Engineering & Capital Goods News

Layoffs At Upscalio & Vimeo, Amazon To Fire 18,000+ People & Sirionlabs Closes Series D Round At $110m

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Upscalio lays-off 15% employees

Ecommerce roll-up startup Upscalio is the latest to join the growing list of startups that conducted layoffs. The company has laid-off 15 percent of its employees, Ankur Singh, Head of People and Culture at UpScalio told CNBC-TV18.

“As always, we take a high bar on performance at UpScalio. Additionally, while UpScalio has been able to grow aggressively, we always keep a keen eye on profitability. As part of our standard annual employee appraisal process, in December, we have let go of 15 percent of our staff,” Singh said.

The startup is now left with around 230 employees post the layoffs that took place in December last year. Individuals were laid across departments and received a standard severance package per the company policy.

Entrackr reported the development first, claiming that the Thrasio-style startup is firing 40 percent of its employees.

Amazon layoffs to exceed 18,000 job roles, confirms CEO Andy Jassy

Amazon aims to shed more than 18,000 roles, said chief executive officer Andy Jassy as the company is looking to cut costs.

The technology giant’s boss in a memo to the employees said, “This year’s review has been more difficult given the uncertain economy and that we’ve hired rapidly over the last several years.” The company employed 1.54 million people at the end of the third quarter.

He added that the company will start circulating information regarding layoff to impacted employees starting January 18, 2023. Amazon started layoffs in November last year with letting go off nearly 10,000 employees.

Employees working in Amazon had also mentioned that the layoffs can continue in the e-commerce, human resource and tech section of the e-commerce segment.

Vimeo to fire 11% of its employees in fresh round of layoffs

Amid mass layoffs across numerous tech companies, American video-hosting platform Vimeo also announced that will let go 11 percent of its staff.

Vimeo CEO Anjali Sud told employees that while it was a very difficult decision, it was also the “right thing to do” for the company’s success. “We are entering 2023 with a more focused strategy to simplify Vimeo, and ultimately, our team size and composition needs to reflect that focus,” Sud wrote to her staff.

“This reduction enables us to achieve our growth and profitability goals in a way that is far less dependent on the broader market, putting us in full control of our destiny.”

Sharing a link of her message to the staff on LinkedIn, Sud said she felt deeply for those departing the company.”What we need right now is humanity,” she added. Sud wrote that she was invested in the careers of Vimeo professionals and will help them navigate the layoffs.

Google set to challenge CCI antitrust ruling at Supreme Court: Report

Google is preparing to approach the Supreme Court within days to try to block a ruling by the antitrust watchdog that will force the company to change how it markets its Android platform, sources told Reuters.

The Supreme Court approach will come after Google suffered a setback on Wednesday when National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) declined Google an interim stay on the Competition Commission of India (CCI) slapping a Rs 1,337-crore penalty and asked to deposit 10 percent of the amount.

Google is now gearing up to file a legal challenge at the Supreme Court within days as the antitrust watchdog’s January 19 deadline to implement changes to its model looms, the report added.

The company argued implementation of CCI’s directives will hurt its long-standing business model and consumer interests.

Meanwhile, IndusOS came out in support of the CCI’s verdict on Google. “As an app store, we are delighted by the CCI decision to stop Google from restricting OEMs from partnering with other companies like IndusOS to distribute distribute alternate app stores in India,” Rakesh Deshmukh, Co-founder, CEO, Indus OS told CNBC-TV18.

He said this would provide Indian consumers with the freedom of choice to choose an app store of their liking on their mobile phones.

Finance Ministry appointed committee on PE/VC investments submits report: Sources

The high-level panel appointed by the Union finance ministry submitted its report to the government and recommended ways to remove regulatory friction and accelerate venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) investments in India, sources privy to the developments told CNBC-TV18.

The panel was headed by former SEBI chairman M Damodaran. The report, which is under examination by the Department of Economic Affairs, has recommended a slew of direct tax recommendations for the upcoming Union Budget and asked that the government support the capital needs of startups in a volatile environment, said people familiar with the matter.

In its report, the six-member committee has asked the government to treat carried interest as capital gains and requested tax at the investor’s end. Currently, fund managers are burdened with Goods and Services Tax (GST) on carried interest as imposed by the government, according to multiple people familiar with the development.

Further, it said the fund management services provided to foreign investors should be treated as a deemed export and foreign investors should not be asked to pay 18 percent GST on availing service of domestic fund managers, sources in the know told CNBC-TV18.

The panel looked at the requirements of global funds and held consultations with the Department of Economic Affairs, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, the Reserve Bank of India, and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), sources close to the development said.

Servify acquires conversational bot platform Jubi.ai

Servify, a global product lifecycle management platform has acquired Jubi.ai, an AI-driven engagement platform used to automate customer support and sales, in a cash and equity deal.

All the emloyees of Jubi.ai will join Servify’s technology, product and innovation functions, following the deal, while the founders Subhadeep Bhattacharya and Souvik Das will become part of its product and engineering leadership teams, the firm said in a statement.

