Category: News

India has about 61,400 registered startups, making it the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem in the world after US and China, as per the Economic Survey 2021-2022.

“This rise of startups has made India the third largest startup ecosystem in the world and has significantly impacted the Indian economy showcasing the ability to contribute approximately 4-5% to the GDP of India,” said Ishpreet Singh Gandhi, co-founder of StrideOne, a tech-enabled non-banking financial company.

The report forecast more than 24,500 platforms to be registered in 2022, up from about 20,000 last year. It projected registration of new startups to grow at an annualized rate of 25% in the five years through 2027.

It said that job creation by startups will grow at 24% annually during 2022-2027.

While 2021 saw about 1,92,000 jobs being created by startups, the report forecast about 2,30,000 new jobs to be created this year. It also noted that startup funding has been growing rapidly, with total fundraising increasing 42% annually, during 2016-2021, while deal count climbed 23% in the period.

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), fintech, and logistics and autotech sectors attracted the most investment.

However, a report by market intelligence platform Tracxn said funding in Indian startups fell by 35% till 5 December to $24.7 billion, from the same period last year, hit by a drop in late-stage funding.

According to StrideOne, more than 28% of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the textile industry in India rely on startup platforms to source business opportunities, registering a 29% uptick in their revenues after joining such platforms in 2022. Charting the gig economy’s contribution, it noted that gig workers already comprise more than 70% of the employee base for fast commerce startups in 2022.

While about 8 million gig workers comprised 1.5% of the workforce in India in 2020-21, their contribution to the overall workforce is expected to grow to 4% by 2024.

“Startups are limiting their hiring of permanent employees. Gig workers have begun to replace these permanent employees. The total number of enterprises who have shifted to a semi-gig workforce model has increased by 15% since Oct 2021,” it noted.

On the B2B logistics market, which is projected to grow over fivefold by 2025, the report said that over 90% logistics startups such as Delhivery and Shadowfax had small truck owners make up about half of their total fleet.It also noted that with digitization and platformization enabled by startups, fleet owners can increase utilization with tech optimization, thus reducing 40-50% of their fleet’s idle time.

Lendingkart, which posted its second straight profitable year in FY20, incurred a net loss of ₹28.4 crore in FY21, despite its lending arm making a net profit of ₹19 crore. The losses swelled over sevenfold to ₹203 crore in FY22 due to conservative provisioning, owing to the pandemic. The company, however, has again started making profits and is targeting an initial public offering (IPO) in the next six to eight quarters, said Harshvardhan Lunia, co-founder and chief executive, Lendingkart.

Lendingkart Group posted a profit before tax of ₹51 crore in H1FY23, which it expects to increase to about ₹110 crore by March-end, said Lunia. The lending arm of the company recorded a profit before tax of ₹85 crore in H1 FY23 and is expected to end the fiscal at ₹170 crore, he added.

In terms of revenue, the company is looking to end FY23 at ₹825 crore, up from ₹616 crore last fiscal. “We will be among the few startups in the country with $100 million revenues,” said Lunia.

He didn’t disclose the net profit made in H1FY23. To spearhead growth, the company also aims to raise a funding round later this calendar year ahead of the IPO.

Lendingkart was founded by Lunia and Mukul Sachan in 2014. Sachan left the company in 2019 and joined Optimus Capital as an investor. The company has been providing capital access to SMEs, and pits against the likes of Aye Finance, Clix Capital, NeoGrowth, and FlexiLoans. It is backed by Fullerton Financial Holdings Pte Ltd, Bertelsmann India Investments, Sistema Asia Fund and IndiaQuotient.

To date, the company has disbursed loans worth about ₹11,500 crore. Its gross non-performing assets (NPA) ratio is at around 1.5%. “We will close this year at a book size of ₹5000 crore. We aim to close FY24 and FY25 at around ₹7500 crore and ₹11,000 crore, respectively. That’s more than a 2x growth in 2-3 years,” said Lunia.

