Startup

Ritesh Agarwal gets bigger slice of OYO pie; Nanobots for oral healthcare

Published

3 days ago

November 19, 2024

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Hello,

Privacy violations are back to haunt Meta.

The Competition Commission of India fined the tech giant Rs 213 crore for antitrust violations related to WhatsApp’s controversial 2021 privacy policy.

Combined with a double whammy from a German court ruling regarding compensation for a data breach in 2018 and 2019, it has not been a good day for Meta.

For Indian startups, however, it is definitely a good day to make a deal, especially if you go by MakeMyTrip’s acquisition of Happay and Good Glamm Group’s stake increase in The Moms Co.

Meanwhile, the national capital is choking, yet again.

Pollution readings in Delhi hit their highest of this pre-winter season as toxic smog engulfed much of north India, with visibility in some places dropping to 100 metres.

The air quality index at several stations in the capital ticked up to “severe” at about 500, leading the state government to direct all schools to move classes online, along with some diversions and delays at airports and railway stations.

Pollution is a medical emergency, and the prognosis is grim. The globally agreed goal to keep the world’s temperature rise below 1.5C is now “deader than a doornail”.

ICYMI: Finding $1 trillion a year in climate finance is just one of the challenges to be tackled at the UN climate summit.

With the steady renaissance of nuclear energy comes hope for a new renewable source. And some fusion startups are already way ahead of the game.

Harnessing the power of the sun has never seemed more important.

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about

Ritesh Agarwal pumps money into OYO
Nanobots for oral healthcare
Empowering craft-led enterprises

Here’s your trivia for today: Nutmeg spice comes from the seeds of which tree?

Hospitality

Ritesh Agarwal pumps money into OYO

Ritesh Agarwal, Founder and CEO of hospitality management platform OYO is set to invest an additional Rs 550 crore ($65.1 million approximately) into the company to increase his shareholding in the entity to 32%, from 30% held previously.

The details were mentioned in a company notice for an extraordinary general meeting to shareholders and confirmed by a source for YourStory.

Key takeaways:

The current infusion will be at a 45% premium, bringing the company’s valuation to $3.4 billion from $2.4 billion in its previous round in August 2024.
Agarwal led the company’s Series G round with $100 million, with an overall round size of $175 million. The capital was utilised in part by OYO to acquire G6 Hospitality, the parent company of economy lodging providers Motel 6 and Studio 6 brands, from Blackstone Real Estate.
OYO reported a net profit of Rs 158 crore in Q2 of FY25, Agarwal had announced in a townhall. The company has managed to report profits for two subsequent quarters of FY25 according to reports.

Funding Alert

Startup: HealthKart

Amount: $153M

Round: Equity

Startup: VoloFin

Amount: $50M

Round: Notes programme

Startup: Matrix Geo Solutions

Amount: $1M

Round: Pre-IPO

Startup

Nanobots for oral healthcare

Theranautilus’ solutions utilise core nanorobotics technology to disrupt the $6 billion market for toothpaste that targets sensitivity and takes only 10 minutes to solve the problem as opposed to a toothpaste that should be used every day for a long time to take effect.

Advanced tech:

The company has developed two devices—one that can be used by clinicians working at a dentist’s office and an over-the-counter device that looks like a toothbrush.
These particles manage to go inside the tooth through tiny pores and come together to form a cluster. This cluster then triggers a chemical reaction which the startup has “fine-tuned to make a new tooth basically inside the tooth.”
Theranautilus has raised $1.2 million in a seed round led by pi Ventures at a Rs 60 crore valuation (about $7.1 million). The round also saw participation from Golden Sparrow Ventures and angel investors.

Social impact

Empowering craft-led enterprises

As a journalist, Priya Krishnamoorthy saw the rise of the social impact movement in India, with social entrepreneurship coming into focus. This epiphany would lead Krishnamoorthy to start 200 Million Artisans in 2020—an organisation that supports people to reimagine the potential of ‘Handmade in India’ through inclusive entrepreneurship.

Unlocking potential:

“I had just written an article talking about why we need to build an ecosystem for creative and cultural entrepreneurs. I highlighted a data point saying while official figures put Indian artisans somewhere between 7-25 million, unofficially, there are 200 million artisans,” says Krishnamoorthy.
A small research project led to the creation of the Business of Handmade (BoH)—dedicated to driving research, insights, and storytelling. BoH has delivered critically acclaimed research projects like Informality and Catalytic Capital using a craft-enterprise lens.
200 Million Artisans will launch its second Kula Conclave from December 2-4 at the Kala Academy in Goa. The forum bridges the gap between inclusive capital and networking in India’s creative-cultural and craft-led brands, social businesses, and startups.

News & updates

Spin-off: Goldman Sachs Group Inc is speaking with potential partners as it plans to spin out its digital assets platform into a new company for large financial firms to create, trade and settle financial instruments via blockchain technology.
Predictions: The US Federal Reserve is no longer expected to cut interest rates at its December policy meeting, Nomura has said, making it the first global brokerage to signal a pause in the central bank’s rate-cutting cycle in the wake of Donald Trump’s election win.
Robust sales: Xiaomi reported better-than-expected net profit in the third quarter on strong sales across its business segments, including smartphones, internet services, and electric vehicles.

