This September is about to get heated up with the clash of rivals as Flipkart’s Big Billion Days and Amazon’s Great Indian Festival are scheduled on the same dates making it an one on one, starting from September 20th to 24th. While customers are looking for a treat from this clash, another potential entrant playing its strategy to prove it to be a worthy competitor in the e-commerce realm. It’s none other than Paytm that is all set to its flagship sale’ Paytm Mall’ on the exact dates. While Flipkart and Amazon unfold the 90% off on products, Paytm strategized cent percentage cash back stirring the customer’s excitement.
The Indian startup ecosystem has seen several ups and downs this month. Many changes are made and many events have been planned for the situation will never be constant when it comes to Indian startup market. Starting from the GST, the 21st Goods and Service Tax council held recently in Hyderabad and few modifications have been made on repaying taxes in favor of the taxpayers. The due dates for GSTR’s have been revised and the new schedule has been published. The council has made several other decisions including the decision of setting up a Minister’s group to monitor and resolve the IT challenges faced during GST implementation.
Uber has launched uberPOOL in Kochi on 14th of September. The uberPOOL since its start in 2015 continues to prove the comfort of cab sharing with the people traveling in the same course. It has broken new ground in the taxi service. It has already launched this service in eight cities across the country and now ventured into Kochi following its success.
The Zdream Ventures’ startup incubator was set up in Gurgaon on the 5th of September to provide mentorship and training to Indian startups. The Zdream Ventures is based in Beijing that has mobilized this 5200 sq ft. facility with an unvarnished motive to drive the Chinese investments to the Indian startups.
The Tata Elxsi incub@TE, a nine months program has been set up recently to provide guidance and a thriving platform for the startups and entrepreneurs who have an in-depth knowledge in technologies and keen on providing technological solutions and innovative ideas. The Tata Elxsi demands the technology related startups to submit themselves in this program with all the relevant details from market validation to the current plans and status.
Whatsapp has planned to alter its purpose and take it to the next level by introducing Whatsapp for business platform. This could change the way the transactions are made on the e-commerce sites while drawing large revenue to its company which is obviously Facebook. Since the Whatsapp has managed to acquire a strong daily user count of around 200 million in India, it’s confidently approaching businesses in India for its new product. It has tied up with some well-known ventures such as Zomato, MakeMyTrip etc. and it’s planning to reach out to smaller businesses in India. So far it has not decided its business model and the whole process is at its initial stage.
Suzuki decided to manufacture its first commercially-available electric cars at its factory in Gujarat fostering the government’s notion to encourage electric vehicles. It is ready to invest 600 million toward the construction of the new plant in Hansalpur of 2.5 lakh unit capacity and it has greater plans in the future.
The Zomato has finally owned the Runnr in an all-stock deal for around 40 million dollars. Now the Zomato is valued at a boastful figure of 800 million dollars. Initially, the UberEATS seemed to be a competition to Zomato in acquiring Runnr but later it turned out to be Zomato that claimed the ownership after a long period of negotiation. The Zomato Runnr’s team started flooding the streets since 13th of September openly announcing its recent claim.
The UberEATS has been launched in Delhi recently, shaking hands with over 200 restaurants across the city. Uber India made this announcement on 13th of September. It was first launched in Mumbai then gradually spread to Gurgaon and now it placed its foot on the capital.
MakeMyTrip has announced the resignation of Ashish Kashyap who was the founder of Ibibo Group and the president of the MakeMyTrip limited. The resignation will effect from September 30 and the separation agreement penned by the MakeMyTrip and Ibibo Group has covered all the necessities from the final settlement of dues and benefits to Ashish to the imposition of the Non-Solicitation and Non-Competition until September 30, 2019. He has served a decade in the development of his venture and now looks forward to creating new opportunities.
The Indian Startup industry is being a potential target for the countries around the world and they could envisage profit in the long run in the investment in the Indian market. Hence the investors are flooding into our country from United States, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and UK (According to the CB Insights report). Well, the investors from the United States are being more active in signing deals with the Indian startups.
The potential of our country’s startup ecosystem is not left unrealized as the state governments started making their participation in encouraging the ideas of the growing startups with a broader vision to attain the numero uno position in the world. Hence, recently the Chhattisgarh government has picked 36 auspicious startups in the states under the ‘Start-up Chhattisgarh Grand Challenge’ out of the 3,858 ideas that flooded for submission. The selection process was carried out by the committee created under the Commerce and Industry department. Hence, the selected startups will be given all sorts of guidance and investments with the influence of the state government.
Recently the Government of India has increased the tax benefits to 67 startups out of 3,576 startups under the startup India scheme that adds up to the 246 million dollars the government had totally spent for the development of Indian startups across the country.
The Indian startup ecosystem is unpredictable and as long as the competition prevails, new strategies would be devised daily and there will always be tremendous changes in the market elevating the Indian startups to the global standards.
