Shares of ideaForge nosedived as much as 13.6% to INR 740.7 apiece during the intraday session on the BSE today after the drone manufacturing startup posted a 94% year-on-year decline in its profit after tax (PAT) for the quarter ended June 30, 2024 (Q1 FY25).

The stock opened today at INR 741 apiece, down more than 13% from the previous close.

However, the stock recovered some of its early losses and was trading 9.93% lower at INR 772.55 apiece on the BSE at INR 11:28 AM.

ideaForge reported a PAT of INR 1.2 Cr in Q1 FY25 as against INR 18.9 Cr in the year-ago quarter.

Revenue from operations also slipped 11.2% to INR 86.2 Cr during the quarter under review as compared to INR 97.1 Cr in Q1 FY24.

Sequentially, ideaForge’s PAT declined 87% while operating revenue fell 15.7%.

The drone startup’s EBITDA slipped more than 73% to INR 8.5 Cr in Q1 FY25 from INR 32 Cr in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

The weak Q1 performance resulted from a rise in spending towards cost of materials, which reached INR 56.1 Cr in the June quarter of the ongoing fiscal, up 321% YoY.

Founded in 2007 by IIT Bombay graduates Mehta, Ashish Bhat, Rahul Singh, Vipul Joshi, and Amardeep Singh, ideaForge designs and manufactures drones for applications in use cases such as mapping, security, and surveillance.

ideaForge made a stellar market debut last year, with its shares listing on the bourses at a 94% premium to the issue price after its public issue was oversubscribed 106X.

Earlier this month, ideaForge acquired an undisclosed stake in Bengaluru-based spacetech startup GalaxEye Space for INR 8.28 Cr. The acquisition will enable ideaForge to build drone-based sensors for fog and foliage penetrations, the company then said.

In its annual report for 2023-24 (FY23), ideaForge chairman Srikanth Velamakanni said that the startup is planning to strengthen its presence in the US and enter new markets to increase exports.

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Drone manufacturer ideaForge reported an almost 94% decline in its profit after tax (PAT) to INR 1.2 Cr in the March quarter (Q1) of the financial year 2024-25 (FY25) from INR 18.9 Cr in the previous year’s quarter, hurt by lower revenue and surging in spending towards cost of materials.

On a quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) basis, the startup’s PAT declined almost 87% from INR 10.3 Cr in the preceding quarter – Q4 FY24.

ideaForge’s operating revenue fell 11.2% to INR 86.2 Cr during the quarter under review from INR 97.1 Cr in Q1 FY24. On a QoQ basis, it declined 15.7%.

The drone startup’s EBITDA stood at INR 8.5 Cr in Q1 FY25 as against INR 32 Cr in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

Despite the degrowth in the bottom line and top line, ideaForge CEO Ankit Mehta said, “We witnessed the fructification of many of our initiatives in the first quarter of the year. We made significant progress on our diversification initiatives. The paid PoC (proof of concept) agreements with prominent enterprise customers for Drone as a Service (DaaS) are a validation of our efforts and vision for the future of this technology. We are confident that in times to come DaaS will drive technology adoption and will prove to be instrumental in demand generation.”

In its Q1 FY25 presentation to the investors, ideaForge said that prototyping for fog penetration radar with spacetech startup GalaxEye is currently underway. It is pertinent to note that it recently made an equity investment in the GalaxEye.

Besides, ideaForge has developed next-gen payloads with onboard AI computing capabilities while also successfully carrying out high-altitude trials of its drones in the Himalayas, the company said.

“The successful completion of the Early Adopter Program (EAP) with various customers in the US and their positive feedback are indications towards confirmed orders from that geography. This will also provide momentum to our endeavour of capturing the market share globally,” said Mehta.

Meanwhile, ideaForge was granted five new patents in Q1 FY25, it said. It also achieved AS9100:D and ISO 27001:2022 certifications during the period.

Where Did ideaForge Spend?

In line with its business development initiatives, the startup’s total expenses increased 20% to INR 90.6 Cr in Q1 FY25 from INR 75.5 Cr in the corresponding quarter of last fiscal.

Cost of Materials Consumed: The drone manufacturer spent the highest amount under this head. Its spending towards cost of materials surged 321% YoY to INR 56.1 Cr in Q1 FY25.

Employee Cost: The startup managed to cut its employee benefit expenses by 24.3% YoY to INR 11.7 Cr in the reported quarter.

During the quarter ended June 30, 2024, ideaForge also granted 1.45 Lakh new stock options to eligible employees under its employee stock option scheme. 

ideaForge also said that its product development team augmentation continues through campus and lateral hiring to meet the requirements of the product and technology roadmap.

Ahead of its earnings announcement today, shares of ideaForge ended Monday’s (July 29) training session 3.5% higher at INR 857.7 on the BSE.

The post ideaForge Q1: PAT Nosedives 94% YoY To INR 1.2 Cr, Revenue Slips 11.2% appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Listed geotech company MapmyIndia’s parent entity CE Info Systems has reportedly accused Ola Electric of illicitly copying its data to build its recently launched Ola Maps interface. 

According to a report by Forbes India, the startup has sent a legal notice to IPO-bound Ola Electric for co-mingling and reverse engineering its licensed product. 

“You have duplicated our client’s API (application programming interface) and SDKs (software development kits) from proprietary sources belonging to our client to build OLA Maps. It is firmly stated that our client’s exclusive data has been copied/derived by you to further your illegal motive and for your unjust commercial gains,” CE Info Systems’ legal notice to Ola Electric read. 

The notice is also said to contest the EV startup’s claim of developing its API and map data independently through open sources. “By indulging in such unscrupulous and illegal activities, you have acted in blatant defiance of the terms and conditions of the agreement and have further infringed the copyright vested exclusively in our client pertaining to the source code,” the notice added.

The report added that Ola Electric inked an agreement with the geotech company for using its data in June 2021. “You have misused the confidential information and the trade secrets, exclusively belonging to our client…The said illegal actions and the unfair trade practices adopted by you with the sole objective of unjustly enriching yourself to the detriment of our client’s business interest are unacceptable,” the notice said.

Meanwhile, Ola Electric called the allegations “false, malicious and misleading”. “We would like to state unequivocally that these allegations are false, malicious and misleading. Ola Electric stands by the integrity of its business practices. We will suitably respond to the notice shortly,” a company spokesperson said. 

MapmyIndia declined to comment on Inc42’s queries on the issue.

It is pertinent to note that MapmyIndia also entered into an agreement with ride-hailing giant Ola Cabs in 2015 to bolster its mapping capabilities. Under the partnership, Ola got complete access to mapping data from MapmyIndia through a multi-year (undisclosed) licence for an undisclosed amount.

Earlier this month, the ride-hailing startup fully exited Google Maps and moved to its in-house navigation platform, Ola Maps. 

“After Azure exit last month, we’ve now fully exited google maps. We used to spend INR 100 Cr a year but we’ve made that 0 this month by moving completely to our in-house Ola maps!,” founder Bhavish Aggarwal said. 

While Ola Maps is already powering the range of Ola Electric scooters, the company’s CEO and founder Aggarwal has also teased that more features such as street view, NeRFs (neural radiance fields), indoor images, 3D maps, drone maps, among others, will be added to Ola Maps.

With its mapping service, Ola plans to take on giants like Google Maps and MapmyIndia. To get more developers onboard Ola Maps, Aggarwal also announced a new pricing structure. 

In a blog post, Aggarwal announced updated pricing for Ola Maps subscription, which will be free for all developers for the first year. The company said that the new pricing slab will come into effect from July 18. 

Note: Update | July 29, 09:40 PM: The story has been edited to add Ola Electric’s response.

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Navam Capital and Inflection Point Ventures-backed drone tech startup TechEagle has partnered with drone manufacturer ideaForge to scale up its unmanned aerial vehicle technology and drive innovation in the drone space.

This comes at a time when TechEagle aims to build the world’s largest on demand drone logistics network, enabling faster and more efficient package delivery, the company said in a statement.

