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India's Oyo, once valued at $10 billion, seeks new funding at 70% discount | TechCrunch

May 7, 2024 11:18 PM0


Oyo, the Indian budget-hotel chain startup, is negotiating with investors to raise a new round of funding that could cut the Indian firm’s valuation to $3 billion or lower, three sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.

The startup is engaging with investors, including Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund Khazanah, for the new funding, the sources said, requesting anonymity as the matter is private. The new funding round is likely to see some secondary transactions as well that will value the startup at as low as $2.5 billion, the sources added.

The proposed terms, if they materialize, would represent a steep drop from the peak valuation of $10 billion at which Oyo raised a funding round in 2019. A valuation of $3 billion or less would also be lower than the amount of capital Oyo has raised against equity and in debt over the years.

The deliberations for the new funding are ongoing, and its terms may still change, or a round may not materialize, the sources cautioned.

The curt in valuation is hardly a surprise. SoftBank, which owns more than 40% of Oyo, internally cut the valuation of the Indian startup to $2.7 billion in 2022. Oyo said at the time that there was “no rational basis” for the markdown of its valuation.

Oyo – which counts SoftBank, Airbnb, Peak XV Partners, and Lightspeed Venture Partners among its backers – disputed the “rumors,” asserting there wasn’t any “concrete transaction.” Khazanah didn’t respond to a request for comment. The terms about the proposed valuation haven’t been previously reported.

The deliberations for the new funding follow Oyo reportedly withdrawing its draft red herring prospectus for an initial public offering for the second time. The Indian startup originally filed the paperwork to go public in 2021, seeking to raise about $1.2 billion at a valuation of $12 billion at the time.

India’s market regulator, SEBI, has not approved the startup’s application for an IPO.

According to local media, Oyo’s founder and chief executive, Ritesh Agarwal, told employees that the company expects revenue for the fiscal year ending March to be more than $682 million.


Software Development in Sri Lanka

Robotic Automations

Calendly revamps its browser extension as it seeks to do more than schedule meetings | TechCrunch

May 1, 2024 6:31 PM0


Appointment scheduling service Calendly has redesigned its browser extension in a bid to improve its schedule management features and make scheduling faster.

The new extension, available for Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Outlook, has a ‘Meetings’ tab that houses your meetings and lets you join, cancel, or reschedule them. However, it only shows meetings booked through Calendly. The company said it will explore expanding the extension’s functionality based on customer feedback.

There’s also a new ‘Contacts’ tab that lets you see your upcoming meetings with the people who’re in them, as well as your meeting history with them.

The extension also lets you share links to different kinds of meetings (longer or shorter meetings, for example), or instantly book a follow-up call with someone in the current meeting.

Image Credits: Calendly

Calendly is also expanding its overall feature set. The service now lets users book multiple meetings in one time slot, and even prioritize one meeting over another. You still need to prioritize your meetings manually, but the company said it is considering adding some kind of intelligence to provide suggestions to help with prioritization.

Calendly is also introducing a feature for teams that lets members of sales or marketing teams book a call on behalf of their teammates. For this, teammates have to give the group permission to edit their calendars.

Image Credits: Calendly

The company said that with this extension, along with integrations to tools like Gmail and LinkedIn, it aims to reduce the amount of time people spend switching between websites and applications.

Looking beyond scheduling

Calendly’s chief product officer, Stephen Hsu, told TechCrunch in an interview that Calendly aims to evolve beyond scheduling and become a product that’s useful throughout the meeting lifecycle. In particular, he noted that the company wants to focus on helping people prepare for meetings, and provide insights during meetings as well as after they’ve ended.

Hsu also said the company wants to get into the meeting transcription space. “We have customers who use tools like Otter or Zoom Assistant, but they are not necessarily easily integrated, and [are] managed separately,” he said.

Hsu said the company wants to give users more information about attendees and the agenda of the meeting by grabbing knowledge via its integrations with platforms like Salesforce and LinkedIn. Plus, Calendly could also carry in knowledge from historical meetings and action items, he added.

Currently, you have to open the web app to take notes with Calendly. The company wants to move this feature to an easily accessible location like the extension, Hsu said.

Tools like Notion Calendar, Vimcal, Akiflow, and Amie have made it easier for users to provide their availability across time zones. Calendly said it is looking to revamp its invitee experience and make it easier to book meetings across time zones.

Using AI to make meeting tools smarter

There are plenty of meeting-related tools from major corporations like Zoom to startups like Limitless (previously Rewind AI) that are aiming to leverage AI to make better sense of the information that was generated during meetings.

