Startup
Mamaearth parent Honasa loses its unicorn status as shares plunge
Honasa Consumer, the parent company behind Mamaearth has lost its unicorn status as shares fell about 29% across sessions since its close last week.
Shares closed at Rs 237.70 apiece tanking the company’s total market cap to Rs 7,721 crore or roughly $902 million. It had filed for IPO at a valuation of Rs 10,500 crore in November 2023.
The company which listed on domestic bourses on November 7, 2023 is now trading about 27% below its IPO issue price of Rs 324.
In an exchange filing today, the company clarified the scope of its leftover inventory with distributors amid media reports of credit backlogs and unsold stock with distributors.
Honasa clarified that its distribution value chain carried a total inventory of Rs 40.69 crore, against the quoted figure of Rs 300 crore of near-expiry inventory by the All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation.
The dominos effect started a week ago when the beauty and personal care retailer announced its second-quarter earnings.
Shares closed at Rs 371.55 apiece on Thursday, November 14 just before the company released the earnings report.
The Varun Alagh-led company clocked a loss-making quarter after its previous green P&Ls. It posted a loss of loss of Rs 18.71 crore in the July-September 2024 quarter from a profit of Rs 29.78 crore in the corresponding quarter in the previous year.
It has been clocking slower revenue growth across quarters. The company reported a 19% rise in its operating revenue in Q1FY25 and 21% YoY growth in Q4 FY24. Its latest quarter witnessed a de-growth of 7% to Rs 461.82 crore.
Startup
Ecommerce platform Tata CLiQ rebrands to Tata CLiQ Fashion
ecommerce platform has introduced a new brand manifesto and packaging, and refreshed both its app and web experience.
has rebranded to Tata CLiQ Fashion. With a complete visual redesign, theThe rebranding is set to reposition the brand from a horizontal marketplace to a specialised vertical platform focused on fashion and lifestyle across categories including footwear, apparel, watches, gadgets, beauty, accessories, and home, the company said in a statement.
The new logo design encompasses a rose pink and cerulean blue colour palette.
“Our new brand identity and positioning reflect our commitment to offering consumers the best of fashion curated for their evolving needs. It is a strategic pivot to drive growth and our leadership in the fashion category. By focusing on fashion and lifestyle, our goal is to elevate fashion as a powerful form of self-expression,” said Gopal Asthana, CEO, Tata CLiQ.
In addition to the currently existing stores and over 6,000 brands, it will also introduce thematic stores that will showcase a selection of styles and essentials from a wide range of brands, the company said.
The brand is also set to roll out a new feature, ‘Fit Assessment’ which will help customers find products suited to them by analysing their past purchases and understanding their size and preferences.
The platform will also introduce virtual try-on and hyperpersonalisation features in the next few months to enhance the shopping experience, and streamline the search process the company said.
It will also launch an e-magazine, ‘e-Stylist’, which will be available on the app and will offer users ready access to trend reports, care and maintenance guides, how-to-style playbooks, and theme-based curated shopping lists to keep them updated on the latest fashion trends.
Startup
Bengaluru Tech Summit concludes on a high note as Karnataka aims to become global tech hub
The three-day Bengaluru Tech Summit (BTS) 2024, which concluded on Thursday and witnessed a footfall of over 50,000 attendees, saw the Karnataka government aiming to position the state as the top technology innovation hub for the world.
Addressing a press conference, State IT and BT Minister Priyank Kharge said, “Karnataka is propelling globally and we are working on such corridors with various countries.”
BTS 2024 saw participation from 51 countries, where during the three-day summit, the state government entered into partnerships with several countries such as Germany, Finland, United States, Japan, and Sweden.
According to the minister, these partnerships will be focused on specific areas of technology collaboration with each of the countries which is expected to go a long way in enhancing cooperation.
The three-day summit also saw the Karnataka government unveiling numerous policy initiatives encompassing the technology industry, startups and space industry. The state also came out with a separate global capability centre (GCC) policy with the goal of attracting around 500 such units, to generate a revenue of around $50 billion and create additional 3.5 lakh jobs.
Similarly, the government also came out with a space tech policy where it aims to garner 50% market share by 2033 in the country. It also unveiled a tech skilling initiative called Nipuna and signed a memorandum of understanding with leading global technology companies.
The minister noted that IT services export from the state stood at Rs 4.11 lakh crore for 2023-24. In 2022-23, the IT services export from Karnataka was Rs 3.2 lakh crore.
The Startup Springboard initiative unveiled at BTS 2024 saw over 185 startups pitching their ideas to 68 investors, with 120 emerging startups receiving mentorship.
“We have created the most conducive platform for the startups in the country,” the minister said.
The goal now is to have more than 10,000 startups from outside of the state capital, Bengaluru.
The Bengaluru Tech Summit 2024 witnessed 84 sessions with participation of 521 speakers. The event featured 686 exhibitors including 403 startups, 4,775 meetings exchanged, 570 meetings were conducted in the B2B Lounge, along with 35 on-the-spot physical meetings at the venue. It also had participation from several academic institutions.
On plans for next year, the minister said, “Next year’s summit will be bigger, better and bolder.”
Startup
‘We are just at the very beginning of what AI is capable of’: AMD CEO Lisa Su
Artificial intelligence holds the power to enhance productivity and drive innovation, says Lisa Su, CEO of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).
Reflecting on her three-decade career in the semiconductor industry, Su described AI as the “most impactful and high-potential technology” she has encountered.
“AI is this technology that can make all of us more productive, all of our companies more productive, make all of our discoveries more capable. It’s an opportunity for us to take computing to the next level,” Su stated.
“I think we are just at the very beginning of what AI is capable of. It allows us to solve some of the most important problems in the world, and help us find the next discoveries, whether you’re talking about medicine, climate, or science. AI is the next logical step,” she added.
Su, who was recognised in TIME’s ‘Most Influential People in AI 2024’, was speaking at a closed event at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru on Thursday.
She disclosed that roughly 8,000 of the chipmaker’s 27,000 global employees are engineers based in India, making up 25% of its total workforce.
Su highlighted how AI has evolved from an expert-only field to a technology accessible to all, due to the advent of GenAI and large language models like ChatGPT in the last two years.
“We have taken what was now expert technology, and we’ve moved AI to something where everybody can touch and feel it..because when you’re able to use natural language to unlock computing capability, that all of a sudden changes who can use it,” she explained.
A direct competitor to NVIDIA, AMD is a semiconductor giant known for its high-performance computer processors and graphics technologies.
Addressing AMD’s strategy, Su further underscored the importance of versatility in computing solutions.
“There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to the future of compute. You’re going to need to use the right compute for the right application. For example, a lot of conversation is around sorting the largest GPUs and accelerators for the cloud, along with running the training and inferencing on the largest language model. But we do expect that they’re going to be models of all sizes,” she said.
AMD is focusing on an end-to-end AI strategy that spans cloud, edge, and client devices, she added. “We believe everyone should have their own AI PC that allows you to run your models locally and operate on your data.”
Su also spoke about how the chipmaker is focusing heavily on collaboration through open-source initiatives. “Our strategy is that the world needs an open-source software environment. It shouldn’t matter whether it’s AMD or NVIDIA as the hardware layer—you want to build on top of that with software and underneath abstraction. We’re investing significantly in all of the tools, compilers, and abstraction layers that will allow us to build an open-source ecosystem,” she noted.
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