Following the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (SEBI) circular on Monday (July 1), barring market infrastructure institutions (MIIs) from offering discounts based on trading volumes or members’ activities, Zerodha cofounder and CEO Nithin Kamath has said that the brokerage might have to let go of its zero brokerage structure.

In a post on X, Kamath said, “With the new circular, we will, in all likelihood, have to let go of the zero brokerage structure and/or increase brokerage for F&O trades. Brokers across the industry will also have to tweak their pricing.”

SEBI, in its circular yesterday, said that the charges MIIs recover from the end client should be “True to Label”. Besides, the charge structure of the MII should be uniform and equal for all its members and not slab-wise. 

It is pertinent to note that members of MIIs refer to stock brokers, clearing corporations, and depositories, including discount broking platforms such as Zerodha, Groww and Upstox.  

As per SEBI’s circular, MIIs will have to ensure that their charges recovered from end-customers by its members are deposited entirely in the account of MIIs. 

In a blog post today, Kamath said, “This circular has an impact not only on brokers but also on trading and investing customers.”

Topline Of Brokerages To Take A Hit

He explained that stock exchanges charge a transaction fee based on the overall turnover contributed by a broker in a month. More turnover implies a lesser transaction fee. 

The difference between the brokers’ charges from the customers and the exchanges’ charges from the brokers at the end of the month is a rebate. Kamath said that such rebates are common across the major markets in the world. 

“We earn about 10% of our revenue from these rebates. This could range between 10% and 50% of the revenue for other brokers. For us, this has increased from about 3% to 10% in the last four years because of the increase in options turnover,” said Kamath. “Today, 90% of our revenue from these rebates comes from options trading alone. With the new circular brokers will no longer earn these rebates.”

Since 2015, Zerodha has been offering free equity trades. Kamath said this was possible because F&O trading revenues were subsiding equity delivery investors.

“This structure could now potentially change. As a business, we may have to introduce a brokerage fee for equity delivery investments, which is currently free, or/and increase F&O brokerage,” he said. 

He added that this is even more important given the big uncertainty around the future of F&O trading volumes. 

It is pertinent to note that SEBI chief Madhabi Puri Buch said last week that the regulator is open to taking “some derivative products” off the market amid a sharp jump in options trading in the country.

Responding to this, Kamath said earlier that Zerodha was a big beneficiary of the surge in options trading and SEBI’s regulatory action can hurt the revenues of brokerages, as most of them earn a large part of income from options trades. 

Meanwhile, Kamath said in his latest blog post that all brokers will be forced to tweak their pricing models in a few months following the latest circular. 

“We are still trying to ascertain the second-order effects of the circular. In all likelihood, we will probably have to let go of the zero brokerage structure for equity delivery trades which we have been able to offer for the past nine years,” he added.

SEBI circular will come into effect starting October 1, 2024. 

Meanwhile, stock brokerage platform Angel One’s shares slumped nearly 9% during Tuesday’s trading session. Shares of Motilal Oswal Financial Services also declined over 4%, while those of IIFL Securities’ fell 3.6% on the BSE today.

Explaining SEBI’s circular, Capitalmind founder and CEO Deepak Shenoy, in a post on X, said, “SEBI just said no more of this, and charge only true-to-label fees, meaning if you say it’s an NSE fee, it should be what goes to NSE. (and NSE needs to charge the same fee without lowered fees for higher turnover).”

To compensate for this, brokerage costs might go up, he added. 

“For a lot of F&O players, this can hurt somewhat, but it will hurt brokers more as brokerage numbers are competitive and those willing to keep lower margins will shine out,” he said.

The post SEBI Circular For MIIs: Zerodha May Discontinue Zero Brokerage Structure appeared first on Inc42 Media.

TIMF Holdings, which owns stake in IPO-bound FirstCry and PharmEasy, bought 12 Lakhs shares, or 1.57% stake, of online gaming major Nazara Technologies on Monday (July 1) in a bulk deal worth INR 104.64 Cr.

TIMF Holdings lapped up some of the shares offloaded by Gyaana Retreat and Services, Fashion Brands, and Parijata Trading at INR 872 apiece. They cumulatively sold 18 Lakh shares in the company today worth INR 157 Cr.

TIMF Holdings is owned by US-based Think Investments, which counts the likes of Chaayos, Spinny, Dream11 and Swiggy in its portfolio.

It is pertinent to note that shares of Nazara jumped almost 7% on Friday (June 28) after its esports subsidiary NODWIN Gaming announced increasing its existing 13.51% stake in Germany-based Freaks 4U Gaming GmbH to 100%.

Nazara witnessed high trading volume in today’s session with over 2.2 Mn shares traded together on the BSE and the NSE. The stock ended the session 1.8% higher at INR 884.8 on the BSE.

In May this year, Nazara Technologies’ promoter Mitter Infotech also sold 48.84 Lakh shares, or 6.38% equity, to Plutus Wealth Management in an on-market block deal.

Nazara’s promoters and promoter groups held a 16.43% stake in the company at the end of the quarter ended March 2024. 

After witnessing a sharp slump from the beginning of the year, shares of Nazara have been rallying since the end of May. The shares have jumped over 43% so far since May 27, after the company published its Q4 and FY24 earnings.

The company’s consolidated net profit declined 98% year-on-year (YoY) to INR 18 Lakh in Q4, while operating revenue also declined 8% YoY to INR 266.2 Cr. However, certain metrics in its results were better than expected by analysts.

The post TIMF Holdings Buys 12 Lakh Shares Of Nazara In INR 105 Cr Bulk Deal appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Continuing last week’s rally, shares of PB Fintech surged 10.6% to touch a record high at INR 1,544.15 during the intraday trading on the BSE on Monday (July 1).

The shares of the parent entity of insurtech major Policybazaar have been on an uptrend since last week. On June 27, PB Fintech shares touched a 52-week high at INR 1,415 on the BSE.

The jump was followed by the Citi Group increasing its price target on the stock to INR 1,600 from INR 1,435 earlier. As per reports, the brokerage increased the target citing PB Fintech’s strong business momentum and the successful execution of its ‘phygital’ strategy.

Citi expects the company to reflect sustained growth in fresh retail health and term insurance premiums in the first quarter of FY25, along with a continued improvement in point-of-sale margins.

Overall, the stock had gained 4.6% last week.

After touching a fresh all-time high today, the stock pared some gains and ended the session 8.7% higher at INR 1,517.2 on the BSE.

It is also pertinent to note that Morgan Stanley also picked PB Fintech as one of its top stock choices in its internet coverage last week.

The fintech major posted a consolidated net profit of INR 60.2 Cr in Q4 FY24 as against a loss of INR 9.3 Cr in the previous year’s quarter. Its operating revenue saw over a 25% rise on a year-on-year (YoY) basis to INR 1,089.6 Cr in the quarter. 

Shares of PB Fintech have rallied over 91% year to date.

The post PB Fintech Shares Touch An All-Time High At INR 1,544.15 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The Karnataka government has released a draft Bill aimed at protecting the rights of gig workers in the state and also to offer them social and income security.

The draft of the Karnataka Platform-based Gig Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Bill, 2024, proposes various welfare measures for gig workers and mandates the app-based delivery and ride-hailing platforms to provide them with social security benefits.

The draft Bill states that it is meant to “protect the rights of platform based gig workers, to place obligations on aggregators in relation to social security, occupational health and safety, transparency in automated monitoring and decision-making systems, to provide dispute resolution mechanisms, to establish a welfare board and create a welfare fund for platform based gig workers, to register platform based gig workers and aggregators in the state.”

With this, the likes of Swiggy, Zomato, Urban Company, Ola, Uber, Rapido, Flipkart, Amazon as well as several other app-based startups are likely to come under the purview of the state government for their treatment of the gig workers employed with the companies.

If passed, Karnataka would become the second state after Rajasthan to introduce a law for platform-based gig workers.

Currently, the draft Bill is available in the public domain and the government has sought comments from stakeholders on the proposals in the Bill.

The Major Proposals In The Bill

The Karnataka government has proposed to set up a gig workers welfare board, which would be headquartered in Bengaluru.

As part of proposing the rights for gig workers, the draft Bill suggested that a platform-based gig worker shall have the right to be registered with the state government upon being onboarded on any platform, irrespective of the duration of the work and the person would be provided a Unique ID applicable across all platforms.

The gig workers would also have access to general and specific social security schemes based on contributions made by them as notified by the state government and have access to a grievance redressal mechanism, among others.

The welfare board is also expected to maintain proper accounts and other relevant records. The Bill states that the aggregators shall provide the board with its database of all gig workers onboarded or registered with them within sixty days from the date of commencement of this Act.

“The Board shall maintain a database of gig workers in the State along with the details of their employment with one or more aggregators, and notwithstanding the duration or time of engagement with any platform,” the draft Bill stated.

In case of termination of work, the contractual agreement between the aggregator and the gig worker should contain an exhaustive list of grounds for termination of the contract by the latter or deactivation of the gig worker from the platform.

“An aggregator shall not terminate a gig worker without giving valid reasons in writing and with prior notice of fourteen days,” the draft Bill proposed.

Besides, if there are payment deductions, the platforms are also mandated to inform the gig workers about the reasons. The aggregators must compensate the gig workers at least on a weekly basis with no delay in disbursal of pay, the draft Bill said.

To be clear, the Bill said that the services provided by these “aggregators” include ride-sharing services, food and grocery delivery, logistics services, e-marketplace (B2B/B2C), professional services providers, healthcare, travel and hospitality, and content and media services.

“The aggregator must provide and maintain, as far as is reasonably practicable, a working environment that is safe and without risk to the health of the platform-based gig worker,” the Bill stated.

The Background

It is pertinent to note that last year in its election manifesto, Congress promised to set up a ‘Gig Workers’ Welfare Board’ for Karnataka with a seed money allotment of INR 3,000 Cr. 

It said that Congress would introduce a new transparent policy to out-source employment for gig workers if the political party came to power in the state.

In July last year, the Karnataka government announced a free accidental and life insurance cover worth INR 4 Lakh for gig workers to ensure their social security. Out of the total INR 4 Lakh insurance facility, INR 2 Lakh is provided for life and another INR 2 Lakh for accidental insurance.

Over the years, gig workers employed across platforms have staged protests in various parts of the country against company policies around wage payments, social security benefits, and working hours, among others.

