Dailyhunt's Parent Company Has Reported a Loss of Rs 2,500 Cr and a Revenue of Rs 965 Cr for the FY22

Dailyhunt Latest Startup News

VerSe Innovation, which owns vernacular news aggregator Dailyhunt and short video entertainment app Josh, continues to lose money, with its losses more than tripling to Rs 2,500 crore in FY22.

Meanwhile, Dailyhunt operating revenue grew by 45% to Rs 965 cr during the same period, according to its annual financial statements with the Registrar of Companies (RoC). The group's entire revenue comes from online advertising and subscription services through its mobile apps and website. A total sum of Rs 19 crore was also made by the company from bank deposits and liabilities which it wrote off during the fiscal year. 

The statements didn't provide any revenue breakdown across Josh and DailyHunt. But a Dailyhunt spokesperson told Entrackr that "100% of VerSe's revenue is from advertising on Dailyhunt, and that ad revenue grew 1.5x year-over-year.

VerSe raised $450 million during FY22, at a valuation of $3 billion, and invested heavily in marketing and creating an ecosystem to enable a creator economy for its app. The company raised an additional $805 million at a $5 billion valuation in April (FY23).

Business promotion expenses were the largest cost, more than doubling to Rs 2,693 crore in FY22 from Rs 1,281 crore in FY21. This cost is 2.8X of the company's operating revenue in FY22.

Employee benefits expense was the second-largest cost for VerSe Innovation, growing by 3.8X to Rs 731 crore in FY22.  It also included the cost of Rs 375 crore on the employee stock option (ESOP) that was settled in cash.

Legal and professional expenses, as well as commissions paid to agents, increased by 4X and 2.7X respectively, to Rs 151 cr & Rs 47 cr in the last year. As a result, the company's total cost grew by 2.3 times to Rs 3,714 cr in FY22 from Rs 1,580 cr in year 2021.

With this increase in expenses, DailyHunt's parent company's losses rose by 3.17 times to Rs 2,563 cr in FY2022. Its cash outflows from operating activities also increased by 2.52 times to Rs 2,402 cr, while the company's unit economics also took a hit and spent Rs 3.85 to earn a single rupee in FY2022. "In the last 7 months Dailyhunt has grown to 8% EBITDA positive," they added.

Dailyhunt competes with Inshorts in the news aggregation and hyper-local video business, while its short video app Josh competes with MX TakaTak, ShareChat's Moj, YouTube Shorts and Instagram, among others.

Also Read: Paytm Mall Records Rs282 Cr Revenue and Rs142 Cr Loss

Josh, which launched in late 2020, has been losing money in marketing the app and also attracting top creators. 

However, VerSe's spokesperson clarified that Josh's monetization began in August and is expected to reach $100 million in annual recurring revenue during FY23. With Daily Hunt already close to Rs 1,000 crore in revenue, the company is well-placed to monetize its inventory as and when the market demands. 

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CCI Fines MakeMyTrip and OYO for Anti-Competitive Conduct

MakeMyTrip and OYO Startup News

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has fined MakeMyTrip and Oyo for anti-competitive conduct in hotel room listings. The CCI has fined both companies 5% of their annual turnover for a period of 3 years; Oyo was fined Rs 168.88 cr, while Make My Trip was fined Rs 223.48 cr.

The decision comes after complaints from budget hotel chains that the companies’ vertical integration agreement was creating dominance in the online hotel booking market, and that MakeMyTrip was deep discounting and enforcing terms that prevented rooms from being cheaper on other platforms. 

In a statement, Oyo indicated that the platform would appeal the ruling, saying "OYO believes that our business practices and conduct comply with all applicable laws & will take all necessary steps to explain our position in the appropriate forums."

A MakeMyTrip spokesperson also said the company would explore an appeal, saying that the platform was compliant with Indian laws. The spokesperson went on to say that "The CCI’s order is appealable before the National Company Appellate Tribunal within 60 days. We’ll determine our future action as per of our legal counsels advice .” 

The Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI) has welcomed the order. In a statement, FHRAI president Pradeep Shetty said, "This is by far one of the biggest wins for the hospitality industry against the dominance of the aggregators." 

Shetty added, "Oyo especially is responsible for the systemic depredation of the budget segment hotel business and its market as a means to achieve a notional billion-dollar valuation. This is a serious concern for our country’s hospitality ecosystem.” 

In addition to paying penalties, “MMT Go is directed to modify the agreements with hotels/chain hotels, to remove/abandon the price and room availability parity obligations imposed by it on its chain hotel partners w.r.t. other OTAs,” the order said. This essentially means that MMT cannot force hotels chains it has partnered with to offer higher prices or identical on other platforms. 

Also Read: LeadSquared's Revenue Hits Rs 200 Cr in FY22, Losses Jump 5.4X

The commission also ordered that hotel listings be offered on a transparent basis on the platform. The order will be appealed by both firms, but they should consider a defense based on their shrinking market shares in the segment. Anecdotal evidence indicates a strong push by many of their 'partner' hotels chains to not accepting such bookings made on these platforms as far as possible.

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Fast Food Chain Wow! Momo Raises $16 Million in Series D

Wow! Momo Latest Startup Funding News

Wow! Momo is a quick service restaurant chain founded in August 2008 by a group of entrepreneurs led by Kunal Bahl. They are expanded to over 19 cities and have 425 outlets in India. This startup basically provides everything related to momos only like momo-filled burgers and its desserts also. The company has raised close to $8 million in Series A round of funding led by an individual investor. This Series D round of funding is led by V’oceanInvestment and Oaksand India.

Wow! Momo is headquartered in Kolkata, India with operations in Mumbai, Chennai and more 16 cities. Wow! Momos aims to grow their fast food joint to be an IPO and compete with McDonald’s and Dominos like fast food restaurant chains. The company is rapidly expanding in the country. Mohit Bhargava, an IIT Bombay alumnus, co-founded and incubated the company before crossing the Rs1 crore revenue mark in just three months. 

This startup Wow! Momo has now raised a Series D round of funding. The current funding round is worth Rs 125 crore or $16 million. This most recent round of funding for Wow! Momo brings their total funding to $41 million. Wow! Momo is the first quick service restaurant chain in India to adopt a service-oriented design, which was introduced by Apple.

This startup has raised $16 million in a round led by Tree Line Investment Management. This latest round will take the company to a total of $70 million. In October, Wow! Momo Foods launched its newest range of products at the 35th China Food Expo. The company plans to use the amount to expand its outlets.

Wow! Momo is the first and only QSR serving the Chinese market. It has been established since 2008 and is based in Mumbai. Their food is a blend of East, East and East. Wow! Momo specializes in Chinese cuisine. It is mainly a QSR chain which prepares foods such as fried rice, pork buns, noodles, and wonton. This QSR chain is found in India and Nepal too. It has three QSR brands, Wow! Momo and Wow! China and Wow! Chicken. It is one of the leading QSR chains in India and Nepal.

On 26th March 2016, the startup announced that it has raised $16 million (Rs 100 crore) led by venture capital firm Accel and was seeking to raise another $10.6 million (Rs 70 crore) in the Series D round of funding. As per Fintrackr estimates, Wow! Momo has raised fresh investment at a valuation of $270 million or Rs 2,130 crore post allotment. As per Fintrackr's estimates, Wow! Momo's valuation grew more than 60% in the past year as it was valued at $165-170 million in its Series C round.

Also read: Top Benefits of Virtual Workspace

Wrapping Up

Wow! Momo raised ₹44 crore from Lighthouse funds in 2017, in 2018 they raised 300 crore (US$45 million) from Fabindia, In 2019 130 crore (US$23 million) from Tiger Global Management. So currently, this startup’s financial valuation has crossed 860 crore (US$120 million). Wow! Momo has not filed its financial statements for the last fiscal year but its revenue from operations shrank 36% to Rs 106 in FY21. Meanwhile, the company’s losses ballooned 17X to Rs 59.3 crore in the fiscal year marred with the pandemic.

