Trust startups to be the first ones to grab on to an opportunity. As the Indian government scrapped articles 370 and 35A, three-year-old fitness startup Cure.fit has become the first private company to publicly declare that it will expand into Kashmir. “We are happy to announce our foray into the newly created union territory of Jammu & Kashmir through cult.fit fitness centres,” said Ankit Nagori, co-founder of Cure.fit. “As India’s most loved fitness brand, we want to…

Tech is a fickle beast — the disrupters of yesterday might themselves end up getting disrupted themselves.  Paytm, which had revolutionized online payments in India, has fallen a long way behind Google Pay and PhonePe in UPI payments. In July, Paytm did 133 million UPI transactions, which was less than half those done by PhonePe and Google Pay — PhonePe did 296 million transactions in the same period, while Google Pay did 300 million. In…

After years of speculation, Flipkart might be finally close to plugging the biggest gap in its portfolio when compared to arch-rival Amazon — video streaming. Flipkart will launch a free video streaming service before Diwali for its ‘Plus’ premium subscribers, reports Network18. Flipkart Plus is Flipkart’s own loyalty program, which it had launched on 15th August last year. “Video was missing (in Flipkart’s offerins), and we will have it soon,” a source said. “Video has its own merits…

As Reliance prepares the launch of its much awaited e-commerce venture, it’s putting in place a tech arsenal to take on the tech incumbents in the space. Reliance has acquired an 87.6 percent stake in Mumbai-based fashion commerce startup Fynd for Rs. 295 crore. Further, Reliance will have an option to further invest up to Rs. 100 crore in Fynd by December 2021. Fynd provides technology platform and solutions to merchants to manage their inventory and sales across multiple…

Food delivery platform Zomato finds itself in a bit of a soup. Zomato had earlier earned accolades for publicly calling out a customer who’d wanted a Hindu delivery partner because he was observing the holy month of Shrawan. “Food has no religion. It is a religion,” Zomato had tweeted, and the tweet had gone viral, with customers praising its stand. But two days on, the mood on the internet appears to have decisively shifted. #BoycottZomato…

In today’s age of social media conformism, new developments are usually met either with fawning praise or with rabid anger. Zomato, through a simple tweet in which it publicly reprimanded a customer on social media, has managed to elicit both. Zomato is earning both bouquets and brickbats for its response to a customer who wanted his delivery to be made by a non-Muslim delivery partner because it was the holy Hindu period of Shrawan. “Just…

India’s digital payments space has been growing quite rapidly in the recent past, but it clearly isn’t growing fast enough for Truecaller — it’s gone ahead and spurred some growth that isn’t quite organic. Several Indian Truecaller users have been surprised to find out they’ve been signed up for UPI without their knowledge. Users discovered that upon updating their Truecaller apps, an encrypted SMS had been sent to verify their phone number, and they’d then…