Founded in 2017 by IIT-Kanpur alumni Vikram Singh Meena and Anshu Abhishek, TechEagle is a drone logistics startup that enables on-demand autonomous drone delivery for its clients. With a focus on beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) drone operations, TechEagle caters to last mile logistics in urban and semi-urban areas. 

“This partnership exemplifies the power of synergistic innovation. By combining TechEagle’s advancements in drone technology with ideaForge’s UAV technology prowess and manufacturing capabilities, we are set to redefine the UAV landscape” said Meena.

TechEagle claims to have expertise in long-range and heavy payload drones supported by AI and 5G with ideaForge’s technology and manufacturing capabilities, both companies aim  to enhance the quality and development of indigenous technologies.

The company has developed drones and a software stack, establishing an operational services network for aerial logistics in e-commerce, hyperlocal delivery, logistics, and healthcare. 

Founded in 2007 by Ankit Mehta, Ashish Bhat, Rahul Singh and Vipul Joshi, ideaForge is a drone manufacturing startup that makes UAV systems for inspection, surveillance and mapping. Its offering has utility in sectors such as defence, homeland security, mining, construction, agriculture, energy and utilities.

Earlier this month, it bought an undisclosed stake in Bengaluru-based spacetech startup GalaxEye Space for INR 8.28 Cr.

The fundraise comes at a time when more and more new-age tech startup companies are experimenting with drones to streamline deliveries.

In May, TechEagle raised an undisclosed amount as part of its bridge funding round co-led by Navam Capital and Inflection Point Ventures.

In the same month, Tamil Nadu-based drone startup Yali Aerospace bagged an undisclosed amount of investment from SaaS giant Zoho to accelerate the development and deployment of its vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) drones.

It is also pertinent to note that Google’s parent company Alphabet is set to commence drone manufacturing through its subsidiary Wing LLC in Tamil Nadu. 

On Tuesday, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget speech announced setting up of an INR 1,000 Cr venture capital (VC) fund to boost space economy.

As per an Inc42’s report, the homegrown drone market is expected to surge to a size of $13 Bn by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 21% between 2022 and 2030.

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Shares of geotech company MapmyIndia’s parent entity C.E. Info Systems climbed up to 10% at INR 2,488 in the intraday trade today after finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman during her Union Budget 2024-25 (FY25) speech announced that land records in urban areas will be digitised with GIS mapping.

The stock was trading at INR 2,411.95 apiece at 1:29 PM on the BSE in the afternoon trade, up 6.6% from the previous close.

In December 2021, shares of C.E. Info Systems got listed with a healthy premium of 53% on the BSE at INR 1,581 per share, against the issue price of INR 1,033.

A week ago, the digital mapping company was in discussions with partners to expand its products and platforms beyond India, targeting regions in Southeast Asia and the Middle East & North Africa, CEO Rohan Verma said.

In its 29th Annual Report for FY 2023-24, Verma said, “We are in conversation with our partners to take our products and platforms to geographies outside India, primarily Southeast Asia and the Middle East & North Africa .”

The BSE-listed company’s market capitalisation stood at INR 13,065.41 Cr.

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Update | July 20, 12:45 PM

A day after the Microsoft outage wrecked havoc at a global level, the big tech company now claims to have managed to retrieve some of its more critical services. As of 12:02 PM on Saturday (July 20), Microsoft 365 Admin Center and Power Platform Admin Centre were recovered from the services and can be accessed. However, its cloud service Microsoft Azure is still suffering from a “service degradation”. 

Meanwhile, as of 11 AM today, the company updated that it has received reports of successful recovery from some customers attempting multiple restart operations on affected Virtual Machines. 

However, the outages are continuing to wreak havoc on industries at a global scale. “This gave a seizure to the automotive supply chain,” Tesla’s founder Elon Musk said in his post on the matter. 

Taking to X, Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella addressed the issue and gave assurance that the tech major is working closely with cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike to provide customers technical guidance and support to safely bring their systems back online.

In India, the major impact from the outage was suffered by the airline industry. However, Civil aviation minister K Rammohan Naidu informed that India’s airline systems across airports have started working normally since 3 AM last night. 

“Flight operations are going smoothly now. There is a backlog because of disruptions yesterday, and it is getting cleared gradually. By noon today, we expect all issues to be resolved. We are constantly monitoring the operations at our airports and also with the airlines ensuring travel readjustments and refunds are taken care of,” Naidu’s statement read.

While the outage has hit airline operations in India, its impact also seeped into the brokerage business. Brokerages Angel One, 5paisa, and IIFL Securities took to X to inform users of the disruption, Others impacted by the widespread global computer outage include Motilal Oswal and Edelweiss Mutual Fund.

Besides, the impact was also felt in the automotive industry. In a regulatory filing, auto major Maruti Suzuki said, “A global IT issue affected several companies across several countries today. This problem was encountered in our company also.”

Even though the large-scale outage in Microsoft Services has impacted IT systems globally, the Reserve Bank of India released a statement yesterday clarifying that the Indian financial sector has largely been unaffected by the disruption. “Our assessment shows that only 10 banks and NBFCs had minor disruptions which have either been resolved or are being resolved… The Reserve Bank has issued an Advisory today to its Regulated Entities for taking necessary steps to remain alert and ensure operational resilience and continuity,” it said.

Original Story | July 19, 3:15 PM

Big tech Microsoft has suffered a major global outage in its services, primarily impacting users of its software offering Microsoft 365. The outage has barred users from accessing various Microsoft 365 apps and services. 

The company’s Service Health status website is flashing a “Service Degradation” message, and informs that Microsoft’s PowerBI, Microsoft Fabric, Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 admin centre are currently experiencing delay in access.

As of 2:00 PM, the company said that it had recovered several of its services, namely  Microsoft Defender, Microsoft Intune, Microsoft OneNote, OneDrive for Business, SharePoint Online, Windows 365, Viva Engage, and Microsoft Purview

“We’re continuing to see an improvement in service availability across multiple Microsoft 365 apps and services. We’re closely monitoring our telemetry data to ensure this upward trend continues as our mitigation actions continue to progress,” the company said in a statement. 

As a result of the outage, several Indian airlines are experiencing hurdles in several of their workflows, rendering booking, check-in and manage booking services “temporarily unavailable. Airlines facing delays include Akasa Air, Vistara, Indigo, and SpiceJet. 

One Indigo passenger who was due to fly from Hyderabad to Kolkata took to X to share that he got a handwritten boarding pass. 

The outage has also “temporarily” impacted Delhi’s Airport. “Due to the global IT issue, some of the services at the Delhi Airport were temporarily impacted. We are closely working with all our stakeholders to minimise the inconvenience to our flyers,” the Airport’s official X account posted. 

Addressing the reason behind this debacle, the tech major said that a configuration change in a portion of Microsoft’s Azure backend workloads, caused interruption between storage and compute resources which resulted in connectivity failures that affected downstream Microsoft 365 services dependent on these connections.

Amid the outage, Union minister of electronics and information technology Ashwini Vaishnaw took to  inform that MEITY is in touch with Microsoft and its associates regarding the global outage. “The reason for this outage has been identified and updates have been released to resolve the issue. CERT is issuing a technical advisory. NIC network is not affected,” his post read.

Meanwhile, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has issued an advisory saying that the issue’s severity was “critical”. The advisory ascertained that the outage has occurred due to CrowdStrike agent “Falcon Sensor” outages. It said that the outage has led users getting crashed due to recent update received in the product. “The concerned windows hosts are experiencing a “Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)” related to Falcon Sensor,” it added.

CrowdStrike is a Nasdaq-listed cybersecurity company based in Texas, US. It provides cloud workload protection and endpoint security, threat intelligence, and cyberattack response services. Addressing the issue, CrowdStrike’s founder George Kurtz said that the issue has been identified and a fix has been deployed.

“CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack,” his X post read.

The post [Update] Global Microsoft Outage Takes Toll On Indigo, Other Indian Airlines appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Geotech company MapmyIndia is in discussions with partners to expand its products and platforms beyond India, targeting regions in Southeast Asia and the Middle East & North Africa, CEO Rohan Verma said.