Being one of the top places for gig workers, Bengaluru has also witnessed several such protests and complaints were lodged with the Labour department. Last month, women gig workers working with Urban Company went on a strike at the startup’s Bengaluru office to protest against its new work policies.

‘Fairwork India Ratings 2023’ had rated Ola, Uber, Dunzo, and Porter as the worst-performing startups on its ratings for gig platforms on the grounds of five aspects – fair pay, fair conditions, fair contracts, fair management, and fair representation.

The post Karnataka Releases Draft Bill To Protect Gig Workers, Seeks Stakeholders’ Suggestions appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Indian new-age tech stocks witnessed a mixed week, with major block deals pulling down some of them, despite the broader domestic market continuing its rally. Analysts believe that investors are currently following the ‘buy on dips’ strategy in the Indian equity markets.

Ten out of the 24 new-age tech stocks under Inc42’s coverage gained this week in a range of 0.03% to almost 20% on the BSE. 

TBO Tek emerged as the top gainer, with its shares surging 19.8% during the week after Goldman Sachs initiated coverage on it with a ‘buy’ rating and projected a meaningful upside. The shares touched an all-time high at INR 1,938.75 but ended the week at INR 1,903.2, only 3.5% lower than Goldman Sachs’ price target for the stock.

PB Fintech was the second-biggest winner this week, with its shares gaining 4.6% on the BSE. It was followed by Awfis, which gained 4.2%.

Zomato, Nykaa, IndiaMART, ideaForge, Go Digit, Delhivery, and Nazara were the other gainers this week.

On the other hand, TAC Infosec emerged as the biggest loser, as its shares nosedived 13.7%. It was followed by Fino Payments Bank, which fell 11.3%.

Yudiz, ixigo, CarTrade, MapmyIndia, Mamaearth, and RateGain were among the total of 14 new-age tech stocks that declined this week.

Among these, CarTrade saw some major block deals this week as some of its top investors – Highdell Investment, MacRitchie Investments, and JP Morgan’s CMDB II – offloaded shares worth over INR 535 Cr.

MapmyIndia shares also declined amid a block deal initiation announcement by the company’s promoter and founder.

In the broader market, benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty50 gained 2.4% and 2.2%, respectively. After touching fresh all-time highs on Friday (June 28), Sensex ended the week at 79,032.73 and Nifty 50 closed at 24,010.60. 

Speaking about the market sentiment, V K Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said earlier this week that high valuations might prompt selling by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) and profit booking by domestic institutional investors (DIIs), but the exuberant retail investors are likely to buy every dip since the ‘buy on dip strategy’ has worked well in this bull market.

On Friday, Vijayakumar said, “The market momentum has the potential to take the Sensex to 80,000 levels. The healthy trend in the recent rally is that it is driven by fundamentally strong large caps. However, corrections can happen any time since the market is in the overbought zone and DIIs are booking profits.” 

“The elevated valuations in the market continue to be a concern but the market is not yet in bubble valuation territory,” he added.

Meanwhile, the trend of FIIs selling their holdings has also started seeing some reversals.

Siddhartha Khemka, senior group VP, head of research at broking and distribution at Motilal Oswal, expects the positive momentum that the market saw this week to continue at a steady pace with stock-specific action. 

“However, the release of economic data points next week would keep a little volatility in the market,” Khemka added.

Overall, the 24 new-age tech stocks under Inc42’s coverage ended the week with a total market capitalisation of $58.42 Bn.

Now, let’s take a deeper look at the performance of the new-age tech stocks in the market.

MapmyIndia Promoter To Pare Stake

Shares of MapmyIndia, which ended last week at a historical highest close of INR 2,532.7, fell 9.12% this week after its promoter and founder Rakesh Verma announced selling 5 Lakh shares of the geotech company in a block deal.

The company said that Verma was selling a part of his stake for philanthropy. However, the shares declined in two consecutive sessions mid-week. The stock ended Friday’s session 2.6% higher at INR 2,301.8 on the BSE.

It is also pertinent to note that brokerage JM Financial started its coverage on MapmyIndia with a ‘buy’ rating and a price target (PT) of INR 2,900, which implies an upside of almost 26% to the stock’s last close.

The brokerage said that its constructive view on the stock is based on a few top-down rationales, including location intelligence as a service (LaaS) becoming ubiquitous across industries and the company’s well-established moats to not only ride the rising adoption trend but also gain market share.

Speaking on MapmyIndia’s performance, Jigar S Patel, senior manager of technical research analyst at Anand Rathi, said that the stock’s support is at INR 2,200.

“Investors can use ‘buy on dips’ strategy for the next week,” said Patel, adding that the trading range is expected to remain between INR 2,200 and INR 2,450 in the near term.

Nazara’s Business Expansion Continue

After a slightly slow start to the week, shares of Nazara jumped almost 7% during Friday’s trading session, ending the week at INR 868.95 on the BSE.

The rally took place after Nazara’s esports subsidiary NODWIN Gaming announced increasing its existing 13.51% stake in Germany-based Freaks 4U Gaming GmbH to 100% in tranches through a share swap valued at INR 271 Cr.

Besides, earlier this week, Nazara’s publishing arm, Nazara Publishing, also entered into a publishing partnership with nCore to publish ‘Made in India’ mobile game FAU-G Domination. The pre-registration of the game will open on Google Play and the App Store later this year.

Overall, the gains for the week were marginal.

It is pertinent to note that after witnessing a sharp slump from the beginning of the year till May, shares of Nazara have witnessed a significant rally over the last one month and have jumped over 41% so far since May 27, after the company published its FY24 earnings.

Anand Rathi’s Patel said that the upside for the stock is seen till INR 935-INR 940, while the support is at INR 800 zone. 

Brokerages More Bullish On Zomato After Swiggy’s 2023 Performance Update

After Prosus published IPO-bound Swiggy’s 2023 operating performance, multiple Indian and international brokerages turned more bullish on Zomato’s market share and performance in food delivery.

For instance, Goldman Sachs said that Zomato now likely holds a 56-57% market share in the food delivery market.

It is to be noted Zomato’s biggest competitor in the food delivery market, Swiggy saw a 26% year-on-year (YoY) increase in gross order value (GOV) in 2023. Its core food-delivery business GOV grew by “double digits”, as per Prosus’ disclosure.

“At a 31% FY24-27 GOV CAGR, Zomato is the fastest growing food delivery company within our global coverage and also one with the highest margin profile,” Goldman Sachs said.

Meanwhile, JM Financial also said in a research note that while Swiggy confidentially filed its pre-DRHP with the SEBI earlier this year, a successful public listing of the company largely hinges on the management’s ability to arrest market share losses in both food delivery and quick commerce businesses. Besides, they will also have to demonstrate a clear path to adjusted EBITDA break-even at a consolidated level for the company.

Emkay, CLSA, and Kotak Institutional Equities also reiterated their ‘buy’ rating on Zomato, with most of them highlighting that the company’s growth is faster than Swiggy’s.

Following the brokerages’ bullish stance, shares of Zomato ended above INR 202 level on Tuesday (June 25) for the first time. However, the stock ended the week at INR 200.35, gaining 3.22% overall during the week.

Anand Rathi’s Patel said INR 205 is a crucial resistance level for the stock. A further upside is possible only above this level, he said, adding that the support is at INR 90.

The post TBO Tek Emerges The Top Gainer In A Mixed Week For New-Age Tech Stocks appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Shares of Nazara Technologies jumped as much as 9% to INR 887.05 during the intraday trading on the BSE on Friday (June 28) after the announcement that its esports subsidiary NODWIN Gaming will increase its stake to 100% in Freaks 4U Gaming GmbH.

Earlier in the day, the online gaming major said in an exchange filing that NODWIN Gaming International Pte. Ltd is set to increase its existing 13.51% stake in Germany-based Freaks 4U Gaming GmbH to 100% in tranches through a share swap valued at up to INR 271 Cr.

This acquisition is expected to enhance NODWIN’s capabilities, bringing in the expertise, experience and network of the Freaks 4U Gaming team, also contributing materially to its revenues going forward.

“This acquisition is a pivotal step in our global growth strategy. By integrating Freaks 4U Gaming’s expertise and resources, we are poised to deliver unparalleled services and expand our global footprint in the gaming and esports industries,” said NODWIN’s cofounder Akshat Rathee.

After jumping 9%, Nazara shares shed some gains and were trading 6.8% higher at INR 868.9 by 3.26 PM IST.

It is to be noted that NODWIN today owns an 80% share of the Indian esports market basis which it garnered INR 427 Cr in revenue in FY24. The company accounted for 38% of Nazara’s total revenue in FY24 which stood at INR 1,138.3 Cr. 

Though NODWIN posted a loss of INR 20 Lakh in FY24 as against a profit of INR 7.1 Cr in FY23 on the back of the acquisition made during the year, Nazara CEO and joint MD Nitish Mittersain recently highlighted his confidence in the subsidiary given positive developments such as the success of the Playground IP, particularly with Season 3 performing exceptionally well and garnering international interest. 

“Overall, we are optimistic that FY25 will be a much stronger year for esports, building on the groundwork laid in FY24,” he said.

Earlier this year, NODWIN also picked up a 100% stake in Comic Con India for INR 55 Cr ($6 Mn).

Shares of Nazara have witnessed a significant rally over the last one month and have jumped over 32% so far since May 25, the day the company published its FY24 earnings.

The post Nazara Jumps 9% Intraday After NODWIN Acquires 100% Stake In Freaks 4U appeared first on Inc42 Media.

With India’s increasing emphasis on technological advancement and self-reliance, the nation has experienced a significant surge in emerging technology startups over the past decade. 

From the expansion of electric vehicles to the integration of drones and from the ascent of private players in spacetech to a notable influx of private funding in technology, these achievements very well underline the vibrant landscape of India’s tech sector.

Similarly, India’s semiconductor ecosystem has gained substantial momentum, bolstered by the government’s support for fabless chip manufacturing startups, semiconductor design, and packaging companies.

In 2021, the Indian government sanctioned the Semicon India programme, allocating INR 76,000 Cr to provide incentive support to companies engaged in silicon semiconductor fabs, display fabs, compound semiconductors/sensors fabs, and semiconductor packaging and design.

Subsequently, in 2022, the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) was launched to build a vibrant semiconductor and display ecosystem to enable India’s emergence as a global hub for electronics manufacturing and design. 

