hi,
Ola is ‘dashing’ through traffic to deliver food in 10 minutes.
Ola Dash has made a comeback, marking the Bhavish Aggarwal-led company’s re-entry into the quick food delivery category.
In June 2022, Ola closed the Rapid Commerce offering of the same name, “refocusing its Ola Car business to further focus on strengthening the go-to-market strategy for Ola Electric”.
Now, as the rapid commerce game heats up, the company also wants to return.
Speaking of which, meet another new entrant — MagicNOW — a 10-minute meal offering by Magicpin, already available in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
In other news, Alibaba Group reshuffled its business portfolio to focus on its core ecommerce operations, even though it has suffered huge losses.
Alibaba is selling its Chinese department store unit Intime at a loss of $1.3 billion.
Meanwhile, Walmart has partnered with Chinese firm Meituan to provide delivery services for Walmart goods, helping the US retail giant accelerate its ecommerce business in the country.
ICYMI: Agave, the maker of the “Find the Cat” game, has found something more—$18 million in funding!
Finally, your hot chocolates are about to get expensive this Christmas season.
We will talk about it in today’s newsletter
- BigBasket bet on fast food delivery
- Development of venture capital
- A decade of mental health protection
Here’s your trivia for today: Poems by Walt Whitman, “O captain, my captain”Which American president was written about?
Fast Commerce
BigBasket bet on fast food delivery
Tata-backed BigBasket wants to adopt a 10-minute food delivery service, which is emerging as a key differentiator among fast commerce and food delivery platforms.
BigBasket aims to offer a wide assortment of food items that can be delivered within 10 minutes, your story has learned While the company is still in the process of finalizing the service, it’s likely going to be a mix of brand house and private label formats.
Required for speed:
- BigBasket, acquired by Tata Digital in May 2021, aims to tap synergies and FnB chains operating under Tata brands like Starbucks and Qmin to add these players to its platform.
- Tata Neu, Tata Digital’s ecommerce super app, already offers food delivery services through ONDC-enabled MagicPin. However, the new offering will focus more on food that can be delivered within 10 minutes.
- BigBasket, which rebranded its rapid commerce service as BBNow, is likely to launch the service in the next three to four months.
Fund Alert
Startup:
Amount: $9M
Round: Series A
Startup: Milli
Amount: $2M
Goal: the seed
Startup: Zalon
Amount: Rs 1.37 crore
Round: Seed
Interview
Development of venture capital
The state of Indian VC is set to evolve, driven by India’s growing demographic dividend and expanding market opportunities. According to Stellaris Venture Partners’ investment team, this paves the way for the creation of special funds for late-stage investments and a growing pool of domestic capital.
Favorable conditions:
- The early-stage VC recently announced the final close of its third funding round at $300 million. With this fresh capital, the firm is bullish on exit opportunities in the Indian market as the timeline for successful exits continues to shorten, creating favorable conditions for investment and returns.
- Opportunities for investors have also expanded in proportion to the depth of the Indian market. As the ecosystem matures, venture firms are focusing on specific investment strategies tailored to specific sectors, stages of growth and quality entrepreneurs, says Ritesh Banglani, partner at Stellaris.
- With the increase in opportunity, the share of domestic capital has increased in new asset classes beyond real estate and gold. Apart from domestic capital playing a key role in investing in private companies, the appetite for India as an investment destination for global capital is growing.
Stellaris Ventures partners in conversation with YourStory founder and CEO, Shraddha Sharma
Women Entrepreneurs
A decade of mental health protection
In 2015, YourDOST was one of the first platforms in India dedicated to mental health and wellness.
Nearly a decade later, its consistent and 360-degree approach to emotional wellness has impacted more than 3 million people and saved 12,000 lives, according to Richa Singh, co-founder and CEO.
From a model offering free consultation sessions by experts to today, with a wide range of mental health and emotional wellness programs, Singh delves into YourDOST’s journey and what it takes to be a pioneer in the mental health startup space.
Mental health support:
- The founding of YourDOST began in 2014, when Singh quit his job to build a startup working at the intersection of technology and psychology. Along with her friend Puneet Manuja, she put together YourDOST in 2015 which initially offered free consultations by experts.
- The platform later focused on the B2B model, working with educational institutions like IITs and IIMs. YourDOST works with over 500 organizations including corporates and colleges.
- It supports companies through retrenchment and restructuring, provides sensitization and training programs for managers, and more. Apart from these, it also offers regular mental health support and a special program to support startup founders in their journey.
News and updates
- Debris: Tokyo-based Orbital Lasers and Indian robotics company Inspace will jointly study using laser-equipped satellites to remove debris from orbit, an experimental approach to the looming problem of orbital congestion. They will also study for space services such as de-orbiting an inactive satellite and extending the life of a spacecraft.
- Follow: Shane must hand over all Indian customer data and control of its local operations to its partner, Reliance Retail, and keep operations fully local to re-enter the Indian market, new government revelations revealed how Shane secured a rare exception to India’s ban. Chinese-linked apps.
- Training: The UK is taking measures to regulate the use of copyrighted material by tech companies to train their AI models. It aims to increase clarity for creative industries and AI developers on how to acquire intellectual property and then use it by AI firms for training purposes.
Walt Whitman’s poem “Oh Captain, My Captain” was written about which American president?
Answer: Abraham Lincoln. “O Captain! My Captain!” is a poem written in 1865 about the death of President Abraham Lincoln.
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