Photo: iStock
What to watch out for:
• Flipkart invests another Rs.338 crore in its fashion portal Myntra: In an attempt to boost its leadership position in the fashion segment, Flipkart has infused Rs.338 crore into online fashion store Myntra. The fresh funds come at a time when Myntra’s nearest rival, Rocket Internet-backed Jabong, is struggling.
• HDFC Bank partners with five start-ups: The Bank has chosen five start-ups —Senseforth Technologies, Tagnpin, Safe 2 Pay, Bugclipper, and Taptis Technolog—it will work with to strengthen their web, mobile and payment offerings.
• Five-fold hike in government budget for funding start-ups: The government will provide seed capital to 50-80 new ventures with funding ranging from Rs.50 lakh to Rs.1 crore per company. For the next fiscal year, the government has increased the overall funding to start-ups from Rs.40 crore toRs.200 crore.
• Hotels check out of Oyo, Zo after unhappy stay: More than 200 hotels are estimated to have ended ties with leading aggregators Oyo Rooms and Zo in the last five-six months. Apart from undercutting hotels’ own sites, the aggregators are also being accused of not paying dues and making unrealistic promises to customers that the hotels are incapable of meeting, leading to trouble at check-in time.
• The correction underway at India’s start-ups space: VCs are coming to terms that the fancy valuations they assigned e-commerce firms are far off the mark, tempering the exuberance that fuelled a 15-month boom, although entrepreneurs are holding out.
• India’s consumer Internet start-ups on PE radar: The entry of private equity (PE) investors, whether now or 6-8 months later, can only play out favourably for mature consumer Internet start-ups.
Matters of debate:
• Are Uber’s many scandals affecting recruitment at every level?
• Changing gears at India’s start-ups: The Morgan Stanley markdown brings Flipkart’s valuation down to about $11 billion from the $15.2 billion the company claimed when it raised its last round of funds.
What the world is talking about:
• Wall Street likes Square’s first earnings report as a public company: The financial services and mobile payments firmposted a strong quarter sending shares up by 3.5%.
• Amazon.com went down for about 20 minutes, and the world freaked out.
•Skype co-founder launches ultra-private messaging, with video: A group of former Skype technologists, backed by the co-founder of the messaging platform, has introduced anew version of its own messaging service that promises end-to-end encryption for all conversations, including by video.
• Amazon.com is entering the air-freight business: On Wednesday, Amazon and Air Transport Services Group, a Wilmington, Ohio-based air freight company, announced a formal agreement where Amazon will lease 20 Boeing 767 jet freighters so it can expand its logistics network.
• Google Search’s latest feature: Now ‘Destinations’ bundles hotel and flight data on mobile: Who needs separate tabs or travel search apps when you can plan the whole vacation in Google’s mobile Search app .
Start-up classroom
• Five things start-ups should do when the funding scenario turns gloomy: Things every entrepreneur shouldkeep in mind to conserve cash and sustain business till the market opens up.
•A to Z guide of mobile app outsourcing: Know what is outsourcing, where it came from; why people prefer it and how outsourcing market has performed in the past year
For the Geeks:
• Apple sets March 21 event, Wall Street sees new, smaller iPhone : Some analysts expect Apple to unveil a four-inch (10-cm) screen phone, reintroducing the smaller size after enlarging screens with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in 2014.
Also, watch a video on: What could Apple be hinting in its 21 March event invite.
• Google announces the next version of Android earlier than anyone expected
• YouTube Gaming expands to new markets, improves its browsing and viewing experience on mobile: YouTube Gaming and competitor to Amazon-owned Twitch, announced an expansion into several more markets and a host of new features.
Did you know:
• What the online world looks like without .com : If a nation’s land mass were measured by the number ofwebsites using a particular country-level domain, such as .uk, the US would be smaller than Germany. Looking through the lens of country-code domains, the largest nation on earth becomes .tk, or Tokelau, a 10 square kilometer island in the Pacific that’s barely visible on a world map. The New Zealand territory has a population of 1,400 but a whopping 31 million registered .tk domains.
• Facebook ‘Like’ button may be against the law, German court rules: A German court has ruled that a shopping site’s use of the Facebook ‘Like ’ button was not legal, since users were not properly warned that their personal data was being shared with the social network.
• Dark side of investment in fast-growing Vietnam: The Southeast Asian country keeps costs and entry barriers low for foreign ventures . But another aspect of investment compares more to power outages: on, off, on again and now off once more.
[“source-Livemint”]