The government introduced the ‘Semicon India Future Design: Design Linked Incentive (DLI) Scheme, which offers financial incentives and design infrastructure support for various stages of semiconductor development and deployment, including Integrated Circuits (ICs), chipsets, System on Chips (SoCs), Systems and IP cores, and semiconductor-linked design.

Further, the ‘Make in India’ initiative, aimed at reducing dependence on imported components and bolstering the domestic tech ecosystem, has been a driving force behind these initiatives in recent years.

Presently, India has forged agreements with several global semiconductor manufacturing giants to establish manufacturing facilities in the country. With companies like Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Micron, and Qualcomm making investments in India, alongside the emergence of more venture capital-backed startups, the semiconductor industry in India is poised for further expansion.

Amid all this, the Union Cabinet on February 29 approved the country’s first semiconductor fab to be set up by the Tata Group in partnership with Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (PSMC). 

It is imperative to mention that the country’s bend towards growing its semiconductor ecosystem dates back to 1976 when the then Cabinet of India, under the leadership of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, granted its assent to the formation of Semi-Conductor Laboratory in Mohali, Punjab.

Since then, we have come a long way in fostering India’s semiconductor ambitions. Joining in this endeavour are the country’s new-age tech startups.

As per Inc42’s report, the Indian semiconductor market is expected to reach $150 Bn by 2030, up from $33 Bn in 2023, witnessing a 24% CAGR.     

In this piece, we have tried to compile some of these companies that have the potential to be remembered in the times to come for laying the strong foundation of the country’s impending semiconductor boom.

With that said, here is the list…

(Note: The list below is not meant to be a ranking of any kind. We have listed the Indian semiconductor startups in alphabetical order. We will be updating this list periodically if you would like to refer any startup, write to editor@inc42.com)

AGNIT Semiconductors

Established in 2019, AGNIT Semiconductors specialises in Gallium Nitride (GaN) semiconductor technology. Headquartered in Bengaluru, the company focusses on designing and producing GaN materials (wafers) and electronic components primarily tailored for radio-frequency applications.

AGNIT’s GaN components find extensive applications in the defence and telecommunication sectors.

In 2023, the Ministry of Defence inked a contract with AGNIT for the design and development of advanced GaN semiconductors, slated for integration into the next generation of wireless transmitters for defence applications, including radars and electronic warfare jammers.

The founding team comprises Digbijoy Neelim Nath, Hareesh Chandrasekar, Madhusudan Atre, Mayank Shrivastava, Muralidharan Rangarajan, Shankar Kumar Selvaraja, and Srinivasan Raghavan.

According to the company’s website, AGNIT’s proprietary technology stems from over 15 years of research and development conducted at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.

Aura Semiconductor

Founded in 2011 by Srinath Sridharan, Aura Semiconductor or Aurasemi is a fabless semiconductor company that designs and supplies the industry with mixed-signal IC solutions for various applications. 

The startup specialises in high-performance products for markets, including IoT radios, enterprise timing, and portable audio. 

It makes products in categories such as timing, micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), power, RF, IoT and sensors. Recently, Nasdaq-listed precision timing company SiTime Corporation acquired all time-related products from Aurasemi.

Headquartered in Bengaluru, Aurasemi also has its offices in China, the UK, and the US. Celesta Capital is one of the VC investors in the startup.

Cientra

Founded in 2015 by Uday Joshi and Sandip Kadtane, Cientra is a semiconductor solutions company, specialising in VLSI, ASIC, FPGA, SoCs, catering to telecom (4G, 5G, IoT), automotive (SDV, ADAS, connectivity, EV) and embedded software.

The semiconductor design solutions of the company include register-transfer level (RTL) design, design verification, physical design, and analogue design and layout offering.

Cientra is a multinational company with offices in India, the USA, and Germany. Last year, the company launched a vendor-agnostic 5G IoT aggregator solution in partnership with Amantya Technologies, which they claimed to be the ‘world’s first’.

FermionIC Design

Founded in 2020, Bengaluru-based FermionIC Design is a fabless semiconductor startup developing ICs for high-speed wireline and RF communication market. Its current product portfolio includes a highly integrated beamformer core chip in silicon-germanium (SiGe) process that enables the X-band millimetre-wave communications for active electronically scanned array (AESA), sat-comm applications, and others. 

The startup’s mixed signal product family includes ultra-low-noise low dropout (LDO)-ICs, low-phase noise crystal oscillators and Serialiser/Deserialiser (SerDes) products. 

Founded by Gautam Kumar Singh, Prasun Bhattacharyya, Abhra Bagchi, and Shabaaz Syed,  FermionIC Design has remained bootstrapped so far. It claims to have multiple global and Indian OEM customers who are building their SoCs and systems using FermionIC products. 

Last year, the Minister of State for Electronics & IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar announced FermionIC Design as one of the first set of startups selected under the government’s Semicon India Future Design DLI scheme. 

Incore Semiconductors

Founded in 2018, InCore Semiconductor is building 5th generation RISC/RISC-V processor cores in India. RISC or reduced instruction set computer is a microprocessor architecture that utilises a reduced number of computer instruction types, hence enabling systems to operate at higher speeds. 

InCore, founded by Arjun Menon, Gautam Doshi, GS Madhusudan, and Neel Gala, is headquartered at the IIT Madras Research Park. In 2023, the startup raised $3 Mn from Peak XV Partners.

The startup aims to make India a powerhouse in the RISC-V solution space. Its processor cores power high-performance application-class processors, area/power-optimised embedded processors, and more.

The startup claims to bring a high degree of automation to the processor and SoC design process.

Mindgrove Technologies

Mindgrove Technologies is a Chennai-based semiconductor startup founded in 2021. It works in the space of design and production of SoCs. 

Incubated at IIT Madras, Mindgrove uses the indigenous RISC-V Shakti cores to power its chips. 

The startup is currently working on its inaugural chip, Secure IoT, which is designed for a range of consumer electronics devices, including TVs, washing machines, air conditioners, and refrigerators. Its multi-processor chip comes with security accelerators, a true random number generator, and one-time programmable memory.

Founded by Shashwath T R and Sharan Srinivas J, the startup secured $2.32 Mn in seed funding in 2023 led by Peak XV Partners. Its other investors include names like Speciale Invest and Whiteboard Capital. 

Morphing Machines

Morphing Machines is a fabless semiconductor startup building IP products and solutions. Its patented product ‘REDEFINE’ is a many-core SoC platform, in which domain-specific architectures (DSAs) for mixed critical application tasks are instantiated on demand of any event. DSAs are specialised and optimised hardware designs tailored to specific application domains or industries. 

Its technology serves various industries, including avionics, automobile, and telecom. Besides, ‘REDEFINE’ helps accelerate a host of applications for Big Data Analytics, Genome Analytics, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, Large Scale Scientific Simulations, and immersive gaming and visualisations.

Morphing Machines has also received projects under the DLI and Chips2Startup (C2S) schemes from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

Launched through the Technology Entrepreneurship initiative of the Indian Institute of Science at Bengaluru in 2005, Morphing Machines is a bootstrapped startup. Its founders are Dr S.K. Nandy, Dr Ranjani Narayan, and Deepak Shapeti. In June 2024, Morphing Machines secured $2.76 Mn in a seed funding round led by Speciale Invest.

Netrasemi

Founded in 2020, Netrasemi is a Kerala-based Edge AI semiconductor technology company building SOCs to enable the new-age need for optimal computing for smart IoT products. Netrasemi has a power-efficient deep-neural AI acceleration core (NPU) and a rich portfolio of silicon IPs to enable this. 

Its key target segments are surveillance, smart sensors, smart infrastructure, machine vision and industry 4.0, robotics, drones, and autonomous vehicles, among others.

The company’s domain-specific architecture (DSA), IP-rich SOCs, AI development tools,  flexible SDKs, and platform reference designs help IoT product and solution makers to go to market with cost-effective and power-efficient advanced AI chipsets catering to their specific domains.

Its A2000 SOC has smart vision capability with advanced real-time video analytics and vision processing capabilities. On the other hand, NETRA-R1000 is a RISC-V-based SOC for smart sensor applications.

Netrasemi is also a beneficiary of the Central government’s DLI scheme.

Oakter

Oakter is an Original Device Manufacturer (ODM), which designs and manufactures electronic smart devices, including fintech giant Paytm’s revolutionary soundboxes.

Launched in 2015 by a founding team from IIT Delhi, the Noida-based Oakter soon became a leading name in the smart plugs market. In 2017, the startup became the launch partner for Amazon Alexa in India. 

In 2019, the startup pivoted to contract manufacturing. Over the years, Oakter fulfilled multiple B2B contract manufacturing orders from the likes of Sony (for its BRAVIA TV), Saregama (for Carvaan), and Syska, among others.

In 2020, Oakter collaborated with DRDO to manufacture Covid safety products.

With the emergence of new-age technologies, the startup has also collaborated with EV charging aggregation platform, ElectricPe, to develop its charge points.

Its early backers include IndiaQuotient and Flipkart founder Binny Bansal. As per publicly available data, the company is expected to have raised over $500K in total funding over the years.

Saankhya Labs

The 2007-founded Saankhya Labs claims to be the country’s first fabless semiconductor solutions company. Based in Bengaluru, the startup manufactures integrated circuits (ICs) and other components for various satellite and broadcast applications, including 5G New Radio, direct-to-mobile (D2M) broadcast, rural broadband connectivity, and satellite communication modems for IoT applications.

The startup also claims to have developed the world’s first production Software Defined Radios (SDR) chipsets, which enable converting radio signals into electronic signals and vice versa for a wide range of applications, including, but not limited to, smart TVs and set-top boxes.

Founded by Parag Naik, Vishwakumara Kayargadde, and Hemant Mallapur, Saankhya Labs is a subsidiary of listed broadband and wireless networking company Tejas Networks. Its former backers included the likes of Intel and General Motors, who exited the company a few years ago.

Recently, in February 2024, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) approved Saankhya Labs’ application to the Centre’s semiconductor Design Linked Incentive (DLI) scheme for the development of a System-on-Chip (SoC) for 5G telecom infrastructure equipment. 

As per publicly available data, the company is expected to have raised around $18 Mn in total funding. However, Inc42 couldn’t independently verify the exact amount of funds raised so far.

Sensesemi

Founded in 2014 by Vijay Muktamath, Sensesemi builds the next-generation secured connected AI Edge chip for varied applications in the field of Industrial IoT such as smart appliances, healthcare, and automotive. Its flagship product is named SenseSoC.