In its 29th Annual Report for FY 2023-24, Verma said, “Looking to the future, I am excited by the vast possibilities ahead of us in terms of sectors we can work with, the reach we can have, and the range of solutions we can offer.” 

He added, “We are in conversation with our partners to take our products and platforms to geographies outside India, primarily Southeast Asia and the Middle East & North Africa .”

Verma also said that the company is pleased with the growing adoption of its APIs by consumer-facing tech companies, large ecommerce players, D2C brands, food delivery companies, and travel enterprises to enhance delivery address capture efficiency.  

“Additionally, a lot of the Open Network Digital Commerce enabled apps are now starting to use MapmyIndia, allowing us to participate in the increasing ONDC ecosystem.”

This comes at a time when the startup’s consolidated profit after tax (PAT) surged by 35% in the March quarter of FY24, reaching INR 38.2 Cr, up from INR 28.3 Cr in the same period a year ago. 

On a quarterly basis, the startup’s net profit increased by 23.2%, compared to INR 31.04 Cr posted in the December quarter. Additionally, the startup’s operating revenue for Q4 FY24 rose to INR 106.9 Cr, a 47.5% increase from INR 72.4 Cr in Q4 FY23.

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It’s hard to miss the Ambani family and Reliance this week. The unabashed opulence and the sheer scale of the Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant wedding ceremony has become the talk of all the world.

But there’s another Reliance-related development that has managed to grab more than its fair share of attention in the last month or so. We can’t imagine many out of the 470 Mn-plus Jio 4G subscribers were happy about the tariff hike announced by Reliance Jio and then by other telcos earlier this month.

And the news was soon followed by a report from brokerage Jefferies about a Reliance Jio IPO by 2025, thanks to the growing focus on monetisation amid market share gains. In other words, consumers can forget about free internet with Jio or indeed for most other Jio internet services as we have seen already with JioCinema in the past year.

How will this change the India internet story? For so long, Reliance Jio’s volume-driven low-pricing strategy has been credited with driving the Indian internet ecosystem as well as digital consumption. Will the price bump cut this narrative short or is India ready to pay a lot more for 4G and 5G services?

That’s after these top stories from our newsroom:

• Prosus’ New Strokes: The investment giant is testing waters with early stage bets in India after its late stage portfolio — comprising unicorns such as BYJU’S, PharmEasy, Meesho and others — is caught on the slow road to profitability
• Caught In Growpital’s Net: More than 5,000 Indians put in their hard earned money into agri investment platform Growpital, and now are unlikely to see a dime back as the company faces allegations of running a fraudulent platform from SEBI and others. Here’s our investigation
• InDrive’s India Push: With over 240 Mn users worldwide, US-based InDrive is making a serious bid for market share in India with a driver-centric fare negotiation and low-commission model. Can it catch up to Ola and Uber even as it competes with other platforms looking to do the same?

Reliance Jio Drives The Market

It’s important to understand that Jio’s dominance has created a situation where the company is India’s telecom market to some extent.

It’s not just Reliance Jio, even Airtel and Vodafone Idea (Vi) raised tariffs with industry wide hikes ranging between 10% and 27% depending on the plan.

While Airtel and Vi increased the tariff for monthly prepaid recharges from INR 179 to INR 199, Jio raised it from INR 155 to INR 189. Airtel and Vi increased prices for annual plans from INR 1,799 to INR 1,999, while Jio surged it from INR 1,559 to INR 1,899.

Even though Jio still has the cheapest plans in the market, it has a sizable majority in terms of market share.

India’s telecom subscriber base crossed the 1.2 Bn users in April 2024, with Reliance Jio commanding 472.4 Mn of this or nearly 40% of the market. Airtel is the next largest with 267.5 Mn subscribers in April 2024, while Vi has 233 Mn and BSNL has 93 Mn subscribers. The lopsided nature of the market is clear from the fact that Jio is just shy of having more users than both Airtel and Vi.

However, the rivalry between Airtel and Jio is considered to be most relevant for the Indian market.

Jio’s lower pricing means that it has the lower average revenue per user or ARPU compared to Airtel despite its high market share. Reliance Jio’s ARPU grew to INR 181.7 in Q4 FY24 from INR 178.8 in the previous quarter. Airtel boasts of ARPU of INR 209 in Q4, compared to INR 193 in Q3.

The direct impact of the tariff hike will be seen in the ARPU for Q2 FY25, results for which are expected around October or November this year. But we expect a major bump for both telcos because the fact that the hikes are industry wide will limit attrition rates to a large extent.

Jio’s Revenue Push

While in isolation the price hikes might be seen as a market-dictated development and a run-of-the-mill action, the other penny drops when you read it along with the Jefferies report on the IPO. Jefferies specifically cited Jio’s focus on monetisation as a shift in business strategy.

According to the brokerage’s report, Jio could list at a $112 Bn valuation which would certainly make it one of the largest companies even within the Reliance empire.

Jio posted a 12% YoY increase in its consolidated net profit to INR 5,583 Cr in the March quarter of FY24. Its operating revenue increased 13.4% YoY to INR 28,871 Cr in the quarter.

The higher revenue inflow from the price hikes are also likely to help the company compensate for the expensive pan-India 5G rollout and deployment of new technologies such as AI.

In June, the company also launched two new apps – JioSafe for communications and file sharing as well as AI-powered translation app JioTranslate. Both have been launched as paid products, clearly underlining the fact that Jio is no longer interested in free products.

In an age when most startups are looking to maximise their revenue efficiency, Jio has no option but to do the same, but its impact is deeper than other examples on this front, such as the platform fees seen on delivery platforms.

Where Is the Regulator?

On reflection, this was long on the cards. For years, many have spoken about how Jio needs to turn on the monetisation engines for its telecom services. But since launch in 2015, Jio has largely focussed on building a captive user base that would ensure that any monetisation-driven attrition will not impact profitability in the long term.

Consumers have been up in arms about the price hikes, as it does impact their livelihoods and disrupts lifestyle aspects such as entertainment, education and more. It cannot be denied that lakhs of Indians depend on mobile internet to earn a living.

Zomato, Swiggy, Ola, Zepto, Blinkit, Uber, Rapido, as well as hundreds of thousands of gig workers on the road for other companies all rely on mobile internet for daily wages. Indeed, plenty of JioMart gig workers would also be impacted by these changes.

While most Jio employees get free data plans, this is not the case for gig workers associated with Reliance or Reliance-backed companies. While gig worker wages have not increased in the past year or have been reduced, as seen in the case of Blinkit last year, they now have to fork up more money just to get out there and be able to work.

One trade union tried to get the Prime Minister to enable BSNL to launch 4G and 5G services with more affordable tariffs, and there was a social media call for BSNL to play the role of market vanguard as a state-run company, but it’s unlikely that the government will intervene in this matter.

“There is enough competition in the telecom sector, and the situation is not critical…. Consumers may feel some pinch of the price rise, but the hike has happened after three years,” a government official was quoted by ET.

But in the past, we have seen telecom regulator TRAI step in to investigate price fixing and cartelisation in the telecom sector, even when the battle was about SMS pricing. In May 2023, TRAI said it would be looking at predatory pricing by Airtel and Jio after a complaint by Vi, but there has been no word on this probe since then.

Incidentally, TRAI said its investigation will go back to telecom pricing in the 2G era since it needs to investigate the origin of predatory pricing. By all indications, this is not going to be a quick exercise. So for now, consumers and those using 4G internet to earn a living have to foot the higher bill.

What Happens To The Indian Internet Ecosystem?

There could be ramifications from this on the business side as well as for growth of tech products and services. The risk of a digital divide based on propensity to spend is real.

And it is also becoming increasingly clear that Reliance’s companies such as Reliance Retail and Jio Financial Services have become key competitors to the major startups and tech companies in the country.

Jio has turned into a competitor from an enabler of startups in the early days when it gave Indians almost free internet connectivity to use startup services and products

One investor told Inc42 last year that Jio gave Reliance the pipeline through which it can feed all these services in the future.