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Rohit Kapoor, Global CMO of OYO has quit to Join Swiggy

OYO Startup News

OYO's head of marketing Rohit Kapoor has quit the company following four years, according to three people with knowledge of the specifics. "Kapoor has already quit OYO and is currently serving his notice," said one of the sources who requested anonymity. "He's probably to be released from his duties at OYO in August."

This is a huge loss for OYO as a leader. Kapoor was promoted to worldwide chief marketing officer at the beginning of March this year, replacing Chief Executive Officer (Southeast Asia and India). He has been employed by the company based in Gurugram for 44 months. He then was appointed to OYO as the CEO of its rental business (India).

In the wake of Kapoor's appointment, OYO also said that its chief business officer worldwide, Ankit Tandon, will assume the responsibility for Southeast Asia with a specific concentration on Indonesia as well as the Middle East region as its CEO. Ankit Gupta, CEO of the Hotels and Homes vertical, was also promoted to CEO (India).

Swiggy Startup News

According to reports, Kapoor is in advanced discussions to join Swiggy in a higher position. "Kapoor is expected to join the food tech unicorn, assuming there is no change at the very last minute," said another source who requested anonymity because the talks are confidential.

The queries we addressed for Rohit Kapoor OYO, along with Swiggy, did not receive a prompt response. We'll revise the blog in the event they respond. Kapoor's resignation comes when OYO has seen a revival of its business following 18-24 months of slow growth caused by the pandemic. OYO had reported more than five times the growth rate in May and added over 1,250 corporate customers during the three months (March-May in the current year).

Before that, the company had several resignations from senior management in the second quarter of 2020. Gaurav Ajmera, the global Director of revenue management, and Burhanuddin Pithawala, the global Director of growth and marketing, quit the company in September. Mohit Bhatnagar, Sequoia Capital's Managing Director, has also resigned from the OYO board of directors to assume the role of an observer within the company's board in October 2020. Harshit Vyas, OYO India COO, resigned from the company in the past. The online marketplace has recently hired Vyas for Pepper Content as a chief business officer (CBO).

OYO has been planning to launch an IPO for quite many years. However, OYO's IPO plan is expected to come to fruition in the final quarter of the calendar year. In October of 2021, the company submitted the draft prospectus red herring (DRHP) to SEBI to raise an amount of Rs 8,430 crore.

Also read: Top Benefits of Virtual Workspace

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Top Benefits of Virtual Workspace You Must Know in 2022

We live in a world where trends are rapidly evolving, giving rise to new ideas for businesses to prosper and thrive. One such concept is the virtual workspace. A virtual workspace is a win-win for anyone looking for a cost-effective, flexible and comfortable business environment.

The virtual workspace is the actual answer to the start-up workspace problem. It's a consistent work environment that provides company presence and full access to the benefits of a real workplace, all without the need for a physical office. For this reason, we have seen a huge increase in virtual workspaces lately. The report shows that the number of digital nomads in the US has tripled in the past few years. There were only 4.8 million digital nomads in America in 2018, and that number has grown to 15.5 million in 2021.

Virtual desktops allow employees to interact with a variety of portable communication devices, including email, audio/video, voicemail, etc. The virtual company uses these tools to drastically reduce the work time of each employee. A robust virtual office plan replaces multiple workspaces, providing a single productivity hub that employees can use for business purposes.

Here are some of the top benefits of having a virtual workspace:

1. Superior versatility and flexibility

A virtual workspace provides greater flexibility in work, as it allows employees to work from anywhere and at any time.

Giving employees the independence to work within their set deadlines has been proven to increase their productivity and commitment to work. Employees perceive the freedom to work at any time convenient for them as a privilege of their organization.

Therefore, a virtual office is beneficial in the sense that it improves the attitude of employees to work, which means it increases staff turnover.