By embedding AI capabilities directly onto the chip, it claims to enable edge inferencing, bringing real-time decision-making to the devices.

Sensesemi also won financial support under the Centre’s DLI Scheme earlier this year. 

On winning the government support, company founder Muktamath said, “As part of the DLI Scheme, Sensesemi will be developing the SoC for IoMT (Internet of Medical Things) and IoT devices, that shall have MCU and wireless IP integrated with ultra-low power analogue front end with AI inferencing IP.”

SignOff Semiconductors

Founded in 2015, Signoff Semiconductors is one of the pioneering Indian startups in semiconductor design services. 

Involved in very-large-scale integration (VLSI) services, the company has developed in-house capabilities to help customers with the designs of ICs — both application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) — that function in the areas of AI, ML, Edge IoT, as well as general-purpose processors.

Signoff claims to serve its clients with a range of services, including physical design, full custom analogue and digital custom layout and verification, register-transfer level (RTL) design, verification, embedded, and firmware.

The semiconductor company has served domains such as automotive, medical, connected edge, and consumer electronics.

Signoff currently has offices in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Toronto, and the US.

Silizium Circuits

Hyderabad-based Silizium Circuits is an analog radio frequency (RF) IP focussed company. It develops indigenous IPs for a range of wireless applications, including 5G, IoT, Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), smart mobility, AI, and ML.

Founded in 2020, the startup aims to replace analogue RF IP imports in India with indigenous Silizium Circuits’ IPs by 2025 and become the largest analogue, RF, mixed signal IP exporter from India by 2030.

In 2021, Silizium Circuits became one of the eight NXP FabCI 2021 cohort qualifiers, which is a two-year incubation and acceleration programme.

Founded by Rijin John and Dr Arun Ashok, Silizium Circuits also provides a faculty upskilling programme to guide, train, and upskill the electronics/electrical faculty community in the country. 

Terminus Circuits 

Founded in 2010 by Dr Sankar Reddy, Terminus Circuits designs and develops high-speed serial links, which are a type of communication protocol that transmits data in a single differential signal, enabling data and clocking information to be sent simultaneously.

The startup claims to offer a one-stop solution for all Serialiser/De-Serialiser (SerDes) designing. Besides, ethernet SerDes, it is also a leading provider of PCIe (peripheral component interconnect express), USB (Universal Serial Bus), and MIPI (mobile industry processor interface) to OEMs for big data, AI, ML, server chips, and 5G applications.

Terminus Circuits has a partnership with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), one of the biggest chip producers in the world. 

Vervesemi

Incorporated in 2017, Vervesemi is a fabless semiconductor company developing application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) for sensors and wireless devices.

The company has two business verticals – Analog-RF ASIC-Data converters and Analog IPs. It develops products and analogue IP solutions for various semiconductor application markets, including energy, 4G/5G market, medical, consumer, and smart power.

Noida-based Vervesemi currently has two design centres in India. Earlier this year, it announced the launch of India-made semiconductor ASIC.

Last year, MeitY announced Vervesemi among the first set of startups selected under the Semicon India Future Design DLI scheme.

The startup claims to have over 25 patents in its kitty.

This is a running article, we will keep adding more names to the list. If you would like to refer any startup, write to editor@inc42.com.

Last updated on June 28, 2024

The post Meet The 15 Semiconductor Startups Powering India’s Technological Prowess appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The Reserve Bank of India has flagged the high levels of delinquency being seen by fintech lenders for small loans below INR 50,000.

In its Financial Stability Report, the central bank said that its decision to increase the risk weight for certain segments of consumer credit, which came as a major blow to several fintech players in the digital lending space, including Paytm, reduced the growth rate in overall consumer credit.

“Even as inquiry volumes remain robust, the impact of increase in risk weights on certain segments of consumer credit pulled down the rate of growth in overall consumer credit, especially personal loans and credit cards,” the report said. 

The report showed that the growth rate in personal loans declined to 30% as of March 2024 from 31% in the year-ago period.

However, the RBI said there are a few concerns in the consumer credit segment that require close monitoring, including the unsecured lending category. The delinquency levels among borrowers with personal loans below INR 50,000 remain high, the central bank said.

“In particular, NBFC-fintech lenders, which have the highest share in sanctioned and outstanding amounts, also have the second-highest delinquency levels, only below that of small finance banks,” RBI stated.

Even the vintage delinquency, which is a measure of slippage, remains relatively high in personal loans at 8.2%, said the RBI.

For the uninitiated, in lending, delinquent accounts are those where repayment haven’t been done by the due date. 

Meanwhile, vintage delinquency is defined as the percentage of accounts that have anytime become delinquent (90 days or more past due) within 12 months of origination. It is a commonly used industry metric to assess the efficiency of the loan underwriting process.

Further, the central bank in its report said, “Little more than a half of the borrowers in this segment (personal loans) have three live loans at the time of origination and more than one-third of the borrowers have availed more than three loans in the last six months.”

It is pertinent to note that a number of fintech startups like InCred, slice and KreditBee offer unsecured personal loans to consumers. On Wednesday, Inc42 exclusively reported that slice is piloting a new loan product under which it will offer users personal loans of up to INR 5 Lakh for a tenure of up to 60 months.

Meanwhile, the central bank said that delinquency levels in other segments like housing loans, property loans, and auto loans remained low in FY24.

Amid the rapid growth in unsecured loans, the RBI, in November last year, increased the risk weightage for outstanding and new unsecured consumer credit exposure of commercial banks as well as NBFCs by 25 percentage points to 125% from 100% earlier. This pushed up the lending costs for unsecured consumer loans.

Following the central bank’s decision, fintech major Paytm decided to “go slow” on sub-INR 50,000 loans and focus on high-ticket personal and commercial loans. Earlier this year, Paytm paused its small personal loans business including the Postpaid portfolio.

The post RBI Flags High Delinquency Levels For Fintech Lenders In Below INR 50K Loan Category appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Smartphone manufacturing major OPPO has reportedly informed the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) that BYJU’S owes it INR 13 Cr for preinstalling the latter’s mobile app on phones manufactured by the company.

As per a Moneycontrol report, OPPO has sought urgent orders from the NCLT claiming the edtech major’s promoters were ‘absconding’. However, senior advocate Pramod Nair reportedly took a strong objection to OPPO’s lawyer during the hearing process for using the word ‘absconding’. 

OPPO said that BYJU’S had entered into an agreement with the company to preinstall the edtech platform’s apps on its mobile phones to reach a wider audience. However, the beleaguered edtech major did not pay the amount that was agreed upon in the deal.

In May this year, OPPO filed an insolvency plea against BYJU’S, joining several other operational creditors filing cases against the edtech major, to recover its pending dues.

OPPO has now repeatedly said that BYJU’S admitted to owing it money, and the former has a straightforward case to refer the edtech startup to the insolvency resolution process.

The hearing on the plea has been adjourned till July 3.

The development comes a day after BYJU’S settled its dispute with Teleperformance Business Services. Following this, the NCLT instructed the French digital services company to file a memo indicating its intention to withdraw the insolvency plea to finalise the case closure against BYJU’S.

Meanwhile, new reports emerged on June 26 that the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), after investing BYJU’S for potential corporate governance lapses, could not find any evidence to prove any malpractices.

However, refuting the report, the ministry said that its probe into the affairs of the troubled edtech startup was “ongoing”. 

The financial struggles in the edtech major continue as NCLT has barred BYJU’S from raising funds through a second rights issue. Earlier this week, the company moved the Karnataka High Court challenging the NCLT’s order.

The post OPPO Tells NCLT That BYJU’S Owes The Mobile Phone Manufacturer INR 13 Cr appeared first on Inc42 Media.

IPO-bound electric two-wheeler manufacturer Ather Energy is setting up its third manufacturing facility in Maharashtra to manufacture escooters and battery packs.

Ather currently has two manufacturing facilities in Tamil Nadu. One of these is for battery production and the other for vehicle assembly. Operations will continue as it is at these units, the startup said in a statement.

The new facility in Maharashtra’s Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar will allow the electric vehicle (EV) startup to get closer to more markets in the country, thereby reducing logistics cost and hastening the delivery of its finished products to customers. 

Speaking on the development, Devendra Fadnavis, deputy chief minister of the state, said, “Maharashtra offers a conducive business environment and continues to be a top destination for investments… We are happy to have Ather in Maharashtra, solidifying the state’s position as India’s leading automotive and manufacturing hub.”

Founded in 2013 by Swapnil Jain and Tarun Mehta, Ather is one of the leading players in the Indian electric two-wheeler market in the country. After building its market on its 450 series of escooters, the startup recently launched a family escooter series Rizta and forayed into the smart helmet category.

The startup also operates a charging network, Ather Grid, and makes energy storage systems for the EV. 

Announcing the plans for setting up the new manufacturing facility, Ather cofounder and CTO Jain said, “With our expanding product portfolio and the increasing consumer demand for our scooters, we decided to strategically diversify our production capabilities to an additional location that will be closer to more markets in the country. The new manufacturing facility will not only rationalise our logistic costs but will also hasten the delivery of finished products to our customers.”

As per Vahan data, the startup’s total vehicle registrations rose to 1.09 Lakh units in FY24 from 76,941 units in FY23. However, it has been facing increasing competition from the likes of IPO-bound Ola Electric and legacy automotive players like TVS Motor and Bajaj. 

Ather, in the statement, said that with the demand for electric two-wheelers increasing, it is focussing on increasing its production capacity, expanding its product portfolio, retail outlets, and charging infrastructure across the country. The startup currently has over 200 Experience Centres and over 1,900 fast chargers across India.

As part of its IPO preparation, Ather recently turned into a public entity, changing its name to Ather Energy Ltd from Ather Energy Pvt Ltd earlier. The startup is backed by Hero MotoCorp, GIC, NIIF, Nikhil Kamath, and Tiger Global. 

Ather’s turnover stood at INR 1,753.8 Cr in the year ended March 31, 2024 (FY24), a decline of 1.5% from INR 1,780.9 Cr reported a year ago. Its net loss stood at INR 864.5 Cr in FY23.

The post Ather Energy To Set Up Third Manufacturing Facility In Maharashtra As EV Sales Rise appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Fitness-focussed D2C food brand MyFitness, which was acquired by house of brands unicorn Mensa Brands in 2022, claimed to have turned EBITDA profitable in the financial year 2023-24 (FY24) with a revenue of about INR 200-INR 225 Cr.