Lendingkart launched four fintech platforms—2gthr, Cred8, Xlr8 and Collec10—aimed at enhancing the lending capabilities of banks and other lenders. In turn, it helps the company to mitigate the risks involved in lending. “Balance sheet business is a risky business. So, we are diversifying ourselves to a risk-free platform business,” said Lunia.

So far, the co-lending platform 2gthr has shown the most potential, with several public and private sector banks deploying it in their operations. Its API and SaaS platform Xlr8 comes second in terms of recent performance.The company is now looking to add more products to its portfolio.

“We are actively looking at the SME cards segment. We feel that SME cards space is least penetrated. With our focus on micro and small businesses, and being able to understand the segment, it could be a great addition for us,” Lunia said.Currently, Lendingkart has a nationwide presence. “We have not disbursed more than 15% of our loan book to a particular state. Gujarat and Maharashtra come closer to the figure,” he said.

Carlyle along with Brighton Park Capital and the Nadathur Family Office are proposing to sell less than half of their current holdings through the share sale, showed the draft prospectus filed by Indegene with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Thursday.

The share sale will comprise a fresh issue of up to ₹950 crore and an offer for sale (OFS) of up to 36.3 million equity shares by existing shareholders that include a few promoters. The timeline for the share sale will be decided after regulatory approval.

Mint first reported about Indegene’s plans in September.

The funds raised through the share sale will be used to repay loans, meet capital expenditure, pay deferred amount for an earlier acquisition, fund inorganic growth and for general corporate purposes, the company said.

Nadathur Group (through Nadathur Fareast Pte. Ltd. and Vida Trustees Pvt. Ltd) holds 27.93% in Indegene.

In 2021, Carlyle and Brighton Park Capital acquired a minority stake in the company for $200 million ( ₹1,461 crore). Carlyle owns a 20.79% stake in the company and Brighton Park holds 12.27% stake. Carlyle plans to sell 37% of its holding, while Brighton will sell about 31%.

Kotak Mahindra Capital, Citigroup Global Markets India, J.P. Morgan India, Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities (India) are the book running lead managers to the issue.

Indegene was founded in 1998 by five first-generation entrepreneurs—Manish Gupta, Sanjay Parikh, Dr. Rajesh Nair, Gaurav Kapoor and Anand Kiran.

The Bengaluru-based firm is engaged in research and experimental development in natural sciences and engineering. It provides solutions such as product commercialization, enterprise marketing and customer experience, data and analytics, medical transformation and learning and development solutions. It mainly caters to biotech firms and medical device makers, and has presence in the US, UK, Europe, China, Japan and India.

The company reported a net profit of ₹ 163 crore on revenue of ₹1,665 crore in FY22.

As of June-end, Indegene had 52 active clients, including 19 of the 20 largest, global biopharmaceutical companies. Indegene derives 66% of its revenue from North America, 27% from Europe, and 7% from other markets.

It catered to the domestic market until 2004 and later diversified into the overseas market. A little later, Infosys co-founder N.S. Raghavan’s Nadathur Holdings invested in the firm, offering an exit to KITVEN Fund, which had invested in 2002.

The company has been driving delivery excellence from six operational hubs and 16 offices located across North America, Europe and Asia. In the quarter ended June 2022, Indegene reported a net profit of ₹86 crore on revenue of ₹521 crore.

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“The mining major has ambitious and capital-intensive Projects lined up and this Standard Bidding Document will ensure greater efficiency in awarding, executing and monitoring contracts,” said Ministry of Steel. 

NMDC has reviewed its existing Standard Bidding Document and updated it with best practices adopted across the industry. 

“The Standard Bidding Document makes Project Management and Monitoring, Scheduling of Work, Price Evaluation, Payment Advice, Flagging of Issues and Dispute Resolution simpler and easier, thereby enhancing ease of doing business with NMDC,” the ministry added. 

