change in the world of tech, because Xiaomi’s now looking to be just the opposite. Xiaomi says it has opened 500 stores at once in rural India in a big offline push. “We simultaneously opened 500+ Mi…

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is under attack…on Twitter. India’s Twitter community is slamming Dorsey after he was photographed holding up a sign that said “Smash Brahminical Patriarchy.” Dorsey is on an India visit, and during a visit with journalists and activists, posed for the picture that has since gone viral. The picture was condemned by several high-profile entrepreneurs, including former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai and India Quotient’s Anand Lunia. Twitter has since responded to the…

2018 is nearly done, but the unicorn glut in the Indian startup ecosystem refuses to abate. Payments company BillDesk has become the latest Indian startup to acquire the unicorn status in 2018. BillDesk reached the milestone following a near $300 million investment into the company by Visa. BillDesk now has a valuation of $1.8 billion, and becomes the 16th unicorn startup in India. But calling BillDesk a unicorn startup might just be stretching it —…

Walmart has insisted that Binny Bansal’s resignation was because of a personal misconduct charge, but it’s very quickly brought about some big business changes at Flipkart as well. Walmart will fire 200 Jabong employees today and merge the company with fellow Flipkart-owned fashion arm Myntra, multiple reports have said. ET has also reported that Myntra CEO Ananth Narayanan, who’s now reporting to Kalyan Krishnamurthy after Binny Bansal’s exit, will also leave the company. The Myntra-Jabong CFO Dipanjan…