Speaking to Inc42, Ananth Narayanan, the founder and CEO of Mensa Brands, said that MyFitness’ topline has more than doubled since the acquisition of the peanut butter brand around September 2022 by Mensa.

Founded in 2019 by Mohammad Patel and Rahil Virani, MyFitness has so far branded itself as a peanut butter brand. However, the startup is slowly increasing its product categories as it aims to become a full-fledged sports nutrition brand.

Following significant growth and increasing market opportunities, MyFitness recently launched its whey protein, rolled oats and muesli. The startup is also likely to launch products in the protein bar category.

With the foray in the new categories, the startup will lock horns with new-age brands like Boldfit, MuscleBlaze, AS-IT-IS Nutrition, and Myprotein, as well as established brands and market leaders like GNC and Optimum Nutrition (ON).

MyFitness follows an omnichannel model, with the offline channel contributing around over 40% to its total revenue. MyFitness currently has a presence in more than 20,000 retail stores, which it aims to increase to over 50,000 in the next 12 months.

Narayanan said the D2C brand served around 2 Mn customers in FY24.

“MyFitness is the largest peanut butter brand in the country with an INR 300 Cr annual revenue run-rate business if we take the last three months of the year. Mensa wants to scale this to an INR 1,000 Cr run-rate business in three years. Besides portfolio expansion and increasing retail presence, we are also starting to take it global,” said Narayanan.

After entering the Middle East market, MyFitness is now eyeing the US – one of the biggest markets for peanut butter in the world.

Besides, MyFitness is also mulling entry into the sports supplements category in the next six months.

Founded in 2021 by former Myntra CEO Narayanan, Mensa Brands acquires digital-first brands across verticals and helps them scale up. Pebble, Karagiri, MensXP, and iDiva are some of the other brands in its portfolio. The unicorn has raised over $200 Mn in equity funding from investors like Accel Partners, Prosus, and Tiger Global till date. Its debt investors include Alteria Capital, InnoVen Capital, and Stride Ventures. 

While Mensa is yet to disclose its consolidated financial numbers for FY24, its net loss more than doubled year-on-year (YoY) to INR 227 Cr in FY23. Operating revenue surged over 137% YoY to INR 499.6 Cr in the fiscal.

The post Mensa Brands Owned MyFitness Turn EBITDA Profitable In FY24; Eyes Entry In US Market appeared first on Inc42 Media.

In this era of social media explosion, especially with the proliferation of the internet, an increase in number of mobile users and the advent of GenAI, India was seen cradling 462 Mn social media users in January 2024. 

Just last year, LinkedIn revealed that India was its second-largest market in the world after the US. At the end of the March 2023 quarter, the networking platform saw its India user count surge 19% year-on-year (YoY) to more than 100 Mn, which increased to 120 Mn at the end of January this year.

The professional networking platform attaches this increase in demand to the entry of GenZes into the workforce and the increase in the number of student sign-ups. 

Tapping into this massive market opportunity, Bella Vita cofounder Aakash Anand, along with Sumit Jha and Palash Arneja, has launched an AI and ML-based social-professional platform Unikon.ai. 

The startup aims to help connect individuals – students, working professionals, freelancers – with professionals of their choice like teachers, mentors, counsellors, experts, et al.

For instance, if a user wants to learn a new skill like cooking or coding, the platform will help the individual get easy access to people who engage in the skill. 

However, this is just one facet of Unikon.ai. With this platform, the cofounder aims to solve the gaps that exist in the knowledge-sharing market. 

The Origin Thesis Of Unikon.ai

Although founded in November 2023, Anand launched the platform, Unikon.ai, just last week. Speaking with Inc42, Unikon.ai cofounder Anand, who is also well known for his D2C perfume brand Bella Vita, said that ‘Unikon’ stands for “You and I connect”.

Explaining the rationale behind floating the social networking platform, he said that despite the presence of multiple social networking platforms, he would often struggle to network with the right people in the ecosystem.

“At Unikon.ai, we are addressing the problem of access. The platform allows anyone to set up rates based on the value of their time. Others on the platform can then reach out to them via video calls, audio calls, or messages, all of which are chargeable, to get their queries or advisory answered,” Anand said.

Anand added that the people looking for serious mentorships always value such services. On the other hand, monetisation adds value to the service providers’ time.

Currently, the platform is leveraging machine learning to match enquirers with the right individuals. 

Moving on, Unikon.ai also offers multiple features, each solving the networking and access issues. Among them, Unishorts is seemingly a feather in its cap.

How Is Unikon.ai LinkedIn On Steroids?

While Anand derives inspiration from the world’s biggest social networking platform, the platform has much to offer beyond just connection requests, peer-to-peer messaging and applying for jobs.

Similar to Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, the platform’s Unishorts feature allows users to post short videos showcasing their skills such as cooking, training, mentoring, and counselling.

These short videos are captured during sessions on the platform and shared publicly with the consent of both parties.

Anyone who has signed up on Unikon.ai can swipe through these short videos, reacting and commenting on them. The shorts also have a share feature, allowing them to be shared across other social media or messaging platforms.

Anand said this feature helps service providers build their own brands. Additionally, it helps Unikon.ai learn consumer behaviour and collect data, enabling the platform to seamlessly recommend the right course of action to service seekers in the future.

Alongside this, the startup offers another feature, UniSeek, which helps users post all kinds of queries and seek assistance or even hire professionals. The platform uses AI and ML-powered algorithms to match queries with the right individuals.

The platform also enables users to list their webinars where people can sign up as per requirement and price. Anand says that these features and the platform’s transparency are some of its biggest USPs, which other platforms in the market lack.

Meanwhile, Unikon.ai takes a 20% cut on all monetary transactions that take place on the platform, which is currently its only source of revenue.

The startup has already raised INR 16 Cr (around $2 Mn) in its seed funding round from Ananta Capital, and the likes of Zerodha cofounder Nikhil Kamath, Shiprocket’s Vishesh Khurana, Peyush Bansal of Lenskart, OfBusiness’ Nitin Jain and Vasant Sridhar, and Gaurav Khatri of Noise.

Its captable also includes influencers like Tanmay Bhatt, Raj Shamani, Arjun Vaidya, Sharan Hegde, and Ganeshprasad of Thinkschool.

In fact, Unikon.ai is betting heavily on influencer marketing to gain primary traction in the market.

The Road Ahead

Currently, Unikon.ai has about 2,300 registered users on its platform. As per the cofounder, this number is expected to grow to about 7,000 by the end of this week. The startup aims to grow its user base by almost 36X to 2.5 Lakh in the next 12 months. 

Within the next 12 months, the startups wants to achieve 2,000 daily conversations on the platform. Anand said that Unikon.ai will raise its next funding only after achieving this mark.

Meanwhile, the startup is also working on building GenAI models in-house. In the coming years, the platform will also leverage GenAI and build avatars, training them on the data that the platform is collecting, which would further enable users to achieve their professional goals.

As the sea of social media opportunity becomes deeper and wider, Anand believes that every professional would like to be incentivised for their time and knowledge sharing and there would be no free conversations. 

As of now, in a market ruled by tech majors like Microsoft and Meta, it would be interesting to see how Unikon.ai marks its niche in the networking solutions space.

The post How Unikon.ai Wants To Change The Professional Networking Dynamics In India appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Geotech company MapmyIndia’s promoter and founder Rakesh Verma is reportedly selling 5 Lakh shares of the company through a block deal.

As per a CNBC-Awaaz report, the floor price of the deal is set at INR 2,293.2 per equity share, which implies a 5% discount to the stock’s last closing price of INR 2,416.1 on the BSE on Tuesday (June 25).

JM Financial is likely the broker for the block deal.

As per the BSE data, Verma held almost 2.32 Cr shares of MapmyIndia, or a 42.84% stake in the company, as of the quarter ended March 2024.

Promoters together hold a majority 52.91% stake in the company.

It is pertinent to note that the stock has been surging since last week. On June 21, shares of MapmyIndia touched an all-time high at INR 2,745.05 after Goldman Sachs projected a 40% upside to its share price from the INR 2,000 level.

The brokerage, in its initiation note, also rated the stock with ‘buy’.

Goldman Sachs believes that the company will benefit from an early-leadership position in fast-growth end-markets, including automotive navigation, mapping devices, connected vehicles, telematics, and government digitisation.

From pickup in navigation systems attach rates from the EV growth tailwinds in India and use of drone technology from Indrones investment to enrich maps and DaaS business to the contribution from the integration of KOGO’s platform with its Mappls App, the brokerage sees multiple growth levers for the company.

MapmyIndia shares have gained over 24% year to date. 

Meanwhile, earlier this week, MapmyIndia founders Rakesh Verma and Rashmi Verma announced the launch of a new AI venture ClarityX, in partnership with MapmyIndia, to offer insights and real-time data to enterprises for making efficient decisions.

The post MapmyIndia Promoter Rakesh Verma To Offload 5 Lakh Shares Of Co appeared first on Inc42 Media.

After Prosus published IPO-bound Swiggy’s 2023 operating performance, Goldman Sachs, in a research note on Tuesday (June 25), estimated that the company’s biggest competitor Zomato now likely holds a 56-57% market share in the food delivery market. 

In its 2024 annual report, Prosus said that Swiggy saw a 26% year-on-year (YoY) increase in gross order value (GOV) in 2023. The foodtech decacorn’s core food-delivery business GOV grew by “double digits”, it said.

Swiggy saw a 17% YoY GOV growth in the food delivery segment in the first half of 2023. Assuming the growth at mid-point of 10% to 20% for 2023, analysts at Goldman Sachs said this would translate to a 14% YoY growth in Swiggy’s GOV in the second half of the year and 4% growth compared to the first half of the year. 

On the contrary, Zomato’s food delivery GOV grew over 22% YoY in the financial year 2023-24 (FY24). If compared between H1 and H2 of the calendar year 2023, Zomato’s food delivery GOV growth was over 18%, as reported by the company in its last financial performance announcement.

“In food delivery, we calculate Zomato’s market share now at 56-57%, a circa 200 bp (basis point) expansion versus the previous period,” said Goldman Sachs. “At a 31% FY24-27 GOV CAGR, Zomato is the fastest growing food delivery company within our global coverage and also one with the highest margin profile.”

Earlier, Zomato’s share in the Indian food delivery market was pegged at around 54%.