The CPSE has prepared a comprehensive and all-encompassing document that will serve as a model for all its turnkey projects. Enabling geo-tagging of milestones, this initiative will boost the digital environment at NMDC. 

“The Standard Bidding Document will help NMDC retain and comply with 4 axioms of Public Procurement – Transparency, Equity, Fairness, and Competitiveness. With this kind of document in place, NMDC will become a global entity that the world will aspire to work with,” said Sumit Deb, CMD, NMDC. 

The initiative to release the Standard Bidding Document comes at a crucial business point for NMDC. It will reduce the preparation time of tender documents and enhance confidence and comfort levels of the bidder, said Shri Dilip Kumar Mohanty, Director (Production), NMDC. 

“The Standard Bidding Document will ease our exercise for tenders and contracts and also improve efficiency and decision- making process in the organization. This approach will reduce time in awarding contracts and is to be followed judiciously,” said Somnath Nandi, Director (Technical).

The lender claimed an amount of ₹149.60 crore, which has been disputed by ZEEL, said a regulatory update from the media major.

Under section 7 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, the IDBI Bank filed an application claiming to be a financial creditor, before NCLT for initiation of Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process against the company, it added.

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“The bank’s purported claim arises under a Debt Service Reserve Agreement entered into by the bank and the company for the financial facility availed by Siti Networks Ltd,” it said.

“ZEEL is vehemently disputing the bank’s claim in other proceedings filed by the bank against the company for recovery of its alleged dues,” it added further.

Formerly known as SITI Cable Network, SITI Networks is a part of the Essel Group and provides its cable services at 580 locations and adjoining areas, reaching out to over 11.3 million digital customers.

Earlier in April, Housing Development Finance Corporation Ltd (HDFC) moved NCLT against the country’s leading multi-system operator SITI Networks Ltd for alleged default of ₹296 crore.

With PTI inputs.

“The control samples of the aforementioned drugs were drawn and sent for test and analysis to Regional Drug Testing Laboratory, (RDTL) Chandigarh by the investigating team. As per report of the Government Analyst, the samples have been declared to be of standard quality. The said samples were also found negative for both Diethylene Glycol (DEG) and Ethylene Glycol (EG),” Bhagwanth Khuba, MoS, ministry of chemical and fertilizers stated in Rajya Sabha. 

It may be noted that in October the World Health Organisation issued an alert against four cough and cold syrups made by Maiden, saying that it might be linked to the Gambia deaths. As a result, Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) in coordination with State Drug Controller, Haryana carried out investigation at the firm to ascertain the facts that allegedly led to the death of 66 children in Gambia. 

During the investigation, it was revealed that the state drug controller had given licenses to the company for manufacture of four drugs namely Promethazine Oral Solution BP, KOFEXMALIN Baby Cough Syrup, MaKOFF Baby Cough syrup and MaGrip n Cold Syrup, for export purpose only. The Haryana drug regulator issued a show cause notice to the firm directing them to immediately stop all the manufacturing activities. 

“These 4 drugs are not licensed for manufacture and sale in India and the said drugs are not marketed or distributed in India. There is no observable impact on the Indian Pharma Export in the past few months, that can be attributed to this incident,” said Khuba in response to the questions made by Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member Jebi Mather Hisham on measures to ensure safety, quality, and standards in pharma manufacturing. 

Besides, this Khuba informed that CDSCO has taken various regulatory measures to ensure the quality of medicines manufactured in the country. According to the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 to provide stringent penalties for manufacture of spurious and adulterated drugs. 

“Certain offences have also been made cognizable and non-bailable. States/UTs were requested to set up special courts for trial of offences under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act for speedy disposal. So far, 33 States have already set up designated special Courts,” the minister said. 

On 17th November, the government directed all manufacturers of drug formulation products to shall print or affix Bar Code or Quick Response Code on its primary packaging label which should include–(a) unique product identification code, (b) proper and generic name of the drug, (c) brand name, (d) name and address of the manufacturer, (e) batch number, (f) date of manufacturing, (g) date of expiry, and (h) manufacturing licence number.

