Wipro Chairman Azim Premji’s family office, PremjiInvest, is in advanced talks to pick up a stake in Lenskart Solutions, which owns and operates eyewear-focused venture Lenskart, according to two people familiar with the development. The investment by PremjiInvest is part of the new round o…
Companies, Finance & Markets
Grofers makes a move towards retail trading
Grofers has filed an application with the department of industrial policy & promotion, seeking “approval to undertake trading, including through e-commerce in food products manufactured or produced in India” Grofers, the on-demand delivery service, has also applied for a retail trading licen…
Wipro puts $1.5 million in Israeli cybersecurity startup
Software exporter Wipro has picked up a minority stake in Israeli cybersecurity startup IntSights Cyber Intelligence for $1.5 million, months after the Bengaluru-based firm invested in Israeli venture capital firm TLV Ventures. In a statement to the stock exchanges, Wipro said that it has picked …
Ola lays off 700 employees shuts down taxiforsure business
Ola has shut down its Taxi-ForSure business and has laid off 700 employees, according to three people directly aware of the developments at India’s largest cab aggregator. The move comes nearly a year and half after Ola acquired its crosstown rival TaxiForSure for $200 million to gain marke…
Mjunction gets ready to take on Alibaba
It’s not just e-commerce players like Flipkart and Snapdeal that are gearing up for Chinese major Alibaba’s big India play. India’s largest business-to-business online marketplace mjunction, too, is planning an expansion drive in the west, north and southern regions of the count…
Enterprise-level IT spawns many efficiencies
A study of 4,500 CRISIL-rated Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) shows that just four per cent of them have deployed business process management systems such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) to generate better profitability and inventory management. Most of them limit their operations to bas…
ONGC launches Rs 100 crore start-up fund to ignite new ideas
ONGC has launched a Rs 100 crore start-up fund on its Diamond Jubilee year to foster, nurture and incubate new ideas related to oil and gas sector. The initiative, christened as ‘ONGC Start-up’, is in line with the government’s initiative ‘Start-up India’. As part of…
Kotak Mahindra Bank starts Innovation Lab, open to investing in startups
Private sector lender Kotak Mahindra Bank has started an ‘Innovation Lab’ in Bengaluru to tap into the best technology that impacts its operations, and is open to investing in startups, a senior company official has said. “We started an ‘Innovation Lab’ recently whic…
SEZs must register with council to avail duty drawbacks, exemptions
The government has made it mandatory for all special economic zones to obtain certificates from the Export Promotion Council for SEZs and EOUs if they want rebates like duty drawbacks “The unit or the developer including co-developer shall obtain a registration-cum-membership certificate for avai…
Analytics firm Zeta to invest $50 million in acquisitions
American big data and analytics firm Zeta Interactive plans to spend $10-50 million as it scouts for acquisitions in India. The Blackstone-backed company, which is valued at $1 billion, plans to buy out an Indian firm that will help it get on board local clients in sectors such as financial servi…