The brokerage also noted that if Swiggy’s total GOV growth of 26% YoY in 2023 is compared with 34% GOV growth for Zomato over the same period, it suggests that the growth for Swiggy stood at 22% YoY in the second half of the year, which is meaningfully lower than 42% YoY growth reported by Zomato. 

As per Goldman Sachs’ calculation, Zomato’s total GOV in 2023 was about 30-35% higher compared to that of Swiggy’s.

Meanwhile, the brokerage said that for online grocery, it expects competition to be a consistent feature of the market, given the size of the industry, with no player likely having more than 20% market share. However, Zomato’s scale is likely about 50% larger than its nearest competitor, the brokerage said.

Goldman Sachs also said that while Swiggy’s adjusted EBITDA loss has narrowed in recent periods, it remains meaningfully higher than Zomato, which turned profitable starting in 2023. 

“We believe Zomato being ahead of its peers on profitability will continue to provide it with the opportunity to further gain market share or improve profitability, or deliver on a mix of both,” the brokerage added.

In fact, not only Goldman Sachs but several other Indian brokerages have also turned more bullish on Zomato after Swiggy’s 2023 performance report.

For instance, JM Financial said that while on an absolute basis, Swiggy’s numbers were impressive, on a relative basis it lagged Zomato in terms of growth as well as profitability. 

“In fact, our channel checks suggest the growth differential was attributable to Zomato outperforming Swiggy in each of the three comparable B2C businesses in CY23,” said the brokerage.

While Swiggy confidentially filed its pre-DRHP with the SEBI earlier this year, the brokerage believes that a successful public listing of the company largely hinges on the management’s ability to demonstrate a clear path to adjusted EBITDA break-even at a consolidated level and arrest market share losses in both food delivery and quick commerce businesses.

“While it’s amply clear from recent Prosus disclosures that profitability improvement remains a key focus area for Swiggy management in the run-up to its public listing, we expect investors to also keenly monitor Swiggy’s ability to stem the decline in its market share across its food delivery as well as quick commerce business,” said JM Financial analysts.

Several other brokerages, including Kotak Institutional Equities, Emkay, and CLSA, have also reiterated their ‘buy’ rating on Zomato, with most of them highlighting that the company’s growth is faster than Swiggy’s.

Shares of Zomato rose almost 3% during the early trading hours on the BSE on Tuesday to touch INR 204.65, a level last seen around the middle of May. The stock ended the session 2% higher at INR 202.85.

The post Zomato Extends Lead Over Swiggy, Has 57% Market Share In Food Delivery: Goldman Sachs appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Nitro Commerce, a full-stack revenue-as-a-service platform built for ecommerce and D2C brands and cofounded by Wigzo founder Umair Mohammed, has raised INR 15 Cr (about $1.8 Mn) in its seed funding round led by Cornerstone Venture Partners.

The funding round also saw participation from Warmup Ventures, Lead Angels, Dholakia Ventures, India Accelerator, and individual investors like Arjun Vaidya and Kunal Khattar.

The funding is part of INR 50 Cr (about $6 Mn) round that the startup is aiming to raise over the next few months.

Founded in 2023 by Umair Mohammed, Atyab Mohammed, Shamail Tayyab, and Pratik Anand, martech startup Nitro Commerce aims to provide technologies to new-age online brands to solve the customer acquisition bottleneck and help them increase revenue. 

The startup claims to be India’s first revenue-as-a-service stack for ecommerce, D2C, and other retail brands. Nitro Commerce currently has one live product, Nitro X, which it claims is a cookieless technology for future-proof marketing. This technology is awaiting the grant of a patent.

Nitro’s Grand Vision

Speaking to Inc42, Nitro Commerce cofounder and CEO Umair Mohammed said, “The ecommerce and D2C industry is accelerating at a phenomenal pace and a lot of new and older merchants are coming online. So we are building core technologies that will aid the top and middle of the funnel for these brands. We want to democratise this technology for merchants so that it is easy to access and deploy, and we are also building it as an outcome as a service.”

The startup claims to have already onboarded more than 140 D2C and ecommerce brands as clients, including Revlon, The Ayurveda Co. (T.A.C), and Amrutam, for Nitro X.

CEO Mohammed said that India being a Chrome-dominated market, Google’s decision to phase out third-party cookies for Chrome users will impact online-first brands in the country as third-party cookies are the bedrock of advertising. 

“While third-party cookies collection has privacy hazards, the entire remarketing of brands was so far built on third-party cookies and remarketing generates almost 20% of revenue,” explained Mohammed. “So, this is where we found the first major problem to solve. Our technology does not compromise user privacy at all, yet it helps brands capture almost 20-30% more data into the funnel.”

Nitro Commerce expects to onboard over 1,000 brands on Nitro X by the end of FY25.

The funds will provide the startup a steady runway for the next few months until it turns profitable. It is eyeing profitability by the end of 2025.

Meanwhile, Nitro Commerce is also working on developing multiple other products. It plans to launch its next product Nitro AI in six to eight months to help ecommerce and D2C brands train large language models (LLMs) and other AI technologies on their proprietary data.

Its other product Nitro Collab, which will provide brands with the ability to seamlessly collaborate with other brands and influencers, is currently under beta testing and is expected to be launched in Q4 FY25.

It also has two other products – Nitro Store and Nitro Play – in the pipeline.

Commenting on the investment,  Nanika Kakkar, partner at Cornerstone Venture, said Nitro Commerce unlocks value for brands through the end-to-end customer journey – from identity resolution and centralised data enrichment to building targeted behavioural marketing – leading to superlative customer conversions.

Meanwhile, D2C entrepreneur and investor Arjun Vaidya said, “I am a big advocate of the ecommerce revolution and believe one needs to invest in gold and the shovel. This (Nitro Commerce) is the shovel!”

The investors expect Nitro Commerce to become an integral part of the country’s burgeoning D2C market and ecommerce sector. As per Inc42, the country’s ecommerce industry is likely to become a $400 Bn market opportunity by 2030, clocking a CAGR of 19%. At about $300 Bn, the D2C sector is expected to account for 75% of this market. 

The post Exclusive: Wigzo Founder’s New Startup Nitro Bags Funds To Solve D2C Brands’ Customer Acquisition Challenges appeared first on Inc42 Media.

IPO-bound non-banking financial company (NBFC) Avanse Financial Services’ net profit more than doubled to INR 342.4 Cr in the financial year 2023-24 (FY24) from INR 157.7 Cr in the previous fiscal year. The startup claimed to have clocked the second-highest profit after tax among education-focussed NBFCs in the country in the reported fiscal.

As per the company’s draft red herring prospectus (DRHP), Avanse’s operating revenue also jumped 74.5% to almost INR 1,727 Cr in FY24 from INR 989.6 Cr in the previous year. 

Founded in 2013, Avanse provides education financing for students and educational institutions in the country. Its financing solutions cater to students’ higher education in India and abroad. The company also offers skill enhancement loans. 

Its revenue from operations comprises interest income, fees and commission income, net gain on fair value changes, and net gain on derecognition of financial instruments on amortised cost basis.

Avanse’s interest income surged 61.6% year-on-year (YoY) to INR 1,443.7 Cr in the reported fiscal. The startup’s interest income primarily comprises interest on loans to its customers as well as interest on its investments and deposits held with banks.

Its fees and commission income grew over 175% YoY to INR 184.3 Cr in FY24 while net gain on the derecognition of financial instruments on amortised cost basis surged over 270% YoY to INR 85.7 Cr.

Avanse’s fees and commission income comprise foreign exchange commissions, insurance commissions, and prepayments and other charges.

Overall, including other income, Avanse’s total revenue stood at INR 1,728.8 Cr in FY24 as against INR 990.2 Cr the previous year.

Where Did Avanse Spend?

Total expenses jumped almost 63% to INR 1,269.5 Cr during the year under review from INR 778.9 Cr in FY23, with finance costs continuing to be the largest contributor.

Finance Costs: The startup spent INR 875.6 Cr in this bucket, which grew over 62% YoY.

This cost head includes interest expense on borrowings, debt securities, securitisation liabilities, and interest expense on lease liabilities.

Employee Cost: Avanse spent INR 140.9 Cr in total towards employee benefits which jumped 48.6% from INR 94.8 Cr in FY23.

The startup said that the rise was primarily due to an increase in salaries, bonuses and other allowances to INR 124.5 Cr in FY24, as its total employee count zoomed to 606 as of March 31, 2024 from 463 as of March 31, 2023 and due to annual increments.

Other Expenses: Avanse’s spending in this bucket grew over 81% YoY to INR 152.8 Cr in FY24. This bucket includes business sourcing expenses, IT expenses, and manpower outsourcing expenses.

Avanse filed its DRHP with SEBI last week for an INR 3,500 Cr IPO. Its IPO comprises a fresh issue of shares worth INR 1,000 Cr and an offer for sale (OFS) component of shares worth up to INR 2,500 Cr.

It plans to use the proceeds from the fresh issue to increase its capital base to fuel further business expansion.

Earlier this year, the NBFC raised a primary capital of INR 1,000 Cr ($120 Mn) from Abu Dhabi-based investment firm Mubadala Investment Company and Avendus PE Investment Advisors Private Limited. 

The post IPO-Bound Avanse’s PAT Doubles To INR 342.4 Cr In FY24, Operating Revenue Surges 74% appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Shares of B2B travel portal Travel Boutique Online (TBO Tek) touched an all-time high at INR 1,741.6 as they jumped 9.6% during the intraday trading on the BSE on Monday (June 24) after Goldman Sachs initiated coverage on the stock with a ‘buy’ rating.

The international brokerage also set a price target of INR 1,970 for the stock, which implies an upside of almost 24% to its last close on Friday.

“We see TBO’s business model as having multiple positive characteristics – exposed to a large and fragmented TAM with secular growth tailwinds, a strong execution track record, an asset-light balance sheet, negative working capital, strong FCF (free cash flow) generation, and low competition/regulatory risks,” said Goldman Sachs in its initiation note on TBO Tek.

The brokerage also expects the company’s revenue to grow at a 21% CAGR between FY24 and FY30, which is at the higher end of Goldman Sachs’s global travel coverage. It expected the revenue growth to be driven by TBO Tek continuing to consolidate both supply and demand, aided by its M&A strategy.

TBO Tek posted a 64% jump in its profit after tax (PAT) to INR 46.4 Cr in the March quarter (Q4) of FY24 from INR 28.2 Cr in the corresponding period last year, helped by a sharp growth in its hotels and packages segments.

