Spend it all 💰
Civil rights, venture deals, and tech job loss
Hi 👋, Tanvi here.
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Stock market summary:
US - S&P 500 up 0.78%
India - Sensex down 0.94%
Specialized ride-hailer gets funds 😎
A cab service for kids, Piggyride has raised Rs14 Crore in a pre-series A round from JAFCO Asia along with a new investor, Artha Venture fund.
The platform places extra focus on safety, privacy and hygiene while servicing children to and from their schools and other extracurricular spots. The cabservice currently serves more than 50 academies, schools, daycares and coaching institutes.
The startup also runs 2 additional products including Piggy Discovery, which offers parents and kids a platform to browse and book extracurricular activities, and Piggy Finance, an education finance market place, which assists parents with lesser disposable income to pay school fees in installments.
The funds acquired will be used towards product and engineering efforts while the company also plans to leverage AI and ML wherever possible to improve general safety and security of its little passengers. Quite an innovative idea! Read more.
Digital learning continues to remain piping hot 🖥️
On the back of surging usage and revenue, edtech platform Unacademy has scooped up Prepladder - a postgraduate medical entrance exam preparation platform for $50 Million.
The transaction will be a mix of cash and stock and the entire 150 member team of Prepladder will be joining the Unacademy Group. The founders of PrepLadder had not raised any outside capital so far. This is the fourth acquisition by Unacademy to date, 3 of which have happened just this year.
Prepladder focuses on exam preparation of NEET PG and FMGE and is planning to expand its offering for broader medical professionals from nurses to neurosurgeons. The platform already has 85,000 medical students using it.
Unacademy, one of the fast growing startups in India, grew its base to over 3 crore learners, doubling its paid user base to more than 2 Lakh just in the past 3 months on the back of COVID-induced shift in learning to online. Read more.
PSUs get a mandate to bump up Capex spending🧐
The finance minister has asked all public sector companies to spend majority of their capital expenditure for the current financial year before September 2020, in a bid to accelerate economic spending and offer some respite to vendors and service providers.
So far, most state owned firms had gone through 12% of their spending in the last 3 months, with considerable increase needed in the next 3. In her comments, the finance minister highlighted the broader mandate public sector companies have to help economic recovery when necessary.
Like privately owned enterprises, many PSUs continue to struggle with manpower, shortage of goods due to halted production, and delays in imports, exports and other red tape. It remains to be seen how practical the mandate becomes to execute.
Regardless, it is great news for MSME service providers who can expect some business rolling in. Read more.
Tech startups and unemployment 😐
Wall Street Journal claims nearly 70K+ job losses in the technology startup ecosystem worldwide since March, especially in transportation, financial and travel sectors which are some of the worst hit.
Startups in Silicon Valley and SF broadly shed about 25K jobs per the report. The exact number may be contestable but the figures seem daunting considering how in the previous years the tech ecosystem couldn’t hire talent fast enough to keep up with demand.
Companies in ride hailing, travel booking, other consumer discretionary spending have piled onto the layoffs. Moreover, the global private market funding for startups dropping nearly 22% YoY only added to the outcome.
Unlike some traditional industries however, which will likely never see jobs return, the startup industry is hopeful of a quick rebound. Read more here.
FB fails to appease civil rights activists 🙄
An independent audit conducted by a civil rights group has come out with scathing criticism of Facebook’s practices. The report alleges that Facebook took little action to curb misinformation and other hate speech on its platform, effectively working against civil rights progress.
Facebook’s management meeting with the auditors and the group did not help the cause either. The activists claimed that despite Zuck’s exigent focus on building features that advance racial justice, the things done so far are just not enough. The auditors however give some credit to FB for inclusive hiring and for appointing civil rights executives.
Moreover, Zuck’s commitment to protecting free speech at all costs is not sitting well with activists who demand some restraint and policing on a case by case basis. FB COO Sandberg apparently acknowledged the report as a starting point of a long way ahead.
While it remains to be seen what comes out of the continued face off between the group and FB management, 300+ advertisers continue to side with activists while pausing from spending on FB’s platforms. Read more.
What else are we snackin’
👎 Trump Administration initiates withdrawal from WHO - The official notice of the US's withdrawal from the WHO was submitted to the UN secretary general and the Congress on Tuesday. The UN takes about a year to finally accept withdrawal.
😷 Is it airborne now? - The WHO acknowledged evidence emerging of the airborne spread of the Coronavirus. The WHO had previously said that the virus spread through droplets expelled from the nose and mouth of infected people, which sink to the ground quickly. The new update of the virus being airborne comes after a group of scientists asked WHO to update its guidelines on how the virus spread among people.
🤝 Jio FB deal sealed - Jio platforms received Rs 43,574 Crore from social media giant Facebook in exchange for a 9.99% stake. The deal marks the closing of possibly the largest FDI investment in India’s tech landscape.
🖥️ Zoom takes a hardware turn - In a bid to make its video conferencing app more accessible to users, Zoom has launched a hardware subscription service. This service will allow users to choose subscription options for phones and meeting rooms. The plans have been priced between $5.99 and $60 per month based on the device people use.
🚕 Uber expands grocery delivery geographically - Uber is launching app based grocery delivery service in several Latin American and Canadian cities. Chasing new markets the company hopes to offset its ride hailing damage through emerging avenues.
💉 Human trials of COVAXIN start at NIMS - The trial process for India’s COVAXIN vaccine, started on Tuesday at the Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS). The vaccine is developed by Bharat Biotech and will be tested on over 1,100 people in 2 phases.
😕 DHL to layoff workers at Jaguar and Land Rover factories - Due to a decline in car production owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, German logistics company DHL is planning to cut over 2,200 jobs at Jaguar and Land Rover factories in the UK. This accounts for 40% of DHL’s workforce.
Hope you took a thing or two away from today’s edition. 😀
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