Sorry, I lost my wallet 👛
Telemed partnership, more venture deals, and airlines soften up.
Hi 👋, Tanvi here.
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Let’s go ahead and get started:
Stock market summary: 😍
US - S&P 500 up 0.65% 🔼
India - Sensex up 0.52% 🔼
Sorry, I lost my wallet 👛
Wirecard is one of Europe’s largest tech companies. The payment processing giant was benefitting from the global shift from cash to digital payments and was one of the most successful business stories of the decade. Until last week that is, when auditors couldn’t locate $2B of the company’s cash.
This story came on top of multiple accusations throughout 2019 of fraud, embezzlement and other misdeeds. Backlash ensued which resulted in the stock declining over 75% within 2 days and the company’s CEO handing over his resignation.
Investigations are underway but early reports suggest that accounting firm EY couldn’t locate $2B because all the while they were taking the word of smaller divisions that were falsifying the confirmed existence of the cash. The company is now in deep trouble with trust eroding and creditors who had loaned money to the company demanding prompt liquidity.
The company processes payments for consumers and businesses and sells data analytics services. It has over 6,000 employees in over 26 countries worldwide, and had revenues of nearly $2.2B in 2018 - a 4x growth from 2013.
National effort to launch a telemedicine app 🏥
A group of over 100 hospitals, prominent startups and tech solutions providers in India have come together to launch a free telemedicine app ‘Swasth’ to fight the pandemic.
Swasth will let people access over 2,000 certified and trained doctors for COVID-19 related problems in India and will also help find available beds, labs and quarantine aids.
The teleconsultations by Swasth will be free of cost and their long term goal is to evolve and form the backbone of Bharat Health Stack
The company has received a 10 Crore grant from ACT grants, an initiative to build tech solutions to fight COVID-19, to keep it going in this quest. Read more...
Delivery continues its hot streak 🚚
Despite a weakening investing landscape, some startups have no trouble raising capital.
Grocery delivery startup Milkbasket has raised $5.5 Million in a funding round led by Inflection point ventures. The startup based in North India had started with delivery of milk but has now diversified into groceries and other essentials.
Despite the small size, the company delivers to over 130,000 households in cities including Gurgaon, Noida, Ghaziabad, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. The company’s total raise has now reached over $8 Million.
The pandemic has altered the digital services landscape in India as lockdowns forced more people to shop online and investors suddenly realized the potential that even tier 2 and tier 3 cities hold.
AI’s new waiver policy ✈️
In a bid to provide some relief to its fliers, Air India has announced in its new waiver policy that all of its tickets irrespective of their date of purchase will be considered valid till December 21, 2021.
This policy will be applicable to both domestic as well as international flights which were booked between 15 March and 24 August. Fliers will get the advantage of changing their route, flight choice as well as date without paying any extra money. The value of the ticket will be fully protected until next year.
The move will help reduce stress of fliers who had to cancel their tickets due to travel bans because of the pandemic. Also it will help the airlines keep cash inside its coffers and not out by issuing refunds to passengers who had already booked.
Tweet of the day -
Well, I guess we are set up for a rough week for mankind.
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
🗽 Nyc returned to its second phase of reopening yesterday - one of the hotbeds for the viral transmission has now returned to some level of normalcy. This is great news because herd immunity is working and perhaps Mumbai and Delhi will hopefully recover similarly.
😷 WHO reported the largest single day spike in COVID-19 cases - the second wave is worsening things. While Europe and Japan and other nations recover, Brazil and other emerging countries add on to the list, making the spike the largest daily spike seen to date. Politics mixed with pandemic is proving to be a disaster in some of these regions.
💊 Cipremi joins Fabiflu to fight COVID-19 - thanks to Indian innovation that we can always count on, Cipla has now launched a generic version of the antiviral drug Remdesivir, which has been okayed for emergency treatment of COVID-19 patients. Cipremi along with Glenmark’s Fabiflu and Hetero’s Covifor will be India’s options to fight the pandemic as of now.
📈 Demand for study tables go up as people work from home - after jump in devices now its study tables and other furniture that sees a spike in sales as people working from home upgrade their setups. The spending cycle is likely to continue in India especially as IT workers are phased out to work from home over the next 2-3 years.
🎯 Hacker groups of China may target Indian businesses - per latest reports, there are active plans to attack Indian businesses (small and large) with attempts to steal personal data, denial of service, or defacing websites. The updates are in line with the warnings issued by the Government of India already that the border skirmish with China may take a cyber turn.
Hope you took a thing or two away from today’s edition. 😀
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