The company’s operating revenue also increased 31% year-on-year (YoY) to INR 369 Cr in Q4.

“In the coming year, we will continue to invest in global market development, supply strengthening and platform innovation. We will be looking for strategic inorganic opportunities as well”, said the company cofounder and joint MD Gaurav Bhatnagar, commenting on the earnings.

Speaking on the company’s valuation, Goldman Sachs said, “On a growth adjusted basis, TBO trades at a discount to MSCI India, India IT services, global travel names and Nykaa/InfoEdge, though more expensive than Zomato and MMYT (MakeMyTrip). TBO has had a consistent profitability and FCF generation track record, and operates in an industry where we see low regulatory and competition risks; we believe this warrants a premium valuation.”

However, it expects some of this premium to be offset due to TBO operating in a segment, which could see headwinds from shift to online over a longer time horizon.

Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs also said that from an underlying industry viewpoint, while there are potential headwinds from the shift to online in the long term, it also sees tailwinds from faster growth in outbound travel, including from first-time travellers and travellers with complex itineraries who might require assistance.

The brokerage views TBO Tek’s risk-reward ratio as favourable.

TBO Tek made a strong public market debut last month. Its shares were listed at a 55% premium at INR 1,426 on NSE while on BSE, the stock price was listed at a 50% premium, at INR 1,380.

After listing, the stock rallied over 15% crossing INR 1,500 level in its last close. 

TBO Tek shed some of its early gains on Monday and was trading 8.2% higher at INR 1,719.45 on the BSE by 2 PM IST with a market capitalisation of INR 18,671.13 Cr ($2.2 Bn).

The post TBO Tek Touches An All-Time High After Goldman Sachs ‘Buy’ Call appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Shares of online classifieds and auto auction platform CarTrade Technologies slipped 4.3% to INR 820 during the intraday trading on the BSE on Monday (June 24) amid reports that a block deal worth INR 400 Cr is expected in the company today.

As per a CNBC-TV18 report, Highdell Investment and MacRitchie Investments Pte are offloading 7% and 3.4% stake each in the company with an upsize of 1.7% and 0.9% respectively.

The total value might also increase to INR 500 Cr, the report said.

The floor price for the deal is reportedly set at INR 820 per equity share, offering a 4.3% discount compared to CarTrade’s last closing price on Friday.

As per BSE data, Highdell Investment held a 17.36% stake in CarTrade, while MacRitchie held a 16.31% stake in the company, at the end of the March quarter of 2024.

After falling 4.3%, shares of CarTrade revived slightly and were trading 3.4% lower at INR 827.65 by 12.54 PM IST.

It is to be noted that last week, the Income Tax (I-T) Department issued a demand letter to CarTrade for a shortfall in payment or collection of tax deducted at source (TDS) or tax collected at source (TCS). 

In a filing with the BSE, CarTrade noted that it received the demand notice for INR 15.79 Lakh. 

However, multiple block and bulk deals have been going on in the company since March this year.

Taiyo Greater India Fund Ltd offloaded 2.65 Lakh shares in the company in a bulk deal worth INR 21.7 Cr earlier this month. 

In the last few months, several other major stakeholders, including March Capital and JP Morgan’s CMDB II have offloaded parts of their stakes in the company.

It is also pertinent to note that CarTrade once again turned profitable in the March quarter (Q4) of FY24. It reported a 43% jump in its profit after tax (PAT) to INR 25 Cr in the March quarter (Q4) FY24 from INR 17.5 Cr posted in the same quarter last year.

Shares of CarTrade have witnessed a significant upside over the last few months. The stock has rallied almost 20% since the beginning of May.

The post CarTrade Shares Fall 4.3% Intraday On Likely Block Deal Worth Over INR 400 Cr appeared first on Inc42 Media.

After making a stellar debut on the Indian bourses on Tuesday (June 18), online travel platform ixigo has left behind its listed new-age tech peers in terms of gains in the first four trading sessions.

Shares of ixigo rallied over 25% from the listing price in the first four trading sessions. The stock listed at INR 135 on the BSE, a premium of 45.16% to its issue price. It soared from there to end the week at INR 169.18, registering a 25.3% gain in four trading sessions.

For comparison, PB Fintech, which listed on the bourses on November 15, 2021, saw its shares rise 15.7% in the first four trading sessions from its listing price. Similarly, Zomato rallied 14.4% from its listing in four sessions after its listing on July 23, 2021.

Beauty ecommerce platform Nykaa gained 14% in the first four trading sessions after its listing on November 10, 2021. Paytm, on the other hand, declined 10.3% in the same number of sessions after its public market debut on November 18, 2021.

Others like Nazara Technologies, MapmyIndia, and even Awfis, which listed just before ixigo, saw their shares go below their listing price by the end of the fourth trading session since their debut. 

It is pertinent to note that the market was highly bullish about ixigo’s initial public offering (IPO). Its public issue was oversubscribed 98.34X, with qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) showing the highest interest. The portion reserved for non-institutional investors (NIIs) and retail investors were also oversubscribed. 

On the listing day, shares of ixigo were locked in the upper circuit by rallying 20%. The day next, the stock again touched the upper circuit on the BSE by gaining 20% but ended the day 14.4% higher at INR 185.25.

On Thursday (June 20), ixigo shares declined over 9% to INR 167.75, which was about 24.2% higher than its listing price. The shares gained slightly by about 0.9% during Friday’s trading.

Ahead of ixigo’s IPO, coworking space provider Awfis also saw high interest in its public issue. Its IPO was oversubscribed 108.56X, higher than ixigo’s. However, its shares listed at a lower premium than ixigo’s. At INR 432.25, shares of Awfis listed at a 12.8% premium on the BSE.

Before these two startups, insurtech startup Go Digit made its market debut last month. Among the recently listed new-age tech stocks, Go Digit’s IPO saw the most lacklustre response from the public market investors.

Meanwhile, ixigo’s market cap increased from INR 6,275.87 Cr ($752.2 Mn) on the day of listing to INR 6,554.43 ($784.4 Mn) by the end of this week.

Earlier this week, Riyank Arora, technical analyst at Mehta Equities, said that ixigo’s risk-reward ratio was unfavourable at current levels. He pegged INR 160 as a strong support for the stock.

However, he added that the stock could move further towards INR 200 and INR 225 levels.

Founded in 2007 by Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar, ixigo offers travel services like flights, trains, bus tickets, and hotel bookings, and holiday packages. Its listed competitors are EaseMyTrip, Yatra, and MakeMyTrip.

ixigo has been able to mark its niche in the train ticketing segment and differentiate itself from the other OTAs with a major focus on Tier 2 and beyond markets. These factors largely helped the company witness a massive demand for its IPO.

Surge In Startup IPOs

It is pertinent to note that at least 10 new-age tech startups are expected to get listed on the Indian exchanges this year. Of these, four mainboard IPOs have already taken place.

Last week, Ola Electric got the approval from SEBI to launch its INR 5,500+ Cr IPO. It is among the most-awaited public market debuts this year given its large issue size, coupled with factors like it is a loss-making entity and the first Indian EV startup to go public.

Market experts believe that strong fundamentals will play a crucial role in making the public offers of startups attractive to investors. Besides, elements like first-mover advantage in a particular industry and clear differentiating factors are also getting increased importance.

After the listing of Go Digit, Awfis, and ixigo, all focus is expected to shift towards Ola Electric from here on.

Meanwhile, the IPOs of Swiggy, FirstCry, Unicommerce, Ola Cabs, PayU, and MobiKwik are also awaited this year.

Earlier this month, Unicommerce added SoftBank-backed Starfish I Pte Ltd and Snapdeal cofounders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Kumar Bansal as its promoters in its IPO documents.

With the pick up in IPOs after the slump in 2022 and 2023, a  number of startups are now preparing for listing on the Indian bourses,

Recently, Flipkart-backed logistics unicorn BlackBuck converted itself into a public company as it eyes a public listing in FY25.

Meanwhile, fintech unicorn Pine Labs is said to be eyeing an IPO of $1 Bn in the country. However, the timeline for its IPO is not clear yet.

The post ixigo Brushes Past Other New-Age Tech Stocks With 25% Gains In First Four Sessions appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Google is “pausing” its plans to expand and allow new kinds of real-money games (RMG) list on the Play Store in India and globally, citing the absence of a central licensing framework and the complexities in developing an appropriate monetisation model.

It is to be noted that Google began onboarding a wider range of RMG apps on the Play Store with pre-existing licensing frameworks in 2021. In January this year, the tech giant announced plans to relax its Play Store policies to allow more types of games in the RMG category to be listed on its app marketplace. 

Google had plans to launch its expanded RMG support to developers for their users in India, Mexico and Brazil in June.

However, a Google spokesperson in a statement on Friday (June 21) said, “Expanding our support of real-money gaming apps in markets without a central licensing framework has proven more difficult than expected and we need additional time to get it right for our developer partners and the safety of our users.” 

“We’re working hard to develop a thoughtful framework – and in the meantime, in India, we are extending the grace period of the pilot program so existing apps offering DFS (Daily Fantasy Sports) and Rummy games in India can remain on Play and users can continue to enjoy them. We hope to have further updates in the coming months on a path forward,” the spokesperson added.

Expressing his disappointment at Google’s decision to extend the grace period, Roland Landers, CEO of All India Gaming Federation called the tech giant’s decision “arbitrary and anti-competitive”.

“To Google’s credit, they extensively engaged with the industry over the past year and even announced earlier this year that they would onboard all skill-based Pay to Play games. Given that the Google Play Store conservatively holds over 90% of the app distribution market, it exerts tremendous control over the Indian mobile market. Their decision grants them unchecked control to pick winners in the market, favouring large companies and preventing small and emerging startups from effectively competing in this sector,” he added.

However, the representative body of online gaming said it would continue to engage with Google and hopes that the company will soon implement the policy and level the playing field.

In September 2022, Google began an application-only pilot programme, facilitating the distribution of DFS and rummy game apps developed in India. 

Though the apps were to be allowed to list on the Play Store following approval from self-regulatory bodies (SRBs), Google kept extending the period for the pilot from January last year due to a delay in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) notifying the regulatory framework.

After MeitY provided some clarity by introducing online gaming rules in early 2023, the GST council’s decision to impose a 28% GST on the full face value of bets came as a major blow to the industry. 

Google said today that the tech giants want to be clear that its intention to support the distribution of a wider range of RMG apps on Play has not changed but it needs more time to address these challenges. 