2. Economical way of working

The cost-effectiveness of the Virtual Workspace plan is what makes it so popular in the digital age. A virtual workplace offers significant savings because it is incompatible with the creation of a physical workplace.

Having a virtual desktop can save you a lot on additional costs such as rent, office bills, and other service fees. Thanks to this, the organisation can focus its resources on the most important aspect of its activity - investing in potential directions and achieving good profits.

In the same way, employees, being part of a virtual workspace, helps them save on travel costs and free up time for their families and themselves.

3. Rich world experience at your disposal

If you want to take advantage of access to global talent, your organization must set up a virtual workspace.

Workspace virtualization makes your company more attractive to the world. Employees are attracted to jobs that allow them to function in their place. In this sense, the virtual office plan will put global talent at your disposal.

Also, if your business is growing and you need to hire more employees, but you can't squeeze them into your existing physical workplace, switching to a virtual office will pay off. This will avoid changing the workplace or moving to a more spacious workplace.

You can easily hire as many employees as you want according to your needs by turning into a virtual company. 

4. It affects the company

Your brand will still display a respectable, expert and corporate legal reputation if you have a virtual workspace with a specific address.

Having the right place of work and workplace contact information ensures that your company's reputation is solid, genuine, and genuine.

What's more, having a virtual workplace in a visible place will fantastically enhance the impression of your company. This is why a virtual office benefits your business by having a major impact on your business.

5. No long-term commitment

A traditional office space requires many formalities, including lease and lease agreements. On the contrary, switching to the mode of creating a virtual workspace will help you get rid of problems with contracts.

This is because Virtual Office does not require any contract and is offered on a monthly basis. This makes the opt-out option flexible.

Establishing a workplace on the basis of an employment contract turns out to be unprofitable since it is impossible to quit the workplace before the expiration of the contract. This makes the virtual office popular among entrepreneurs. 

The business assistance offered by virtual offices is sometimes overlooked but can still be of great help to your business. Your time and effort may be occupied with tasks that can be delegated elsewhere, such as answering calls, handling mail, and performing general administrative tasks.

Various virtual office software provides solutions included in your virtual office plans that make your work easier, allowing you to focus on the core processes of your business. By providing such assistance, a virtual office brings great benefits to your organization.

Final Words

A virtual workspace has many advantages as it actually brings all employees from all over the world together in one place. Although it is true that not all companies have succeeded. They still need to go through the traditional way of working or bring something new to their working model. Despite everything, a virtual office is beneficial for most companies whose employees are happy to work from different countries. 

For more latest startup news & information, stay tuned to Entrackr.

Entrackr is a media platform that covers the latest startup news on its website. They cover the latest updates, announcements, acquisitions, and funding news of the Indian startup scene.

GOAT Brand Labs Secured $50 Million in Series A1 Round

GOAT Brand Labs Startup Funding News

GOAT Brand Labs, a D2C brand aggregator has recently secured a funding of $50 million in their Series A1 round. New investors 9Unicorns, Winter Capital, Oxyzo, Vivriti Capital, Venture Catalysts, and other existing investors

OfBusiness' lending arm -  Oxyzo became a unicorn in March 2018. Entrackr sources say that Oxyzo has lent more than 20 startups. GOAT has raised from its first institutional round a funding of $36 million from Tiger Global Management and Flipkart Ventures. Its current investors include Better Capital, and Nordstar as well as a number of angels like Sujeet Kumar and Ranjan Pai.

Being a marketplace platform, GOATS acquires D2C (direct-to-consumer) brands and helps them scale with its expertise and market understanding.

After receiving profitable brands, the company claims its portfolio has experienced a nearly 85% increase in scale. Since its inception, the company has made 15 acquisitions, including Abhishti and Doggie Dabbas, as well as Frangipani, Hipkoo The Label Life, and Voylla. The company will be in discussions with 12 other brands in the coming weeks.

