What Did You Miss from the Start-up Ecosystem This Week? Here is everything that happened in the Indian start-up ecosystem this week
By Bhavya Kaushal •
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Here is everything that happened in the Indian start-up ecosystem this week-
Zomato's Arial Feat
The human mind has no boundaries and Zomato has proven just that. The food tech unicorn announced that it has successfully tested its maiden drone delivery technology using a hybrid drone that covered a distance of five km in about 10 minutes with a peak speed of 80 kmph to deliver a food packet. Deepinder Goyal, Founder and CEO of Zomato announced, "The only possible way to reduce the average 30 minutes to 15 minutes is to take the aerial route. Roads are not efficient for very fast deliveries. "We have been working towards building sustainable and safe delivery technology and with our first successful test; food delivery by drones is no longer just a pipe dream."
A Bumpy Road Ahead
Online travel services platform Yatra.com landed in legal trouble after it acquired company filed a lawsuit against it. The acquisition which has been put on hold because of the dispute all started when the Chairman of Air Travel Bureau(ATB), Sunil Narain filed an FIR against Yatra at the Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi Police, accusing it of cheating, falsification of accounts, criminal breach of trust and forgery of documents. The Nasdaq-backed online travel portal denied all allegations.
Ola To Set Up US Tech Centre To Develop Next-Gen Mobility Tech
Ride-hailing unicorn Ola is planning to set up an Advanced Technology Centre in San Francisco Bay and also plans to build a team of over 150 engineers. The centre will endeavour towards Ola's initiatives including electric and autonomous vehicles. Ola is looking to hire experts across artificial intelligence, machine learning, data sciences, engineering and product development during the course of this project.
Flipkart & GOQii Make Peace
After weeks of deliberation over the legal spat that could have turned troublesome for both parties, it comes as a sigh of relief that both parties have made peace. In a joint statement, the companies revealed that the dispute has been resolved and GOQii products will be made available on the former's website. The conflict started with Vishal Gondal, founder of GOQii accusing Flipkart of deep discounting. Gondal argued that the e-commerce giant was selling products at a much higher discount than the norms of the deal.
Funding Report
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is reportedly close to making an investment of $150 million for an 8 per cent stake in Indian logistics unicorn Delhivery.
Bengaluru-based social commerce startup Meesho has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Silicon Valley giant Facebook.
The highest funding was raised by OkCredit, it raised $15.5 million in a round led by Tiger Global.
Online grocery platform, Jumbotail has raised $13 million in a Series-B round of funding.
Conversational AI startup Yellow Messenger has raised $4 million in a Series A funding round from Lightspeed Venture Partners and prominent angel investors.
Bengaluru-based Disha Medical Services has raised Series C funding of $4 million from Insitor Impact Asia Fund, the Nilekani Family Office and other HNIs.
Among others, Sarva, which has been attracting investments from celebrities across, saw an undisclosed amount getting pumped from actor Shahid Kapoor and his wife Mira Kapoor.
CityFurnish raised $5 million from Gmail Founder Paul Buchheit, Youtube Founder- Steve Chen, Global founders Capital, Venture highway, Soma Capital, SCM Advisors, Boomerang Ventures, and a few other angel investors and HNIs.
Artha Venture Fund announced the second close of its fund for over INR 100 crore.