A lot of the investment thesis driving capital inflow to India is built on the idea that internet usage and consumption in India has unstoppable momentum. Will this thesis change?

With AI services growing and their use directly linked to lower personal income, limited access to the internet will only increase the economic divide rather than closing it. These are of course questions that cannot be answered in isolation or without the right data.

Will India’s consumption pattern for video streaming and gaming change with more expensive plans? And will that consequently make India a less attractive investment destination?

Sunday Roundup: Startup Funding, Tech Stocks & More

• Indian startups raised just over $138 Mn across 15 deals this week, which is roughly around the weekly average for the year, but surprisingly, there were five separate M&As announced. How many of these will actually go through?
• In a major blow for big tech giant Apple, competition watchdog Competition Commission of India has found the iPhone maker guilty of abusing its dominant position in the app store market, as per reports

• Shares of Zomato touched a new all-time high of INR 223.40 this week, before settling down at INR 222.45 at close on Friday, with the stock showing a marked improvement in the last month
• Ecommerce major Flipkart has added mobile recharge and bill payment options to its fintech super app, which was launched with UPI payments and personal loans through Super.Money
• Yet another tech startup is going for an IPO — Jaipur-based D2C men’s grooming brand Menhood is all set to go public with an NSE Emerge listing and bidding will open on July 16
• Flipkart-backed logistics unicorn BlackBuck has filed its DRHP with markets regulator SEBI for its INR 550 Cr-plus IPO with the three founders and most investors offloading shares

The post Reliance Jio Turns Its Revenue Machine On appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Listed drone maker ideaForge plans to bolster its presence in the US and enter new markets to expand its exports. 

In its annual report for 2023-24 (FY23), ideaForge chairman Srikanth Velamakanni said that the startup is “intensifying” efforts to enable exports to North America and “other key regions”. 

While it already has a fully-owned subsidiary in the US, the report said that the company is also focussing on expanding its operations to Canada. 

“Geographical expansion and intensifying efforts to enable exports, particularly targeting North America and other key regions, are also underway. The focus remains on developing new technology to meet evolving customer needs, maximising revenue across all channels, and expanding global presence,” said Velamakanni.

Chiming in, ideaForge cofounder and CEO Ankit Mehta said that the drone manufacturer has identified North America as its “next frontier” for “active” investments to expand its footprint. 

Besides India, ideaForge also has operations in Bhutan, Nigeria and the US, as per the annual report. 

The push to bolster the presence in the US comes after Mehta, in February, said that the startup had showcased its products in the US and was looking to enter the North American country. 

Elaborating on its thesis to shore up presence in the US and Canada, the company, in the annual report, said that it is looking to leverage the “established and matured market” for drones in the US and Canada. 

“… This geography (US and Canada) already has an established and matured market for drones. In addition to that, the appetite for using relatively new technology and experimenting is huge, providing a promising opportunity for expansion,” the report said. 

The drone maker also said that its focus on boosting exports will further drive profitability and bolster growth. “The company is focused on maximising revenue potential through all channels, across geographies, and expansion of the consumer base,” added the report. 

ideaForge also said that it has fulfilled a “few export orders” in the past to multiple countries. 

Founded in 2007 by IIT Bombay graduates Mehta, Ashish Bhat, Rahul Singh, Vipul Joshi, and Amardeep Singh, ideaForge designs and manufactures drones for applications in use cases such as mapping, security, and surveillance.

Its shares listed on the Indian bourses in July 2023. ideaForge had a bumper listing on the bourses as its shares listed at a 94% premium to the issue price after its public issue was oversubscribed 106X.

The drone maker reported a net profit of INR 10.3 Cr in the fourth quarter (Q4) of the financial year 2023-24 (FY24) compared to a net loss of INR 5.4 Cr in the year-ago period. Meanwhile, operating revenue jumped over 164% year-on-year (YoY) to INR 38.7 Cr during the quarter under review. 

Shares of ideaForge ended Friday’s session 0.65% lower at INR 829 on the BSE (July 12). 

The post Soaring High: ideaForge Eyes Exports To US, Canada To Shore Up Revenue appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Drone manufacturer ideaForge has allotted an additional 95,954 stock options under its Employees Stock Option Plan scheme (ESOP), 2018.

“… the executive committee of the board of ideaForge Technology Limited … has approved the allotment of 95,954 equity shares having face value of INR 10/- each towards the exercise of vested stock options under the ideaForge Employees Stock Option Scheme, 2018,” the company said in an exchange filing.

Consequent to the above allotment, the paid-up share capital of ideaForge has increased to INR 42.98 Cr from INR 42.89 Cr earlier.

Shares of ideaForge ended Friday’s trading session 0.7% lower at INR 829 on the BSE. As per the last close, the newly allotted ESOPs are worth nearly INR 7.95 Cr.

This is the second instance of increment in ideaForge’s ESOP pool size in less than a month. In June, the company announced the allotment of 1,678 stock options.

The development comes a day after ideaForge acquired an undisclosed amount of stake in Bengaluru-based spacetech startup GalaxEye Space for INR 8.28 Cr.

It was also reported earlier that ideaForge is looking to foray into the US market amid growing reluctance there to buy China-made drones.

Founded in 2007 by Ankit Mehta, Ashish Bhat, Rahul Singh, and Vipul Joshi, ideaForge is a drone manufacturing startup that makes unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems for inspection, surveillance and mapping. Its offerings span across sectors such as defence, construction, mining and agriculture.

The startup made its public debut in June last year, listing at a premium of 94% to its IPO price.

ideaForge’s consolidated profit after tax (PAT) shrank 30% to INR 10.3 Cr in the March quarter (Q4) of the financial year 2023-24 (FY24) as compared to INR 14.8 Cr in the December quarter.

However, revenue from operations jumped 12.5% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) to INR 102.3 Cr in Q4 FY24.

A number of new-age tech companies like Zomato, Nykaa, Delhivery, Paytm, PB Fintech and Policybazaar have announced ESOPs this year.

As per Inc42’s Indian Startup Founder Survey 2023, nearly 55% of founders were banking on ESOPs to woo employees back to the startup ecosystem in 2024.

The post ideaForge Expands ESOP Pool, Allots Another 95,954 Stock Options appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Reliance Industries’ (RIL) telecom business Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd could be headed for a possible public listing in 2025, either via an initial public offering (IPO) or spin-off, as the conglomerate major did with Jio Financial Services (JFS), said global brokerage Jefferies.

The brokerage said in a recent research report on RIL that as Jio leads the way in the recent tariff hikes, unlike its past business strategy, while also keeping feature phone tariffs unchanged, it shows the company’s focus on monetisation and subscriber market share gains.

These moves create a case for a possible public listing of the company in 2025, as per Jefferies. 

Jio could list at a $112 Bn valuation, adding around 7-15% upside to RIL stock, said the brokerage.

“The decision to spin off or IPO Jio hinges on balancing the upside potential of full value unlocking in the spin-off with the lower controlling stake,” said the Jefferies analysts.

“With 33.7% minority shareholding in Jio, RIL could fulfill IPO (requirements) by listing 10% of Jio. Since Jio is past its peak capex phase, the entire IPO could be an offer for sale by minorities. However, 35% of an IPO is reserved for the retail segment that would require large mobilisation from retail investors. While RIL would retain majority control after the listing, our analysis suggests the Indian stock market imputes a holdco (holding company) discount of 20-50% to a listed subsidiary in arriving at a holdco’s fair value,” the analysts said.

On the other hand, with the vertical spin-off route, there would be no holding company discount but a lower stake for the owner. Jefferies believes that it is more likely for RIL to spin off Jio.

The brokerage also said that both domestic and foreign investors seem to favour the spin-off route for Jio’s potential listing. 

With that, the brokerage maintained its ‘buy’ rating on RIL and a price target of INR 3,580, which implies an over 12% upside to the stock’s last close on the BSE.

Jefferies also said that assuming Jio is spun off from RIL’s stable, its fair value for RIL would be INR 3,580. Whereas, if Jio goes the IPO way, RIL’s fair value would fall to INR 3,365 in the base case scenario given the 20% holding company discount.