“To provide further details, the India pilot grace period extension we announced in January was intended to give us time to navigate the SRBs postponement and the absence of a central licensing framework that identifies permissible and legal RMGs in the country,” the tech giant said. 

It is to be noted that Google had planned to evolve its service fee model for RMG to reflect the value Google Play provides and to help sustain the Android and Play ecosystems. 

“As we shared in January, we have been working closely with developers to ensure our new approach reflects the unique economics and various developer earning models of this industry – but we need additional time to work through a thoughtful approach,” it added.

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Shares of geotech startup MapmyIndia jumped 20% to touch the upper circuit at INR 2,401.9 during the intraday trading on the BSE on Thursday (June 20) after Goldman Sachs initiated coverage on the stock with a ‘buy’ rating.

The international brokerage set a price target of INR 2,800 on the stock, which implies an upside of almost 40% to MapmyIndia’s close at INR 2,001.6 on Wednesday. 

Goldman Sachs said the startup is well-poised to benefit from an early leadership position in fast-growth end-markets, including automotive navigation, mapping devices, connected vehicles, telematics, and government digitisation.

The brokerage believes that MapmyIndia’s core profit pool lies in its IP-protected digital mapping service built over more than three decades and overlaid with valuable data such as demographics, law and order, natural resources, infrastructure, and other insights. It forecasts a revenue CAGR of 38% in the FY24-FY27 period, with a steady EBITDA margin in the 38% to 41% range. 

MapmyIndia divides its market-wise revenue into two categories – automotive and mobility tech business (A&M) and consumer tech and enterprise digital transformation (C&E). Its C&E revenue grew 49% year-on-year (YoY) to INR 194 Cr in FY24, while A&M revenue rose 23% to INR 186 Cr.

The startup said during its FY24 earnings that over 2.5 Mn new vehicles, including four-wheelers, two-wheelers and CVs, across ICE and EV segments, had built-in MapmyIndia Mappls in FY24, up 32% YoY.

On the other hand, MapmyIndia divides its product-wise revenue into two segments – map and data and platform and IoT. In FY24, its map and data revenue grew 23% YoY to INR 138 Cr and platform and IoT revenue jumped 42% to INR 241 Cr.

“We expect the company to maintain high margins driven by a pickup in loT-led business growth (offers more revenue opportunity for high-margin mapping), supported by newer opportunities in people/goods mobility and the auto aftermarket versus the legacy auto OEM business,” said Goldman Sachs in its research report.

“We offer incremental perspective on Mapmyindia’s loT margin potential and contrast how profitability evolved at similar hardware led businesses at peers like Trimble, and assess growth optionality from rising SUV + EV penetration,” the brokerage added.

MapmyIndia’s operating revenue stood at INR 379.4 Cr in FY24, witnessing a 35% YoY jump. Its profit after tax increased 25% YoY to INR 134.3 Cr in the last fiscal.

Shares of MapmyIndia were locked at the 20% upper circuit on the BSE today and ended the day’s trading at INR 2,401.9.

The stock is currently trading 23.5% higher year to date.

The post Goldman Sachs Sees 40% Upside In MapmyIndia; Stock Hits 20% Upper Circuit appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Reversing its two-day winning streak, shares of newly-listed online travel aggregator (OTA) ixigo slumped as much as 10.4% to INR 165.98 during the intraday trading on the BSE on Thursday (June 20).

It ended the day’s trading almost 9.4% lower at INR 167.75, which was about 24.2% higher than its listing price of INR 135.

After getting listed at a 45.16% premium on the BSE earlier this week, shares of ixigo rallied 20% during the intraday trading on the listing day to touch the upper circuit. During Wednesday’s early trading hours, the stock once again touched the upper circuit at INR 194.38 on the BSE by jumping 20%. 

The stock ended yesterday’s trading session 14.4% higher at INR 185.25 on the BSE.

Speaking on the stock, Riyank Arora, technical analyst at Mehta Equities, said yesterday that ixigo looked poised for an upside move towards INR 200 and INR 225 but the risk-reward ratio at current levels was unfavourable.

On NSE, the stock ended down 8.9% at INR 168.49 on Thursday.

Founded in 2007 by Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar, ixigo offers travel services like flights, trains, bus tickets, and hotel bookings, and holiday packages. Its listed competitors are EaseMyTrip, Yatra, and MakeMyTrip.

However, the startup has been able to mark its niche in the train ticketing segment and differentiate itself from the other OTAs with a major focus on the Tier 2 and beyond markets. These factors largely helped ixigo witness a massive demand for its IPO.

Its public issue was also oversubscribed 98.34X. 

However, after jumping over 37% from its listing price in two sessions, investors are likely booking profits in the stock now. 

Arora said on Wednesday, “Immediate support, as per the signals on lower time frames, is placed around INR 180. Below this, the next support is around INR 160. However, on a pullback towards INR 170, we can consider buying this stock with a strict stop loss of INR 160 for potential targets of INR 200 and INR 225.”

The post ixigo Shares Break 2-Day Winning Streak, Slump 10.4% Intraday appeared first on Inc42 Media.

After the FAME-II fiasco last year, the government is reportedly set to penalise the electric automakers that opt for FAME-III subsidy, if they do not adhere to the localisation norms laid down under the new scheme.

As per an ET report, the EV companies certifying vehicles for subsidies under FAME-III would have to undergo a techno-commercial audit twice a year to ascertain they are meeting the localisation guidelines. 

A government official informed the publication that in the case of any irregularities to the norm, the manufacturers would be liable to return the claimed government subsidies with an interest, which would be at a rate 3% higher than the marginal cost of funds-based lending rate (MCLR) in penalties.

“We are putting in place a committee with representatives from testing agencies, which will audit every six months whether companies are meeting the localisation norms in vehicles certified under FAME,” the official was quoted as saying. “In the event of non-compliance, they will have to refund claimed subsidies with interest at a higher rate than MCLR.”

It is to be noted that FAME-III is likely to be announced in the upcoming budget next month with an expected outlay of INR 10,000 Cr to keep boosting the adoption of EVs in the country. The upcoming scheme is likely to focus significantly on the adoption of public transport such as ebuses along with two- three- and four-wheelers, while also focusing on charging infrastructure.

The earlier iteration of FAME, the FAME-II, which ended in March this year, was launched in 2019 with a total outlay of INR 10,000 Cr. It was slated to support 10 Lakh electric two-wheelers, 5 Lakh electric three-wheelers, 7,000 electric buses, and 55,000 electric four-wheeler passenger cars through subsidies.

However, following multiple fire-related incidents with EVs in the country, more than a dozen of the top electric two-wheeler players of 2022, came under the government’s scrutiny last year for not adhering to the localisation norms and were heavily penalised.  The most prominent players of 2022 like Okinawa Autotech, PureEV, Hero Electric and Ampere, slowly lost their leading positions in terms of vehicle sales.

Following the misappropriation of the subsidies, the MHI cut incentives under the FAME-II scheme last year to 15% of the ex-factory price of a two-wheeler EV from 40% earlier while also slashing the demand incentive.

The Ministry of Heavy Industries (MHI) also sent notices to the OEMs under the scanner to recover subsidies worth a total of INR 469 Cr for flouting the localisation norms.

The MHI’s decision to put an embargo on some of the manufacturers from listing their sales on the official National Automotive Board (NAB) portal, penalising them, and issuing notices to the OEMs to return the subsidy amounts, led to a huge outcry in the EV industry.

Commenting on the government’s third iteration of FAME, the official told the publication that the objective of the scheme is to support and accelerate consumer adoption of EVs and simultaneously create a local ecosystem to bring their costs down over time. 

“It goes against the very purpose of the scheme if companies do not source locally. It will hinder the development of a vendor base in the country,” the official was quoted as saying.

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Continuing its rally for the second consecutive trading session, shares of online travel aggregator (OTA) ixigo gained over 14% during Wednesday’s (June 19) trading session.

After getting listed at a 45.16% premium on the BSE on Tuesday, shares of ixigo rallied 20% during the intraday trading to touch the upper circuit. The stock ended its first trading session at INR 161.99.

During today’s early trading hours, the stock once again touched the upper circuit at INR 194.38 on the BSE by jumping 20%. However, it shed some of the gains to end the day’s trading 14.4% higher at INR 185.25 on the BSE.

While ixigo shares touched its upper circuit for the second consecutive day on the BSE, they couldn’t do so on the NSE today. After hitting the 20% upper circuit on the NSE on Tuesday, the stock jumped 19.2% on the exchange during the early trading hours today.

It ended the day 11.5% higher at INR 184.86 on the NSE on Wednesday.

ixigo also saw a few large bulk deals on the day of listing on the NSE. Japanese investment major Nomura Group, via two of its funds, bought 66.98 Lakh shares worth INR 106.56 Cr in the company.

It is pertinent to note that after getting listed at a 48.5% premium to its issue price on the NSE yesterday, ixigo shares are already trading almost 34% higher compared to its listing price of INR 138.1 on the exchange.

The stock is trading 37.2% higher compared to its listing price of INR 135 on the BSE.

ixigo’s market cap at the end of the second day of its listing stands at INR 7,177.01 Cr ($860 Mn) as against INR 6,275.87 Cr ($752.2 Mn) on the first day.

Riyank Arora, technical analyst at Mehta Equities, said that though there is limited data on the technical charts for the stock, ixigo looks poised for an upside move towards INR 200 and INR 225. However, the risk-reward ratio at current levels is unfavourable.

“Immediate support, as per the signals on lower time frames, is placed around INR 180. Below this, the next support is around INR 160,” Arora said. “However, on a pullback towards INR 170, we can consider buying this stock with a strict stop loss of INR 160 for potential targets of INR 200 and INR 225.”

Founded in 2007 by Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar, ixigo initially started as a travel search website, helping users compare flight deals. In FY20, it pivoted to become an OTA, earning revenue from selling various travel services like flights, trains, bus tickets, hotel bookings, and holiday packages.

On the back of its profitability factor and strong differentiation from other OTAs, ixigo IPO received a positive response from public market investors. Its public issue was oversubscribed 98.34X. 

ixigo’s major early investors Peak XV and SAIF Partners also made massive returns from the IPO. As per Inc42’s calculations, the returns made by Peak XV and SAIF Partners on the shares they sold via the OFS and pre-IPO deals stood at about 8.2X and 13X, respectively.

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