Latest Startup News - Indian Startup To Touch New Height Amidst Covid-19

Covid 19 Impact on Startups-

The Pandemic of Covid-19 took the world by storm, everything was shaken to its core. Even some businesses that had deep strong roots, couldn’t endure it’s ferocity. While the world was learning to continue living amidst the impact of covid-19, there was a rising startup which was on its way to glory. While the waves kept hitting the world, ‘The New Shop’ a startup by two brother-sister and a friend, knew how to ride this tide and find the kingdom of new success

Founded in March19 by brother and sister Aastha Almast and Charak Almast, and their dear friend Mani Dev Gyawali, The New Shop fundamentally is a chain of 24-hour open convenience retail stores that are located in various corners of the world. Lead and owned by Accelerate ProductX Ventures Pvt ltd, The New Shop has an aim to become a brand that's just a walk away from everyone’s place.

“India is a budding country that is on a path to growth and therefore the third-largest consumer market globally. The new on-the-go and modern lifestyle of India, needs regulated, normalized and hygienic retail services across the country at affordable prices, at transit points and around the clock services,” said 35-year-old co-founder Aastha Almast. “We wanted to experiment to find the perfect size of the shop and an exemplary location for expansion of our brand. We finalized three store sizes, small (10 sq. ft), medium (50 sq. ft), and enormous (100-150 sq. ft),” said Mani Dev Gyawali.

The founders of this Rising Startup tested each of those store sizes at seven location categories such as educational institutions, offices and co-working spaces, hotels, shopping complexes, college hostels, and railway platforms. They also explored with the different merchandise options to market more Indian products that act as alternatives to their non-Indian counterpart. Then they measured their acceptance in an ecosystem where people need those goods, and it worked well for them.

“By January 2020, we grew to a number of 100 stores all over Delhi in all sizes and even grabbed a deal with Indian Railways for their plan to expand The New Shop,” says Aastha. This led the rising startup to reach new transit points where they could explore their business strength such as, highways, petrol pumps, and bus terminals. But when the rising startup started touching new heights of success, the pandemic brought them on their knees, and every one of its stores had to shut doors to walk-in customers, due to government regulations and curfews. However, what came as a blessing in disguise for them was the very fact that they were already working on a technology for omni-channel selling, which was supposed to be launched in the future, after the company had grown exponentially and had reached a huge scale,” says Aastha.

The New Shop earns money from the sale of products at its chain of 24*7 open stores and works on a variable cost model of business, where it works with higher margin brands and everyone of its operating costs share a percentage of that margin. 

Presently, all of its functional stores earn a good revenue to boost the startup financials, between Rs 15 lakh per month to Rs 30 lakh per month and are earning good profit on unit economics level.

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Latest Startup News - Indian Startup WazirX Gets A Notice To Show Cause

What is a Show Cause Notice?

A show cause notice is given when disciplinary violations are found against a company. It asks the organization to explain why a certain action was taken in a manner not compliant with the rules and why they should not face criminal charges and penalties.

In this case, the Indian startup WazirX got a show cause notice because the regulatory agency Enforcement Directorate alleged that WazirX allowed the exchange of crypto currencies kept in pool account wallets to be available for other exchanges, which probably could be held by people in foreign places that can’t be traced to pinpoint the destination of such exchanges.

In a reply, WazirX has said that they haven’t received any show cause notice and all the transactions were made in compliance with the laws and regulations of crypto currency exchange. Additionally, WazirX is ready to cooperate with any investigation that may be launched by ED to validate its claim.

According to ED, a show cause notice has been served to Nischal Shetty and Sameer Hanuman Mhatre the directors of WazirX, under the Foreign Management Act, 1999 (FEMA concerning) cryptocurrency exchange and transactions totaling Rs 2,790.74 crore. The investigation, ED declared, was part of an ongoing probe into alleged money laundering activities being carried out on Indian soil. EdD also suspects that Chinese-owned illegal online betting applications are playing a crucial role in this criminal activity.

In a report released by ED, they state that the crypto exchange had not documented these transactions under the regulations of FEMA for remittances in foreign currency, or followed the required KYC procedures and guidelines for the allocation of non-WazirX wallets. Other documentation such as addresses, the purpose of transferring the currency, and the IP addresses of other wallets were not collected as well, it alleged. 

“This clearly tells the world that WazirX is in clear violation of the mandatory Anti-Money Laundering and Combating of Financing of Terrorism precaution norms. Also, the FEMA guidelines which are applicable to Virtual Currency exchanges too. Crypto-currencies are like tangible assets and could be used as an instrument of payment to be used for terrorism and other harmful criminal activities.

 

In September 2019, Chinese global cryptocurrency, Binance acquired WazirX, one of India's largest exchanges. Since then, India's cryptocurrency ecosystem has been corrupted primarily from an unclear regulatory environment, in April 2021, daily trading volumes on WazirX crossed $200 million, catching the attention of everyone including ED.

Startup Funding News - "Tiger Global To Invest A Fortune In Classplus"

Tiger Global the giant that is supposedly talking to numerous startups in India about funding their future, is in talks to invest $25-$30 million in the promising Indian startup Classplus, according to sources established in the industry and indirectly involved in the deal. This newly acquired deal will include both primary investment and secondary transactions, which values the five-year-old Indian startup at over $250 million, as reported by Entrackr. The next round follows a $30 million of investment, one of the sources said. The talks of the new deal haven’t closed, so terms may change when these companies sit together again.

Classplus — which has built a Shopify-like platform for coaching canters to easily accept charges digitally from college students, and ship lessons and research materials to the students who subscribed to their services, additionally got them $10.3 million in September from Falcon Edge’s AWI, cricketer Sourav Ganguly and current buyers RTP World and Blume Ventures. This made the startup financials skyrocket and get in the race of becoming the best Edtech startup that India has seen. According to startup funding news and rumors, that spherical had valued Classplus at about $73 million, in response to analysis agency Tracxn.

Classplus didn’t reply to an invitation for remark. Sources requested anonymity because the matter is non-public. As tens of tens of many scholars — and their dad and mom — embrace digital studying apps, Classplus is betting that an entire bunch of 1000’s academics and training facilities that have gained popularity in their neighborhoods are right here to stay.

The startup is serving these hyperlocal tutoring facilities which could be current in almost every nook and cranny in India. “Anybody who was born during a middle-class household right here has doubtless attended these tuition lessons,” Mukul Rustagi, co-founder and chief of Classplus. The facilities that classplus tries to help are generally small-scale or medium-level setups that could be great at what they do, and provide top-of-the-class education but are struggling to expand their reach in the academic world themselves. These kinds of local academic and training classes are extremely popular in their locality. They rarely do any advertising and college students determine about them by way of word-of-mouth buzz,” he stated then.

Now, this has inspired startup leaders to keep moving forward, after the lockdown was lifted in India and the Indian startup world saw the new India that did everything digitally, the rules of the business world changed forever. After the rise of classpluss, startups have gotten a new hope to get out from under the impact of Covid-19 on startups and the losses that this pandemic has inflicted upon them. Many brilliant startups were slaughtered by the two-edged sword of a pandemic but this new deal is now giving them a reason to get back up and fight.

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