It is pertinent to note that after a demerger from RIL last year, JFS started trading on the Indian bourses in August 2023. Since then the company has penetrated across verticals in digital payments, insurance, asset management, and other such segments, becoming a key competitor to fintech startups in India.

Meanwhile, Jio has evolved to become a digital giant. It goes without saying that Jio, Reliance Retail and JFS have become key competitors to the major startups and tech companies in the country. 

An investor told Inc42 last year how Jio gave Reliance the “pipeline through which it can feed all these services in the future.”

Jio posted a 12% year-on-year (YoY) increase in its consolidated net profit to INR 5,583 Cr in the March quarter of FY24. Its operating revenue increased 13.4% YoY to INR 28,871 Cr in the quarter.

The post Reliance Jio Could List At $112 Bn Valuation In 2025: Jefferies appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Drone manufacturer ideaForge has bought an undisclosed stake in Bengaluru-based spacetech startup GalaxEye Space for INR 8.28 Cr.

In an exchange filing on Wednesday (July 10), ideaForge said that it has inked a deal with GalaxEye Space Solutions to acquire its Series A Compulsory Convertible Preference Shares worth INR 8.28 Cr.

“We hereby inform you that the Company has entered into a Share Subscription Agreement and a Shareholders’ Agreement on July 10, 2024 with GalaxEye Space Solutions Private Limited for acquiring Series A Compulsory Convertible Preference Shares of GalaxEye Space Solutions Private Limited at a total consideration of INR 8,28,72,720,” the filing said.

The acquisition will help ideaForge develop drone-based sensors for fog and foliage penetrations, the company added.

Founded by Suyash Singh, Denilm Chawda, Pranit Mehta and Rakshit Bhatt in 2021, GalaxEye provides multi-sensor imagery via satellites, providing insights by bringing imaging data from space.

It claims to be building the world’s first multi-sensor imaging satellite. This satellite is intended to provide geospatial analyses to governments, defense, and industries. 

The development comes months after ideaForge and GalaxEye have reportedly signed an agreement to jointly develop an unmanned aerial vehicle with Foliage Penetration Radar. 

Founded in 2007 by Ankit Mehta, Ashish Bhat, Rahul Singh, Vipul Joshi, ideaForge is a drone manufacturing startup that makes UAV systems for inspection, surveillance and mapping. Its offering has utility in sectors such as defence, homeland security, mining, construction, agriculture, energy and utilities.

Shares of ideaForge on Thursday’s session were trading 2.7% up at INR 816 at 11.20 AM on the BSE.

This is the latest among the several endeavors taken by the company lately. For instance, it expanded its ESOP pool size for its employees in June.

In the same month, Venture capital firm Celesta Capital also offloaded 3.57 Lakh shares of drone manufacturer IdeaForge in a block deal for INR 27.46 Cr. 

Earlier this year, the company also outlined that it will be entering the US market to tap on the opportunity created by America’s reluctance to buy drones from China. 

In terms of its financial health, ideaForge witnessed a 30% decline in its consolidated profit after tax (PAT) to INR 10.3 Cr in Q4 of FY24 from INR 14.8 Cr in the previous quarter, partially hurt by a sharp jump in spending towards inventories and employee benefits.

The startup posted a net loss of INR 5.4 Cr in Q4 FY23. Its operating revenue saw a 12.5% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) increase to INR 102.3 Cr in the reported quarter. This was also an over 164% jump from INR 38.7 Cr operating revenue reported in Q4 FY23.

The startup was listed in June last year with a premium of 94% to its IPO price. Its IPO comprised an offer for sale (OFS) component of 48.7 Lakh shares and a fresh issue of shares worth INR 240 Cr. 

It is pertinent to note that spacetech sector is among the most burgeoning sectors in India with as many as 100 spacetech startups getting registered with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) last year. On the investment front, the sector garnered $233 Mn in funding across 30+ deals between 2014 and July 2023. 

According to Inc42’s Indian Spacetech Startup Landscape & Market Opportunity Report 2023, the spacetech sector is estimated to reach a market size of $77 Bn by 2030.

The post ideaForge Picks Up Stake In GalaxEye To Build Drone-Based Sensors For Fog, Foliage Penetrations appeared first on Inc42 Media.

IT major Accenture has acquired Bengaluru-based chip design startup Excelmax Technologies for an undisclosed amount.

In a statement, Accenture said that the acquisition will enable it to further enhance its semiconductor design and engineering capabilities. The transaction will also allow the company to accelerate the adoption of edge computing solutions among its clients. 

The deal will also see Excelmax’s nearly 450 employees spanning areas such as emulation, automotive, physical design, analog, logic design and verification join Accenture. 

On the other hand, the deal is expected to enable Excelmax to leverage the IT services giant’s customer base to fuel its growth amid rapid adoption of GenAI by IT services companies. 

It was not clear whether the current top leadership will continue to be at the helm of affairs of Excelamax post the transaction. 

“Our acquisition of Excelmax enhances our expertise across every aspect of silicon design and development—from concept to production—so we can help our clients fuel innovation and drive growth”, said group CEO of technology at Accenture, Karthik Narain.

Commenting on the acquisition, Excelmax cofounder and CEO Shekhar Patil said, “Our focus has always been on developing the best talent to deliver tailor-made solutions for our global clients that help them build and maintain competitive advantage… Joining Accenture enables us to remain at the forefront of innovation, providing new and exciting opportunities for both our clients and our people”.

Founded in 2019, Excelmax offers semiconductor design solutions for its clients in automotive, telecommunications and other sectors. It also claims to offer other semiconductor solutions from high level designing to and full turnkey execution. 

The development comes just days after Tessolve CEO Raja Manickam announced the launch of his fabless semiconductor startup, iVP Semi. The Chennai-based startup also raised $5 Mn in funding from multiple investors to design semiconductors at its upcoming plant in Tamil Nadu. 

Meanwhile, both domestic and global giants including the Tata Group and US-based Micron Technology and CG Power have lined up funds to scale up investments in the country. The interest in India comes on the back of subsidies and sops offered by the union government for semiconductor manufacturing in the country. 

The rising GenAI adoption and demand for electronics has also fueled the semiconductor boom both globally and domestically. As per an Inc42 report, the Indian semiconductor space is projected to soar to a market size of $150 Bn by 2030.

The post Accenture Acquires Bengaluru-Based Chip Design Startup Excelmax appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Airtel India has rubbished a report which said that the company’s database was breached and the personal details of its 37.5 Cr customers were put on sale on the dark web.

In a post on X, Airtel India said, “There has been a report alleging that Airtel India customer data has been compromised. This is nothing short of a desperate attempt to tarnish Airtel’s reputation by vested interests. We have done a thorough investigation and can confirm that there has been no breach whatsoever from Airtel systems.”

Earlier, an X user with the handle ‘Dark Web Informer’, who provides intelligence from dark web and about data breaches, claimed that the Airtel India data breach took place in June 2024.

The handle claimed that the personal details of 37.5 Cr customers of Airtel India, like name, mobile number, address, date of birth, email address, were being sold by a hacker ‘xenZen’.

The hacker was demanding $50,000 in cryptocurrency for the data, which also included Aadhaar details, photo and address proof.

Airtel faced a similar data breach allegation in 2021 when cybersecurity researcher Rajshekhar Rajaharia said that data of over 25 Lakh Airtel subscribers was on the website of a threat actor called ‘Red Rabbit Team’ but was taken down after three months. 

However, even then Airtel India rejected the allegations. 

The latest development comes at a time when a number of Indian companies and startups have fallen prey to data breaches 

Last month, a hacker claimed to have access to an extensive database maintained by the Union Ministry of External Affairs’s portal for blue-collar workers emigrating from the country.

Not to mention, Airtel India counterparts BSNL, Jio and Vodafone too have faced allegations regarding data breaches in the past. 

Just last week, a report said that the government-owned BSNL suffered another data breach within six months. The report said that a threat actor put on sale the telecom operator’s data for $5K. 

Additionally, a report by cyber security research firm CyberX9 alleged that call data records of around 2 Cr customers of Vodafone Idea (Vi) were leaked by cyber criminals.