Calendly, too, wants to tap AI to improve its product. The company said it wants to create a model that can leverage meeting data along with knowledge from systems like CRM platforms to provide a fuller picture of a meeting.

“If we have a world where we can create a model that allows the user to tap into any type of information across that entire meeting lifecycle from anywhere, whether it’s in Slack or a new conversational interface in Calendly, that’ll be super powerful,” Hsu said.


Software Development in Sri Lanka

Robotic Automations

Swiggy, the Indian food delivery giant, seeks $1.25 billion in IPO after receiving shareholder approval | TechCrunch

April 25, 2024 11:17 AM0


Swiggy plans to raise $1.25 billion in an initial public offering and has secured approval from its shareholders, the Indian food delivery and instant commerce startup disclosed in a filing to the local regulator.

The Bengaluru-headquartered startup, which competes with publicly-listed Zomato and StepStone Group-backed Zepto, plans to raise $450 million through issuance of new shares and offer $800 million of shares from existing backers in the IPO, it wrote in a filing to Ministry of Corporate Affairs.

The Indian startup ecosystem has been eagerly anticipating Swiggy’s public debut, which is slated for later this year. Swiggy counts Prosus, Accel, SoftBank and Invesco among its backers. It was last valued at $10.7 billion in a funding round unveiled in early 2022. Some of its investors, including Invesco and Baron, have since publicly marked up the valuation of Swiggy to over $12 billion.

Swiggy had earlier intended to go public in 2023, TechCrunch previously reported, but deferred the plan due to not-so-favorable market conditions.

This is a developing story. More to follow.


Software Development in Sri Lanka

Robotic Automations

Sachin Bansal's fintech Navi seeks $2B valuation in its first major external fundraise | TechCrunch

April 13, 2024 2:07 PM0


Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal is in talks to raise capital for his new startup, Indian fintech Navi. Bansal is talking to investors to raise at a valuation of around $2 billion, three sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. One source said he is looking to raise between $200 million and $400 million.

Bansal has largely self-funded Navi up to now, and this would be the Bengaluru-headquartered startup’s first large outside fundraise since it was founded in 2018.

Talks have yet to materialize into a deal, so the terms, as well as Bansal’s appetite for outside funding, may change, the sources cautioned. A Navi spokesperson declined to comment.

Navi, which offers personal and home loans as well as health insurance to customers, has been through a few financial twists and turns. Navi originally wanted to raise $440 million in a public listing, according to paperwork it filed in 2022. With the IPO market in a slump, however, the startup abandoned those plans last year.

The funding deliberations point to a significant shift in the venture market in India and are an encouraging sign for fintech more globally. After a particularly rough 2023 in which overall startup funding fell 73% in the country, this could be a signal that growth-stage funding rounds are back on the table.

Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund ADIA is in talks to back Indian audio-storytelling platform Pocket FM, TechCrunch reported last month. Indian eyewear brand Lenskart, Temasek-backed consumer nutrition platform HealthKart, and bike-taxi aggregator Rapido are also in talks to raise new growth-stage rounds, Indian outlet Economic Times reported Thursday. Khazanah, Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, is among investors that Swiggy-backed Rapido has engaged with in recent weeks, one source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. 

India’s startup ecosystem saw a steep decline in large funding rounds last year as global investors, including Tiger Global and SoftBank, reduced their investments, while domestic VC firms shifted their focus to early-stage companies, according to a recent Bain report.

The Reserve Bank of India’s regulatory actions in recent years have also impacted startups issuing cards and lending, further spooking many investors in the fintech sector.

Under Bansal, Flipkart was a trailblazer for startups in India, raising billions of dollars from a storied list of strategic and financial investors. He then left the startup in 2018 with a $1 billion windfall and opted for a bootstrapped approach for Navi, which he founded the same year.

Even if this might become Navi’s first external raise, that doesn’t mean Bansal has not been talking to interested parties. As TechCrunch previously reported, the fintech spoke to potential investors, including SoftBank, ahead of its IPO filing. Those discussions stalled after Navi’s application for a banking license was rejected by the country’s central bank, TechCrunch previously reported.

In recent quarters, Navi has narrowed its focus. It sold its microfinancing unit Chaitanya India for $178.5 million in August as part of a “strategic plan to focus on our digital-first businesses,” Bansal said at the time.

In an interview published by the Indian outlet Moneycontrol on Tuesday, Bansal said he would revive plans for the IPO, but only in a “few months, once we are ready.”

Bansal has also not given up the idea of turning Navi into a bank. “For now, I would say we have parked them, until we see that it is a possibility again in the future,” he told the Indian outlet. “Then we will pick up again when there’s some green light from the regulator at the right time.”


Software Development in Sri Lanka

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