Nutmeg spice comes from the seeds of which tree?

Answer: Myristica fragrans tree, a tropical evergreen native to the Banda Islands in Indonesia.

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Startup

Jack Dorsey-led Block’s Bitkey crypto wallet launches inheritance feature

Published

40 minutes ago

November 21, 2024

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Bitkey, the self-custody crypto wallet from Block Inc, founded by Jack Dorsey, has launched an inheritance feature on its platform to enhance control and privacy for its users.

The feature is set to roll out in December and launched widely in January 2025.

Bitkey hopes to disrupt the current landscape with the new offering that enables people who hold keys to their Bitcoin to have full control of their money. The company said that its inheritance ensures that the funds being held in a Bitkey wallet are transferred to a designated beneficiary after the passing of the owner.

“With this inheritance solution, we are offering customers a safe and simple way for them to pass their assets onto the next generation,” said Jason Karsh, Business Lead for Bitkey, in a statement. “Bitcoin is a multi-generational asset, and we think Bitkey should be multi-generational, too. We designed inheritance to be simple for beneficiaries to transfer, access, and manage their inheritance when the time comes.”

Bitkey’s inheritance feature will be initially clubbed with the purchase of Bitkey hardware devices. To set up the feature, the owner can invite a beneficiary through the Bitkey app. Once accepted, the inheritance plan will be created.

The company also added that to protect against any fraudulent claim, it has put in a six-month waiting period that must be completed before a beneficiary can access these funds.

Introduced by US-based Block, Bitkey is a self-custody Bitcoin wallet that can be accessed through a mobile app, a hardware device, and a set of recovery tools.

In 2023, the company entered the Indian market with Bitkey.

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Startup

India’s digital public infrastructure finds many takers globally, says NISG CEO

Published

2 hours ago

November 21, 2024

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The Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) of India is now truly going global, as an increasing number of countries are seeking assistance to implement this technology platform to deliver various citizen services.

“There is a huge opportunity of taking it (DPI) globally,” said Rajiv Bansal, CEO, National Institute for Smart Government (NISG) during a panel discussion on the topic “Digital Public Infrastructure of India going Global” at the Bengaluru Tech Summit (BTS) 2024.

DPI in India has become the driving force for delivering services from both the government and private sector. These include the nationwide Aadhar identity and the unified payment interface (UPI) for financial services.

According to Bansal, NISG is engaged with several countries to come out with pilot projects or provide consultancy services on how they can implement DPI. Sri Lanka is undertaking a nationwide ID project, while other countries like Gambia, Myanmar, Belize and Fiji are keen to implement DPI to deliver several citizen services.

NISG is a not-for-profit organisation set up in 2003 by the Indian government, based on a public-private partnership model. It aims to assist governments in ushering in smart governance, process reforms and digitalisation.

Bansal said the DPI framework has achieved a certain level of maturity where it is based on fundamentals of open source technology, interoperability, subject to regulation and offering services for social welfare.

The greater interest for India’s DPI has largely come from developing countries who are looking at this platform for setting up a national identity setup similar to Aadhar. According to Bansal, developed economies are also interested in DPI but for other kinds of services.

However, Sharad Sharma, Founder – iSPIRT Foundation, was of the belief that the various functionalities from DPI till date in India are early iterations, and there is a vast scope to deliver numerous other services especially in the area of healthcare.

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Startup

Deepinder Goyal clarifies Chief of Staff role is salaried, Rs 20 lakh condition a filter

Published

3 hours ago

November 21, 2024

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Deepinder Goyal has clarified that Zomato does plan to pay the candidate selected for the Chief of Staff role, and the condition of paying Rs 20 lakh to initiative was merely a filter as the company has no plans to collect the amount.

In a post shared on X, the company’s co-founder and CEO also announced after closing the application deadline for his chief of staff opening.

This comes a day after Goyal put up the job posting on the social media platform. To make the offer not as lucrative, he announced that the role would not have any salary, at least for the first year. Not only this, the selected candidate would have had to contribute a sum of Rs 20 lakh to Zomato’s Feeding India initiative.

Any salary discussion would only happen from the second year, he said in the original post. During the first year, Zomato would also offer Rs 50 lakh to the charity selected by the candidate.

Zomato received more than 18,000 applications and closed the process at 2 pm earlier today.

The foodtech executive had claimed that the opportunity offers 10X more learning than a two-year degree from a top management school.

Goyal, in an earlier post, had highlighted that applicants came from a diverse mix of financial backgrounds, categorising them into those who have all the money, those who have some of the money, those who claim they don’t have the money, and those who genuinely don’t have the money.

It is unclear what the Chief of Staff’s duties will be as the job description is vague. The job would entail “anything and everything to build the future of Zomato (including Blinkit, District, Hyperpure and Feeding India),” the post read.

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