Furniture rental startup Rentomojo, rail ticketing app Railyatri, stock broker AngelOne, government databases like Aadhaar and Cowin, and Taj Hotels have also faced allegations of data breaches in the last few years.

The post Airtel India Rejects Report Of Data Breach, Calls It An Attempt To Tarnish Reputation appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Delhi NCR-based snack brand Let’s Try has bagged an undisclosed funding from Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting’s venture arm Wipro Consumer Care – Ventures, with participation from existing investor 100Unicorns (erstwhile 9Unicorns).

With this investment, Wipro Consumer Care – Ventures also claims to have picked up a minority stake in the company.

With the freshly raised capital, Let’s Try looks to expand its market presence and challenge established brands in the snacking industry, according to a statement.

Talking to Inc42, Sumit Keshan, managing partner, Wipro Consumer Care – Ventures, said, “In this investment of Let’s Try, our stake is at the lower end of the range. Let’s Try’s understanding of product innovation, consumer behaviour, and market trends uniquely positions them to expand rapidly, and challenge established brands.”

On Wipro Consumer Care – Ventures’ further investment plans, he said that this year it is also looking for 1-2 more bets across food and personal care sectors.

Founded in 2021 by Nitin Kalra, Let’s Try offers a variety of products including namkeens, mixtures, roasted channa and cookies, selling predominantly through digital formats. The company uses in-house manufacturing to ensure quality and innovation.

Kalra said, “We aim to leverage the new funding into opportunities to propel Let’s Try towards becoming one of India’s most promising brands.”

Let’s Try claims to be doing an annualised revenue run rate in excess of INR 50 Cr. 

The latest bet also marks Wipro Consumer Care – Ventures’ 12th investment overall and second in the food sector after their investment in Baker’s Dozen. 

The total size of Wipro Consumer Care – Ventures’ fund now stands at INR 450 Cr, combining the INR 200 Cr from the first fund and INR 250 Cr from the Second Fund launched in December 2023.

This investment comes as Wipro Consumer Care – Ventures launched its second fund in December 2023 with a corpus of INR 250 Cr, focusing on consumer startups in India and Southeast Asia. 

The fund’s first corpus of INR 200 Cr, launched four years ago, has made 10 investments with part exits from two, achieving a 10x increase in a short period.

Let’s Try operates in a competitive market alongside players like EAT Anytime, The Whole Truth, Naturell India, Soulfull, and Snackible. 

The Indian snacks market reached INR 42,694.9 Cr in 2023 and is projected to grow to INR 95,521.8 Cr by 2032, with a CAGR of 9.08% from 2024 to 2032. 

The healthy snacks segment is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 6.8% from 2024 to 2029.

The post Wipro Consumer Venture Arm Picks Up Minority Stake In Snack Brand Let’s Try appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The Gujarat government has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with big tech major IBM to set up an artificial intelligence (AI) cluster at the Gujarat International Finance Tec (GIFT) City. 

In a statement, IBM said that the cluster will leverage the tech giant’s GenAI platform watsonx to foster innovation and collaboration among financial institutions at the City. 

As part of the pact, IBM will also offer financial institutions assistance in providing proof of concept and access to AI Sandbox, AI literacy programmes, and digital assistant solutions. 

In essence, the US-based tech juggernaut will offer cloud-based platforms to enable financial institutions to fine-tune large language AI models (LLMs) in a sandbox environment. Meanwhile, the potential digital assistant solutions will facilitate the deployment of these customised LLMs for financial institutions.

In addition, IBM will also develop a curriculum centred on AI for schools and universities across the state. Under the partnership, IBM will also offer certification programmes for professionals in Gujarat to upskill them in the emerging technology. IBM said that the initiative is part of its larger plan to train 30 Mn people globally by 2030 and 2 Mn learners in AI by the end of 2026.

“This MoU with IBM will help Gujarat to lead the country in efforts to adopt AI and drive digital transformation,” said Gujarat chief minister Bhupendrabhai Patel.

Commenting on the announcement, IBM India and South Asia managing director Sandip Patel added, “This collaboration is a significant step in our continued association with the Government of Gujarat to accelerate the digital transformation of the state. By establishing this AI cluster, our aim is to make the latest AI solutions easily accessible to the vibrant and growing number of financial institutions in GIFT City”.

The slew of initiatives are expected to give a major fillip to GIFT City by deploying GenAI. The development came on the same day as Nifty IX said that GIFT Nifty recorded its highest ever monthly turnover of 21.23 lakh contracts worth INR 7.97 Lakh Cr ($95.55 Bn) during the month of June.

This comes at a time when the Indian financial services and fintech sector is rapidly adopting the technology to improve customer service, efficiency, and reduce costs.

Vatsal Kanakiya, CTO at 100X.VC, recently told Inc42 that GenAI could see use cases in digitising and automating multiple redundant manual business processes within the sector. But, these company-specific LLMs are difficult to build from scratch. 

As a result, a slew of new Indian startups have emerged with offerings focussed on the sector including names such as Gnani.ai, Slang Labs, Vitrai.AI, and Alltius. As a result, the booming Indian GenAI space is witnessing healthy interest from investors. 

As per Inc42, homegrown GenAI startups have raised more than $600 Mn between 2019 and 2023. And the number is only expected to go up. 

The GenAI push also comes at a time when the Centre has rapidly ramped up its focus on promoting GIFT City as a global financial hub and a virtual offshore destination for startups and investors. 

As a result, both global and domestic investors are making a beeline for the much touted City. Earlier this month, Chennai-based VC firm Unifi Capital launched two new funds at IFSCA while the union government and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) also inked a $23 Mn loan agreement to spur research and innovation in the fintech space at the City in March. 

The post IBM Signs MoU With Gujarat Govt To Deploy AI Cluster At GIFT City appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Telecom operator Reliance Jio will hike the tariffs for its prepaid and postpaid plans by 12% to 25% from July 3. 

While the cost of its lowest plan of INR 155 has been increased by 21% to INR 189, the INR 239 recharge will now be available at INR 299. 

Besides, the company also announced the launch of its new “unlimited” plans and increased the tariffs of its data packs. However, the price hike will not be applicable to JioBharat and JioPhone users. 

In a statement, Jio said that the “introduction of new plans” will enable it to drive sustainable growth and invest more in 5G and artificial intelligence (AI).

Commenting on the price hike, Reliance Jio Infocomm chairman Akash Ambani said, “The introduction of new plans is a step in the direction of furthering industry innovation and driving sustainable growth through investments in 5G and AI technology. Ubiquitous, high-quality, affordable internet is the backbone of Digital India and Jio takes pride in contributing to this. Jio will always put our country and customer first and will continue to invest for India.”

Meanwhile, the company has limited free 5G usage to high-end data packs. Jio said that unlimited 5G data will now only be available on packs that offer at least 2GB data per day. 

The price hike is expected to further shore up the telecom operator’s topline and improve its average revenue per user (ARPU). Additionally, the higher revenue inflow could also help the company bolster its play as its expenses continue to rise on account of 5G rollout and deployment of technologies such as AI. 

Meanwhile, Jio also announced the launch of two new apps – JioSafe and JioTranslate.

JioSafe is a “quantum-secure communication” app that will offer services such as calling, messaging and file transfers, and will be available for INR 199 a month. On the other hand, JioTranslate is an AI-powered app that will allow users to translate voice call, voice message, text and image. This offering will be priced at INR 99 per month.

However, both the apps will be accessible for free for Jio users for a year, the company said. 

Giving an update on its 5G rollout, Jio claimed that the telco accounted for 85% of the total 5G cells operationalised in India.

The development comes at a time when Jio has been witnessing net subscriber additions to its total user base for more than a year now. As per the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) data, Jio was the sole telecom operator in the country which saw widening of its subscriber base in April 2024. 

At the end of April 2024, Jio’s total active user base stood at 43.34 Cr and it accounted for a 40.48% market share of the country’s total wireless market. 

