1. Another positive news came from global e-commerce company Amazon, which is expected to cross $258.22 Bn in US retail sales in 2018, according to eMarketer’s figures. This amounts to a 49.1% share of all online retail spend in the country and 5% of all retail sales.

2. The process of companies being brought to book for data compromises seems to have now started in earnest. A UK data watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), fined Facebook $664K for the company’s failure to prevent key user data from being misused by political consultancy Cambridge Analytica that helped get President Donald Trump elected.

3. Agritech Startup AgricxLab Is Helping Farmers Get A Fair Price By Grading And Certifying Their Produce With Its AI-Based SaaS Solution  – striving to bring in a reliable crop-grading system in India, with the aim of eliminating middlemen and enabling farmers to earn a fair price for their produce. 

4. Grofers To Focus On Private Labels, Drops Fresh Products. Grofers last raised $61.6 Mn from SoftBank for a 35%-40% stake. A report by Kalagato revealed that as of March 2017, BigBasket held about 35% market share in the online grocery segment, closely followed by Grofers at 31.5%, and Amazon at 31.2%.

5. At the first-ever Goa IT Day held on July 14 and 15 at Panaji, Goa Chief Minister Shri Manohar Parrikar and Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Minister of Electronics and IT, Law and Justice, unveiled Goa IT Policy and Schemes, the State’s policy to promote IT and make it a hotbed for IT companies to invest and set up shop in.

6. Flipkart’s PhonePe Acquires POS platform Zopper Retail. Zopper’s CEO Neeraj Jain and the engineering leadership team has become a part of the PhonePe’s team.

7. Amazon Ready To Foray Into Indian Healthtech Market With MedPlus. The US ecommerce giant recently acquired PillPacl for $1 Bn. Amazon has been betting continuously on Indian startups such as Acko, BankBazaar etc

8. OTT Platform Netflix Likely to consider tweaking its premium model for India. Netflix in its Q2 2018 earnings added 4.47 Mn international subscribers and a revenue generation of $3.91 Bn. In terms of its viewership in India, Reed agreed to the fact that Netflix lags behind the likes of Google-owned free content provider YouTube, especially Sony Tv-owned Hotstar, which charges only for premium contents.

9. Naspers Sells Its Stake In TBO To Standard Chartered Private Equity. Naspers had been planning to exit TBO since September 2017. Naspers had acquired the stake in Travel Boutique Online in April 2012. As per reports, Naspers owns 52% in the company and was seeking an enterprise valuation of INR 300 Cr for TBO.

10. WhatsApp Meets Election Commission, Assures It Will Remain Alert During Polls. WhatsApp emphasised its end-to-end encryption feature and protecting privacy. US and India-based senior executives from the company met the Election Commission (EC) and assured the commission that it would make all possible efforts to prevent misuse of the platform in India’s coming election cycle.

11. FoodTech Startup SmartQ Acquires Nexus-Backed Goodbox Cafeteria Business. The SmartQ-Goodbox deal size is speculated to be $800K. With this acquisition, SmartQ aims to increase its customer base. Goodbox, on the other hand, wants to focus on the hyperlocal business.

 12. Smartphone Maker HTC To Exit India, Lays Off Most Of Its Workforce Here. HTC country head Faisal Siddiqui, sales head Vijay Balachandran, and product head R Nayyar have put in their papers. HTC is not yet dissolving its Indian operation as it plans to sell VR devices online with Taiwan controlling the Indian entity.

13. Gujarat Govt Supports 175 Startups With $3.2 Mn Financial Aid Over 2 Years – This is in line with the Gujarat government’s aim to facilitate 2,000 startups by 2021. In the Electronic & IT/ITES Startup Policy (2016-21), the state government had set a target to facilitate the establishment of about 2,000 startup firms during the five-year period.

14. Symple Acquires Pune-based AllizHealth Digital Health Platform. With the acquisition, AllizHealth will be rebranded as ‘Vivant’, Symple’s operating brand. The companies will work together to provide a comprehensive digital health offering along with over 6,500 partners.

15. SC Sets September 11 As Final Hearing Date – SEBI and some other parties are yet to file their arguments.

 

 

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