📰 Startup Digest (July 6)
Here’s what you need to know about India's startup space.
🥘 Zomato is all set to go public. The food tech unicorn’s much-anticipated initial public offer (IPO) will reportedly open for subscription on July 19 at a per-share price band of Rs 70-72.
In April, the food delivery giant filed the draft red herring prospectus with SEBI for its Rs 8,250-crore IPO. This comprised a fresh issue of Rs 7,500 crore and an offer for sale of Rs 750 crore by Info Edge.
The existing investor Info Edge has, however, cut down its offer to Rs 375 crore.
🛒 Two more weeks for sending comments on proposed e-commerce rules. The consumer affairs ministry has extended the deadline for sharing comments and recommendations on the proposed changes to the Consumer Protection Rules, 2020.
Stakeholders can now share their comments till July 21.
The ministry had on June 21 suggested certain bans and stricter rules with the aim of bringing transparency in e-commerce. If given a nod, they will likely impact giants like Amazon India and Walmart-owned Flipkart as they expand their operations in the country.
💉 HealthifyMe has acqui-hired Under45. The health tech startup has acqui-hired the team of Covid-19 vaccine slot notifier Under45. The platform gained popularity for providing live vaccination alerts via Telegram to its 4.1 million subscribers.
With this development, HealthifyMe began vaccine slot bookings on its app and website.
📱 Zomato and Swiggy could become attractive to new customers … The restaurant aggregators are offering deep discounts up to 60% – a key strategy for acquiring new customers.
According to restaurant owners, discounts by both Zomato and Swiggy are capped at ~Rs120.
⚠️ … but the top restaurant body is not happy. The National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) has alleged “anti-competitive practices” by Zomato and Swiggy and has approached the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for a detailed investigation against the companies.
The main issues are: bundling services, data masking and exorbitant commissions, deep discounting – this includes forcing the restaurant partners to offer discounts to maintain their listing.
Amanat Khullar is the Content and Editorial Manager at ADIF.
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