Jio’s parent Jio Platforms reported a 12% YoY increase in consolidated net profit to INR 5,583 Cr in Q4 FY24, while operating revenue jumped 13.4% YoY to INR 28,871 Cr during the quarter under review. 

The post Reliance Jio Hikes Prepaid & Postpaid Tariffs, Launches Two New Apps appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Infosys CEO Salil Parekh has settled charges of insider trading violations with the Securities and Exchange Board of India by agreeing to pay a fine of INR 25 Lakh (around $30,000).

The High Powered Advisory Committee (HPAC) recommended the settlement, which was accepted by SEBI’s Panel of Whole Time Members on May 21, 2024. The payment was made on June 7, and SEBI confirmed receipt of the amount, as per the markets regulator.

Reuters reported the development first.

The case stems from SEBI’s probe which found that Infosys violated provisions of the SEBI Act and Prohibition of Insider Trading (PIT) Regulations, 2015, between June 29, 2020, and September 27, 2021.

The investigation found that Infosys had not appropriately classified certain information as Unpublished Price Sensitive Information (UPSI).

As CEO and MD, Parekh was responsible for implementing effective systems of internal control to ensure compliance and prevent insider trading. The settlement does not imply an admission of guilt, as Parekh proposed to settle the proceedings without admitting or denying the charges.

The insider trading case is linked to Infosys’ partnership with Vanguard in 2020. SEBI’s investigation revealed that Infosys had recognised the strategic importance of this partnership for its business expansion and revenue growth. The information regarding the partnership was deemed UPSI under the PIT Regulations, 2015.

This comes at a time when SEBI is set to vote on new regulations for unregistered financial influencers (“finfluencers”) at its board meeting today. The proposed rules aim to curb unregistered finfluencers’ revenue models, prohibit SEBI-regulated entities from engaging with them, and require registered finfluencers to display credentials. 

Meanwhile, Infosys continues to make strides in artificial intelligence. At the company’s 43rd annual general meeting on June 26, Chairman Nandan Nilekani announced that Infosys is working on 225 generative AI programs for its clients and has trained over 2.5 lakh employees in GenAI technologies. 

The company has also filed more than 46 AI patents and 70 AI client advocacies in FY24, positioning itself at the forefront of the AI revolution in the enterprise space.

The post Infosys Settles Insider Trading Charges with SEBI, To Pay INR 25 Lakh Fine appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Infosys cofounder and chairman Nandan Nilekani said that the IT major is working on 225 generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) programs for its clients. 

In his address to the shareholders at the company’s 43rd annual general meeting (AGM) on Wednesday (June 26), Nikelani also said that the IT juggernaut has so far trained more than 2.5 Lakh employees in GenAI technologies. 

“Infosys is one of the largest adopters of GitHub Copilot globally. Our employees have already generated over 3 Mn lines of code using generative AI large language models,” Nilekani added. 

The software company also said that it filed more than 46 AI patents and 70 AI client advocacies in the financial year 2023-24 (FY24). 

Noting that the GenAI “revolution” is still in its nascent stages, Nilekani said that enterprise AI will take several years to unfold, unlike consumer-focussed AI space. 

The Infosys chairman’s comments come at a time when GenAI mania has gripped the world. Ever since OpenAI debuted its AI chatbot, ChatGPT, in late 2022, the emerging technology has seen rapid adoption. India too is racing to catch the bus. 

Be it the country’s first unicorn Krutrim or Sarvam AI, the homegrown GenAI landscape has made rapid strides in the past one year with the emergence of use cases in areas such as customer support, fintech, among others. 

As a result, investors are lining up to invest in startups leveraging the emerging technology. As per an Inc42 report, Indian GenAI startups raised more than $600 Mn between 2019 and 2023. Inc42 also estimates the homegrown GenAI market to cross the $17 Bn mark by 2030. 

Besides, the Centre has also earmarked INR 10,372 Cr for its India AI Mission. A recent Deloitte report said that India is at the top among 13 countries in the Asia Pacific region in terms of GenAI use and adoption.

Additionally, Infosys competitor Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) also unveiled a new platform recently to aggregate multiple GenAI services and LLM models under a single umbrella to enable businesses to adopt GenAI at scale. 

However, some issues still remain. There are issues about upskilling the country’s talent pool in the emerging technology and regulatory bottlenecks. The technology has also spawned issues such as misuse, deepfakes and misinformation. 

As a result, the government has been looking to crack the whip on the misuse of GenAI. Earlier this year, it issued an advisory that directed platforms to label undertrial AI models and ensure that no unlawful content is hosted on their sites. The move was met with criticism from industry stakeholders, including founders and industry bodies, following which the advisory was withdrawn. 

Many including SaaS unicorn Zoho cofounder and boss Sridhar Vembu have even termed GenAI catastrophic, saying that adopting new technologies without appropriate safeguards could cause unprecedented disruption of the existing social order and could lead to job losses. 

The post Infosys Has Trained 2.5 Lakh Employees On GenAI: Nandan Nilekani appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Shares of C.E. Info Systems, the parent company of MapmyIndia, plunged over 6% during Wednesday’s (June 26) trading session as promoter and founder Rakesh Verma intends to sell 5 Lakh shares of the company in a block deal.

MapmyIndia shares touched a low of INR 2,271 during the early trading hours on Wednesday, as compared to INR 2,416.10 at its previous close. The shares were trading at INR 2,297.95 at 11:40 AM IST.

After reports emerged on Tuesday that Verma was selling 5 Lakh shares, MapmyIndia confirmed the development in an exchange filing today.

“…the Company has received an intimation from Mr. Rakesh Kumar Verma, Chairman and Managing Director of the Company, for an intention to sell up to 5,00,000 equity shares via bulk or block deals on the stock exchanges, which is less than 1% of paid-up capital of the company,” read the disclosure.

“Mr. Rakesh Verma has been doing philanthropy and investing in startup companies as per his passion and commitment to an Aatmanirbhar, Sarvottam Bharat. To continue to do so, this is the first time he is providing liquidity since IPO. On a post-sale basis, the Promoter Group will continue to have 51.9% stake in C.E. Info Systems Limited,” it added.

Around 6.1 Lakh shares, equivalent to 1.1% equity worth INR 142.6 Cr, of CE Info Systems were traded at INR 2,332 per share today.

As per a CNBC report,  Verma said that the promoters have no intention of selling any further shares in the company.

As per the BSE data, Verma held almost 2.32 Cr shares of MapmyIndia, or a 42.84% stake in the company, as of the quarter ended March 2024. Promoters together held a majority 52.91% stake in the company.

On June 21, shares of MapmyIndia touched an all-time high at INR 2,745.05 after Goldman Sachs projected a 40% upside to its share price from the INR 2,000 level.

The brokerage, in its initiation note, also rated the stock with ‘buy’.

Goldman Sachs believes that the company will benefit from an early-leadership position in fast-growth end-markets, including automotive navigation, mapping devices, connected vehicles, telematics and government digitisation.

MapmyIndia’s consolidated profit after tax (PAT) surged by 35% in the March quarter of FY24 to INR 38.2 Cr, from INR 28.3 Cr it had posted in the same period a year ago. On a quarterly basis, the startup’s net profit surged by 23.2%, as compared to INR 31.04 Cr it had posted in the December quarter.

The startup’s operating revenue increased to INR 106.9 Cr in Q4 FY24, a 47.5% higher than INR 72.4 Cr in Q4 FY23. On a quarterly basis, its operating revenue increased by 16%, from INR 92 Cr in the previous quarter.

The post MapmyIndia Shares Plunge 6% As Rakesh Verma To Offload 5 Lakh Shares appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Geotech company MapmyIndia’s promoter and founder Rakesh Verma is reportedly selling 5 Lakh shares of the company through a block deal.

As per a CNBC-Awaaz report, the floor price of the deal is set at INR 2,293.2 per equity share, which implies a 5% discount to the stock’s last closing price of INR 2,416.1 on the BSE on Tuesday (June 25).

JM Financial is likely the broker for the block deal.

As per the BSE data, Verma held almost 2.32 Cr shares of MapmyIndia, or a 42.84% stake in the company, as of the quarter ended March 2024.