Also Read: Indian Startups Acquisitions & Fundings News [30 May- 04 Jun]

GOAT was founded by Rishi Vasudev and Rameswar Misra and focused on brands in fashion and beauty as well as home and kitchen space. Vasudev, Myntra, Jabong, and Flipkart Fashion were previously in charge of Flipkart's Fashion for over five years. Rameshwar was part of Voonik’s management team that merged with Bangladesh's ShopUp in February 2020.

GOAT is a D2C company optimization tool that works in the same way as Perch, Thrasio and Branded in America. It helps companies with expansion and marketing, growth hacking and process optimization.

GOAT is competing with two unicorns in the space: GlobalBees, Mensa Brands, and 10club. Evenflow, Powerhouse91 and Powerhouse91. Mensa reports that it raised $300 million equity and debt, while GlobalBees led by Nitin Agarwal & Supam Maheshwari has raised more than $260 millions in two funding rounds.

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Indian Startups Acquisitions & Fundings News [30 May- 04 Jun]

Startup Fundings News

This week the 33 Indian startups raised funds, and 28 of them received an estimated total of $525.81 million. MoEngage and Cuemath were among the top fundraisers who raked in the sums of $77 and $57 million, respectively. This week, 30 local startups raised funds worth around $250 million.

In the meantime, the amount of funding for five of the startups was not disclosed.

Growth/ late-stage deals

This week, nine late-stage and growth startups have taken on funds that include MoEngage's $77 million round as well as Cuemath's round of $57 million. In addition, fintech startup Slice and DC2's cosmetics company Sugar Cosmetics and cloud kitchen brand Curefoods have raked 50 million dollars each.

Early-stage deals

In the early stages of deals, 19 companies have acquired money in five different rounds. The gaming startup Eloelo was the highest on the list, with a $13 million round. The list comprises Aerospace company Bellatrix Aerospace and agritech startup Nutrifresh.

Unknown deals

Unotag, Glovatrix, Kwicpic, Offee, and EzeRx have not disclosed their financials.

City and segment-wise fundings

In the week that just ended, Bengaluru was on top in terms of the number of startup deals as well as the amount of money they raised. According to Fintrackr's statistics, 15 Bengaluru-based companies have raised money this week, totaling $297.54 million, or 56.59 percent of the total funds. This week, Mumbai-based and Delhi-based startups have raised $165.84 million and $45 million in 3 and 6 deals, respectively. They were followed by Hyderabad as well as Pune with 2 and 3 deals, respectively.

Startups in Fintech were among the leading segments in terms of the quantity of deals. Startups in this field received $85 million through four deals. D2C, edtech, SaaS, health tech, crypto, and E-V startups are followed on the list.

Startup Acquisitions News

Apart from more than 30 funding rounds, the week also saw 3 acquisitions.

The list includes the acquisition of OneDirect by Gupshup, data science startup Prakshep by Arya.ag and Verb Studio by Kafqa Academy.

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Newton’s School’s Valuation Jumps 7x With $25 Mn Funding

Steadview Capital led the Series B round of funding for Newton School, an online coding training platform that is income sharing-based. The company has raised Rs 188.4 crore (or $25 million). This new round comes within 15 months of the company's previous Series A investment, which saw them pick up $5 million from RTP Global.

The Newton School, Bengaluru, has approved a special resolution to allot 10 equity shares and 5,473 Series A preference shares in order to raise Rs. 188.4 crore (or $25 million), regulatory filings indicate.

Steadview contributed $15 million to this round, while Nexus and RTP Global contributed $5.9 million each and $3.4 million, respectively. Sama Family Trust and AngelList invested the remainder.

According to Fintrackr estimates, Newton School raised fresh funds at an estimated value of Rs 1,034 crore (or $138 million). This represents a sevenfold increase in the company's valuation compared to $20 million in previous rounds.

After the allotment, Newton School's co-founders Siddhartha Mahashwari and Nishant Chandra have reduced their combined stake from 44.68% down to 35.89%.

