28th April: Unacademy, Flipkart, Ayu Health & Licious
Most significant stories about the Indian startup & tech ecosystem in under 120 seconds.
From The CapTable newsroom: Gaurav Munjal resets expectations at Unacademy amid edtech reckoning
About a year ago, Unacademy CEO Gaurav Munjal was busy preparing the ground for the next big round of funding. The idea was to portray the company as a multi-product proposition, not just an education-technology startup. As immediate examples, he had recruitment app Relevel and creator-focused platform Graphy.
The central theme of Munjal’s pitch, though, remained tied to the education business, driven by test preparation for UPSC (civil services), IIT-JEE and medical colleges, besides Unacademy’s entry into the K-12 tutoring market (read more)
Other significant stories about the ecosystem
Ecommerce major Flipkart has opened up its internal logistics arm Ekart to other ecommerce players. Flipkart Group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy also discussed this at a company town hall on Wednesday, according to people privy to the matter. According to sources, Ekart has added about 30 clients and is looking to onboard more as it doubles down on leveraging its internal logistics infrastructure to service non-Flipkart orders (read more).
Walmart-owned ecommerce platform Flipkart has made changes to its marketplace policy. The homegrown e-tailer has added features to attract new sellers. The Bengaluru-based company has cut the payment settlement cycle to 7-10 days from 15 days earlier. It has introduced 10-minute seller onboarding, and guaranteed returns through sales from advertisements placed on the platform (read more).
Furniture and home decor platform WoodenStreet has raised $30 million in a funding round led by WestBridge Capital at a valuation of $156 million (Rs 1,200 crore). The fundraising was a mix of primary and secondary investment (read more).
Geniemode, a business-to-business cross-border tech platform for lifestyle goods, has raised $28 million in a funding round led by Tiger Global. The company will use the funds to deepen its penetration in key international markets. It also plans to strengthen its supplier base across India and Southeast Asia (read more).
Ayu Health Hospitals has raised $27 million in its Series-B funding round, led by The Fundamentum Partnership. The company said it would use the funds to expand its hospital network and invest in technology. The funding round saw participation from 57 Stars, Capier Investments and angel investors including Ashish Gupta, Khadim Batti and Vara Kumar (read more).
India's antitrust body launched raids against two top domestic sellers of online retail giant Amazon.com Inc over accusations of having violated competition laws, The two sellers were Cloudtail and Appario (read more).
Direct-to-consumer fresh meat and seafood seller Licious has invested $1 million in Bengaluru-based fresh pet food startup, Pawfectly Made (read more).