Promoters together hold a majority 52.91% stake in the company.

It is pertinent to note that the stock has been surging since last week. On June 21, shares of MapmyIndia touched an all-time high at INR 2,745.05 after Goldman Sachs projected a 40% upside to its share price from the INR 2,000 level.

The brokerage, in its initiation note, also rated the stock with ‘buy’.

Goldman Sachs believes that the company will benefit from an early-leadership position in fast-growth end-markets, including automotive navigation, mapping devices, connected vehicles, telematics, and government digitisation.

From pickup in navigation systems attach rates from the EV growth tailwinds in India and use of drone technology from Indrones investment to enrich maps and DaaS business to the contribution from the integration of KOGO’s platform with its Mappls App, the brokerage sees multiple growth levers for the company.

MapmyIndia shares have gained over 24% year to date. 

Meanwhile, earlier this week, MapmyIndia founders Rakesh Verma and Rashmi Verma announced the launch of a new AI venture ClarityX, in partnership with MapmyIndia, to offer insights and real-time data to enterprises for making efficient decisions.

The post MapmyIndia Promoter Rakesh Verma To Offload 5 Lakh Shares Of Co appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Geotech startup MapmyIndia’s founders Rakesh Verma and Rashmi Verma have rolled out a new AI venture to offer insights and real-time data to enterprises for making efficient decisions.

The AI driven data and consulting platform ClarityX, in partnership with MapmyIndia, will help enterprise consumers in identifying newer markets and expansion opportunities, optimise costs and resources as well as to reduce risks and frauds, according to a statement.

It is pertinent to note that the new platform is also cofounded by Rakhi Prasad, who is currently serving as the non executive director at MapmyIndia.

“MapmyIndia’s geospatial data with multi-dimensional static and real-time data and extract sophisticated AI driven insights enable ClarityX to go to customers faster with solutions that are concise and accurate. And clarity thus obtained enables businesses to multiply their bottom lines by growing revenues, optimising costs and  reducing risks. The ‘X’ factor, in ClarityX solutions,” said Prasad.

ClarityX claims to offer a “full stack solution” with its own proprietary indices, customisable AI-based analytical models and consultancy solutions. The product line includes district potential index, rural potential index ,sales projection model, risk assessment model, origin-destination analysis, category trend analysis and catchment analysis.

Incorporated a few months earlier to its launch, ClarityX claims to have assisted undisclosed companies with strategic analysis of locations for their expansion.

This comes at a time when Goldman Sachs initiated coverage on the stock of MapmyIndia with a ‘buy’ rating followed by its stock hitting an all-time high of INR 2,745.05 during the intraday trading on the BSE on Friday (June 21).

Founded in 1995, MapmyIndia provides digital map data and GPS-based IoT (Internet of Things) devices for personal navigation, location based SaaS for enterprises.

MapmyIndia’s consolidated profit after tax (PAT) surged by 35% for the March quarter to INR 38.2 Cr, from INR 28.3 Cr for Q4 last year. On a quarterly basis, its net profit surged by 23.2% as compared to INR 31.04 Cr it posted in the December quarter.

The development comes at a time when AI-based data solutions are rapidly being adapted for efficient research.

For instance, US-based tech giant Oracle is reportedly planning to increase its investments in India on AI and data.

It has also unveiled the Oracle Database 23ai, featuring Oracle AI Vector Search which allows users to search for documents, images and private business data across Oracle databases in real-time by leveraging AI algorithms.

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A day after Goldman Sachs initiated coverage on the stock with a ‘buy’ rating, shares of geotech startup MapmyIndia reached an all-time high of INR 2,745.05 during the intraday trading on the BSE on Friday (June 21).

The company’s shares opened today at INR 2,547, marking a more than 6% increase from the previous close, before hitting the new peak.

Goldman Sachs initiated its coverage of MapmyIndia with a price target of INR 2,800. Following this, the stock jumped 20% and touched its upper circuit at INR 2,401.9 on the BSE on Thursday.

In its report, Goldman Sachs highlighted MapmyIndia’s advantageous early market position in high-growth sectors such as automotive navigation, mapping devices, connected vehicles, telematics, and government digitisation. 

The brokerage forecasts a revenue CAGR of 38% in the FY24-FY27 period, with a steady EBITDA margin in the 38% to 41% range.

MapmyIndia is a deeptech company focused on maps, navigation, tracking, analytics, GIS, GPS, IoT, and location technologies.

It offers its proprietary digital maps as a service, software as a service, and platform as a service, including its advanced digital map data, software products, platforms, application programming interfaces, IoT and solutions to new-age tech companies, large businesses, automotive OEMs, government organisations, developers and consumers.

MapmyIndia divides its revenue into two market categories – automotive and mobility technology (A&M) and consumer technology and enterprise digital transformation (C&E). The revenue of the C&E segment grew 49% year-on-year to INR 194 crore in the financial year 2023-24 (FY24), while A&M revenue increased 23% to INR 186 Cr.

During the FY24 earnings announcement, MapmyIndia highlighted that over 2.5 Mn new vehicles, spanning four-wheelers, two-wheelers, and commercial vehicles in both traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) and electric vehicle (EV) segments, integrated MapmyIndia Mappls — a 32% increase from the previous year.

Overall, MapmyIndia’s operating revenue stood at INR 379.4 Cr in FY24, an increase of 35% YoY. Its profit after tax rose 25% YoY to INR 134.3 Cr in the last fiscal.

Shares of MapmyIndia shed some of the gains after reaching the all-time high and were trading 5.2% higher at INR 2,526.60 on the BSE at 11:25 AM.

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Shares of geotech startup MapmyIndia jumped 20% to touch the upper circuit at INR 2,401.9 during the intraday trading on the BSE on Thursday (June 20) after Goldman Sachs initiated coverage on the stock with a ‘buy’ rating.

The international brokerage set a price target of INR 2,800 on the stock, which implies an upside of almost 40% to MapmyIndia’s close at INR 2,001.6 on Wednesday. 

Goldman Sachs said the startup is well-poised to benefit from an early leadership position in fast-growth end-markets, including automotive navigation, mapping devices, connected vehicles, telematics, and government digitisation.

The brokerage believes that MapmyIndia’s core profit pool lies in its IP-protected digital mapping service built over more than three decades and overlaid with valuable data such as demographics, law and order, natural resources, infrastructure, and other insights. It forecasts a revenue CAGR of 38% in the FY24-FY27 period, with a steady EBITDA margin in the 38% to 41% range. 

MapmyIndia divides its market-wise revenue into two categories – automotive and mobility tech business (A&M) and consumer tech and enterprise digital transformation (C&E). Its C&E revenue grew 49% year-on-year (YoY) to INR 194 Cr in FY24, while A&M revenue rose 23% to INR 186 Cr.

The startup said during its FY24 earnings that over 2.5 Mn new vehicles, including four-wheelers, two-wheelers and CVs, across ICE and EV segments, had built-in MapmyIndia Mappls in FY24, up 32% YoY.

On the other hand, MapmyIndia divides its product-wise revenue into two segments – map and data and platform and IoT. In FY24, its map and data revenue grew 23% YoY to INR 138 Cr and platform and IoT revenue jumped 42% to INR 241 Cr.

“We expect the company to maintain high margins driven by a pickup in loT-led business growth (offers more revenue opportunity for high-margin mapping), supported by newer opportunities in people/goods mobility and the auto aftermarket versus the legacy auto OEM business,” said Goldman Sachs in its research report.

“We offer incremental perspective on Mapmyindia’s loT margin potential and contrast how profitability evolved at similar hardware led businesses at peers like Trimble, and assess growth optionality from rising SUV + EV penetration,” the brokerage added.

MapmyIndia’s operating revenue stood at INR 379.4 Cr in FY24, witnessing a 35% YoY jump. Its profit after tax increased 25% YoY to INR 134.3 Cr in the last fiscal.

Shares of MapmyIndia were locked at the 20% upper circuit on the BSE today and ended the day’s trading at INR 2,401.9.

The stock is currently trading 23.5% higher year to date.

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