Nexus holds the largest stake with 24.72%, followed by RTP Global with 14.42% stake and Steadview at 11.11% and 11.11%, respectively.

Also read: Meesho Rebrands Farmiso to Meesho Superstore and Integrates It to Its Core App

About Newton School

The US-based Lambada School has inspired Newton School. InterviewBit's Scaler is the market leader, along with Masai School (and Pesto), among others.

Newton School saw a remarkable jump in operating revenue in FY21. In FY21, the company had a revenue of Rs 4.18 crore, compared to Rs 5 lakh for FY20.

Its losses have risen by more than 150% to Rs 4.57 Crore during FY20's fiscal year, compared with Rs 1.82crore in FY20.

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Meesho Rebrands Farmiso to Meesho Superstore and Integrates It to Its Core App

Ecommerce start-up Meesho has announced it will be integrating its grocery operations into its main application by the beginning of the week of May. Along with this announcement, they also changed Farmiso (Meesho’s grocery business) to Meesho Superstore.

This will allow Meesho to grow its user base, particularly in the category of daily essentials that is available within Tier 2 and higher markets. With this move, the customers of Meesho can now gain access to additional product listings through a single platform. 

The announcement was made by Meesho CEO and co-founder Vidit Aatrey said, "As more users from Tier 2+ regions become at ease with buying online, the demand for grocery online is growing. We are delighted to incorporate Meesho Superstore into our main application."

The company also added "What was initially an experimental project of the service in Karnataka is now gaining progress across six states. Based on our focus on the user this integration will give millions of Meesho customers a seamless shopping experience while also giving us the opportunity to build more synergies in areas like marketing to customers, technology, products and talent."

The pilot Aatrey mentions is the test run carried out by the company that operates an e-commerce platform Meesho in Karnataka in July of last year. What started as a test phase with grocery offerings in Karnataka, has now expanded to six states for Meesho including Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Telangana & Andhra Pradesh. Moreover, Meesho now plans to expand its superstore to 12 states by the end of the year. 

Meesho Superstore currently offers 500 products in a variety of categories including fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, grocery items as well as packaged food as well as other categories.

After the integration is completed after which the startup will be able to offer its users 100 million the ability to access more than 87 million active listings for products in 36 categories from a single platform, according to the startup.

It was established in 2015 by Vidit Aatrey, Sanjeev Bhanwal, Meesho is a social commerce platform that allows individuals and small companies to market their products by buying it from resellers before selling them to customers through Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram as well as other social media platforms.

In its most recent funding round the startup was able to raise $570 million which was led by Fidelity Management as well as B Capital Group at a valuation of $5 billion.

In total, Meesho has raised just less than one billion dollars of financing over multiple rounds. It is in competition with big players like Dealshare and Flipkart-backed Shopsy as well as the B2B-focused unicorn Udaan.

This comes amid a growing excitement in the super app segment. This is because Tata Neu is scheduled to launch for all users on the 7th of April. The company that runs the fintech arm of MakeMyTrip, a travel company TripMoney has purchased an overwhelming stake in the foreign exchange startup BookMyForex.This is in accordance with the company's plan of creating its very individual travel super application.

This is in addition to other conglomerates on the internet like Amazon, Paytm, and Reliance Jio which have developed their own super apps. Each is competing for a piece of the market, offering numerous services under one roof.

The e-commerce and grocery market together are extremely competitive and present a tremendous opportunity for companies in these industries to earn new revenues. Based on Bain & Company, India's social commerce gross merchandise value was valued at $2 billion in 2020, and it is projected to be $20 billion in 2025.

You may also like: Dream11 posts Rs 327 Cr profit in FY21; revenue grows 53%

Similar to this another study found the Indian online food market to be in the region of $3.95 billion in 2021. This was expected to grow to $26.63 Bn in 2027. This would mean around 33 percent.

The flurry of activity in the super-app segment has been driven by the spread of online shopping that has increased exponentially over the past few years. Big conglomerates are vying for a share of this market, Meesho's battle is only just beginning.

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