paytm News of 01/16/21

PhonePe Raises $700 Million, Becomes A Separate Entity

PhonePe, the crown jewel in Flipkart’s acquisition by Walmart, is “partially” spinning off, the financial services firm said on Thursday. To kick off its new journey, the firm said it has secured $700 million in a new financing round. ...

India Opens Antitrust Case Against Google Over Its Payments App

India’s antitrust watchdog has opened an investigation into Google for allegedly abusing the dominant position of its app store to promote its payments service in the world’s second largest internet market. In its Monday announcement (PDF) ...

Google And Walmart Face Growth Hurdles As India Caps Payments Transactions

Google and Walmart have a new challenge ahead of them as they race to expand the reach of their payments apps in India: They won’t be permitted to grow beyond a limit. National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the body that operates the ...

SAIF Partners Rebrands As Elevation Capital, Secures $400 Million For Its New India Fund

SAIF Partners has raised $400 million for a new fund and rebranded the 18-year-old influential venture capital firm as it looks to back more early-stage startups in the world’s second largest internet market. The new fund is SAIF Partners’ ...

Google Delays Mandating Play Store’S 30% Cut In India To April 2022

Google delays mandating Play Store’s 30% cut in India to April 2022 image Google is postponing the enforcement of its new Play Store billing policy in India to April 2022, days after more than 150 startups in the world’s second largest internet market forged an informal coalition to express concerns over the 30% charge ...

Indian Startups Explore Forming An Alliance And Alternative App Store To Fight Google’S ‘Monopoly’

Google, which reaches more internet users than any other firm in India and commands 99% of the nation’s smartphone market, has stumbled upon an odd challenge in the world’s second largest internet market: Scores of top local entrepreneurs. Dozens ...

Indian Mobile Gaming Platform Mobile Premier League Raises $90 Million

Mobile Premier League (MPL) has raised $90 million in a new financing round as the two-year-old Bangalore-based esports and mobile gaming platform grows its user base and looks to expand outside of India. SIG, early-stage tech investor RTP Global, ...

Thanks To Google, App Store Monopoly Concerns Have Now Reached India

Thanks to Google, app store monopoly concerns have now reached India image Last week, as Epic Games, Facebook, and Microsoft continued to express concerns about Apple’s “monopolistic” hold over what a billion people can download on their iPhones, a similar story unfolded in India, the world’s second largest internet ...

Google Pulls India’S Paytm App From Play Store For Repeat Policy Violations

Google has pulled popular Indian financial services app Paytm from the Play Store for violating its gambling policies.  Paytm is India’s most valued startup and claims over 50 million monthly active users. Its marquee app, which competes ...

Amazon-Backed Indian Insurtech Startup Acko Raises $60 Million

A young Indian startup that is taking on the country’s antiquated insurance industry with a digital-first product — and which has already received backing from global giant Amazon — today announced a new financing round. ...

China’S Alibaba Won’T Invest In Indian Startups For At Least Six Months, Report Says

Chinese internet giant Alibaba Group has put on hold plans to invest in Indian startups amid geo-political tensions between the two countries, Reuters reported Wednesday, citing two unnamed sources. The Chinese group, which has invested more ...

What India’S TikTok Ban Means For China

For more than a decade, China has limited how foreign tech firms that operate inside its borders do business. The world’s largest internet market has used its Great Firewall to block Facebook, Twitter, Google and other services in the name of ...

Paytm, Vijay Shekhar Sharma To Acquire Insurance Firm Raheja QBE For $76m

Paytm, India’s most valuable startup, and its co-founder and chief executive, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, announced on Monday they have reached an agreement to acquire general insurer Raheja QBE for a sum of $76 million as the financial services startup ...

Google To Offer Loans To Merchants In India

Google said on Thursday it plans to offer crediting feature to millions of merchants in India through its Google Pay app starting later this year as the American technology group looks to help small businesses in the country steer through the ...

Google And Walmart’S PhonePe Establish Dominance In India’S Mobile Payments Market As WhatsApp Pay Struggles To Launch

Google and Walmart’s PhonePe establish dominance in India’s mobile payments market as WhatsApp Pay struggles to launch image In India, it’s Google and Walmart-owned PhonePe that are racing neck-and-neck to be the top player in the mobile payments market, while Facebook remains mired in a regulatory maze for WhatsApp Pay’s rollout. In May, more than 75 ...

India’S Khatabook Raises $60 Million To Help Merchants Digitize Bookkeeping And Accept Payments Online

India’s Khatabook raises $60 million to help merchants digitize bookkeeping and accept payments online image Khatabook, a startup that is helping small businesses in India record financial transactions digitally and accept payments online with an app, has raised $60 million in a new financing round as it looks to gain more ground in the world’s second ...

Investors, Startup Founders In India Pool $13m To Fund Projects That Fight Coronavirus

Investors, startup founders in India pool $13M to fund projects that fight coronavirus image More than 150 investors and entrepreneurs in India are funding dozens of projects in a bid to help millions better combat the COVID-19 epidemic and help the nation’s booming startup ecosystem withstand the economic devastation it has caused. The ...

Facebook’S $5.7 Billion Bet On Indian Giant Jio Spells Trouble For Amazon And Flipkart

Facebook’s major bet on Jio Platforms could create a headache for mobile payments services that have amassed tens of millions of users while struggling to find a business model in the world’s second-largest internet market. The $5.7 billion ...

To Avoid Hostile Takeovers Amid COVID-19, India Mandates Approvals On Chinese Investments

Chinese investors, who have poured about $6 billion into Indian startups in the last two years , will be subjected to strict regulation for their future investments in the world’s second largest internet market. India amended its foreign direct ...

Amazon, Flipkart And Other E-Commerce Firms In India To Resume Sales Of Non-Essential Items From April 20

Amazon, Flipkart and other e-commerce firms in India to resume sales of non-essential items from April 20 image Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal and other online shopping firms will resume selling “non-essential” items to customers in India starting April 20, weeks after New Delhi imposed a lockdown in the country that has cost e-commerce companies more than a ...