“Interactions will not be on any app or portal leave alone call center, but on SMS or WhatsApp UI that’s already in the user’s hands. So all the support solutions have to be built around those interfaces; that’s where the Jubi solution comes in handy for us,” said Sreevathsa Prabhakar, Founder of Servify.

ChrysCapital acquires Xoriant for an undisclosed sum

Private equity firm ChrysCapital has acquired Xoriant, a software engineering and Digital IT services provider to Fortune 100 companies. Deal financials were not disclosed.

This is the second buyout from ChrysCapital’s ninth fund worth $1.4 billion and its ninth Business Services buyout since inception.

“At ChrysCapital, we have developed deep expertise with Digital IT Services across industry verticals. Given our experience in the space, we are confident of the value addition that ChrysCapital would bring to Xoriant in this journey. We are committed to building further on the company’s attractive client set, long-standing relationships, domain and service-line expertise as well as Digital IT offerings,” said Akshat Babbar, Director, ChrysCapital.

SirionLabs closes Series D round at $110M

SirionLabs, a contract lifecycle management company, has raised $25 million in its Series D funding round led by private equity firm, Brookfield Growth.

Including the fresh round, SirionLabs has closed its Series D round at $110 million. The previous capital infusion was led by Partners Group with participation from existing investors like Sequoia India and Tiger Global.

The investment will allow Sirion to strengthen its AI capabilities and integration with enterprise platforms such as SAP S/4HANA, Salesforce and Microsoft 365.

Jupiter raises Rs 100 crore in venture debt from Alteria Capital

Neobank Jupiter has raised Rs 100 crore in venture debt from Alteria Capital as the startup looks to scale and expand lending products with neobanking penetration low in India.

The fintech startup would roll out multiple investments and credit-focused products in 2023 that would broaden the neobanking platform’s basket of financial offerings, it said in a statement.

“This partnership will act as a catalyst to our efforts of building an all-inclusive and innovative platform for cutting-edge financial services products,” Jupiter founder and CEO Jitendra Gupta said.

ElectricPe bags $5M in Pre-Series A round

EV charging aggregation platform, ElectricPe, has closed a Pre-Series A round of $5 million led by Green Frontier Capital, Blume Ventures, and Micelio Fund.

Dubai based NB Ventures, Anchorage Capital Partners, Supermorpheus, and Climate Angels, also participated in the funding round.

This fundraise comes just 12 months after the seed funding round of $3 million. ElectricPe said it will use the combined capital of $8 million to deepen technology investments and scale operations.

Fello raises $4M from Courside Ventures, Ycombinator & others

Fello, a gamified savings platform, has received $4 million in its latest funding round led by US-based Courtside Ventures along with Entrepreneur First, Ycombinator, Kube Venture, and Upsparks.

The round also saw participation from angel investors Kunal Shah, Founder of Cred, Lalit Keshre, co-founder of Groww, Charlie Songhurst, Dafeng, and Alan Rutledge.

The startup intends to use the fresh capital to develop unique gamified financial products, hire top talent across functions, and expand its user base to the many millions in the Tier-1 and 2 cities of India.

“We are confident that with our accelerated growth and expansion, we will be able to reach our target of 5 million users by December 2023,” Manish Maryada, Co-founder and CEO, Fello.

Mamaearth founders address valuation concerns around IPO

Mamaearth founders have stated that their draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) does not mention valuation. This comes after valuation concerns were raised by experts ever since Honasa Consumer filed papers with capital markets regulator Sebi to raise funds through an initial public offering (IPO).

“Valuation discovery is a process which will take place over time as we get into deeper conversations with investor community. We have not quoted or subscribe to the valuation numbers which are getting mentioned in various posts on social media,” Ghazal and Varun Alagh said in a statement.

In a note shared on social media, the couple said that they intended to throw some clarity on all the noise around valuations around their prospective IPO.

“We have built this company and our brands with a lot of love, the same way we have raised our children. The way one never leaves the side of their children we firmly stand behind building our brands and this company for times to come,” the Mamaearth founders stated.

Mamaearth plans to raise Rs 400 crore through a fresh issue of shares, apart from an offer for sale of about 46.8 million shares. The company became a unicorn in January 2022, with a valuation of $1.2 billion.

RBI allows six entities to test fintech products to deal with financial frauds under sandbox scheme

Six entities, including HSBC and Creditwatch, have been allowed to test their fintech products to prevent and mitigate financial fraud as part of the fourth cohort under the RBI’s regulatory sandbox scheme.

Regulatory sandbox refers to the live testing of new products or services in a controlled/test regulatory environment for which the regulators may permit certain relaxations. The Reserve Bank announced the opening of the fourth cohort under the regulatory sandbox in June 2022 for the prevention and mitigation of financial fraud.

The RBI said it had received nine applications under the fourth cohort, of which six entities have been selected for the ‘test phase’. The six entities are — Bahwan Cybertek, Crediwatch Information Analytics, enStage Software (Wibmo), HSBC in collaboration with Wibmo, napID Cybersec and Trusting Social.

The selected entities would commence testing their products in February.

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