As per the statement, this would be the second largest private capital raise transaction to take place in the Indian Banking Sector over the last two decades.

Yes Bank stated that the capital raise will further bolster the CET1 ratio of the bank to increase by nearly 400 bps (post-conversion of the equity share warrants) and aid the bank’s medium to long-term sustainable growth objectives.

Following this, Sunil Kaul, Managing Director and Financial Services Sector Lead for Carlyle in Asia, and Shweta Jalan, Managing Partner, Advent International, have been appointed as Additional directors to Yes Bank’s Board.

Prashant Kumar, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, YES BANK, said “We are extremely pleased to have two marquee global private equity investors – Carlyle and Advent International – as our partners to help fulfill the long-term strategy of the Bank.”

Kumar added, “The completion of the fundraise strengthens the Bank’s balance sheet and at the same time, allows us to further accelerate our investments in enhancing our capabilities and delivery platforms, both in digital and physical infrastructure. We are excited about the incremental opportunities that this partnership creates for us and are confident that both the investors will play a crucial role in the next growth phase of the Bank.”

Also, this marks the completion of the Bank’s capital raise which was approved by the Board of Directors on July 29, 2022, and subsequently by the shareholders of the Bank on August 24, 2022, followed by receipt of requisite regulatory approvals.

On BSE, Yes Bank shares traded at ₹22.60 apiece down by 5.64%. In the early deals, Yes Bank shares did touch a new 52-week high of ₹24.75 apiece before correcting. Currently, Yes Bank shares witness profit booking as investors cash in previous sessions gain. In a month, Yes Bank shares have skyrocketed by more than 44%. Its market cap is over ₹56,753 crore.

“For the given project REPL will review existing Master Plan and then formulate the GIS based Master Plan 2041 of the earmarked regions keeping into consideration the environmental sustainability, infrastructure & transport provision, Industrial development, effective land use management and spatial growth management,” said a press release.

REPL will evaluate various aspects of town planning including building structure, roads, land uses, parking, industrial policy, water supplies, drainage, sanitation, land sustainability in environmentally sensitive areas and opportunity of economic growth of region etc. while developing the master plan for horizon year 2041.

This will include spatial attribute collection, ground truthing, and vetting of base maps, collection of socio-economic data and comprehensive assessment of the existing situation and identification of the general trends of socio-economic development at the regional level.

“The project is divided into six stages and is expected to be completed in 18 months,” it added.

“Uttarakhand is a land of promise and possibilities where development needs to be undertaken keeping into consideration ecological balance. The existing master plans have become outdated and need a modern-day approach to accelerate the growth in the region. Technology is playing a defining role in the infrastructure development of the country,“ Pradeep Misra, CMD-REPL said.

“We have been working on various projects across India using advance and innovative Geospatial technology for quite a long time. Enhanced visibility from the GIS technology enables the authorities to plan the development more effectively. Our expertise has enabled us in executing these projects with greater efficiency and now that experience will help us accomplish this project with precision,” he added.

“Preparation of GIS-based master plan has become extremely important for effective planning of a city. While preparing the master plan we will do a detailed analysis of urban sprawl, study of existing land use, assessment for future needs, determination of suitability of available land for various activities/uses, planning of new road links, reserving land for public facilities and services, zoning and framing suitable development promotion and control regulations,“ Prabhakar Kumar, AVP & HoD-Urban Planning-REPL said.

“For the given project, we will undertake both primary and secondary data collection including land use survey, socio-economic, traffic, transportation, environment sensitivity & land sustainability and other surveys to identify the specific requirements of the region and their corresponding solutions,” he added.

Apart from this, REPL is already working on various infrastructure and planning projects for both the state and central government including Smart Cities, PMAY, BIM consultancy for Chennai Metro, GIS-Based master plans under AMRUT, water supply system, street vending plans, online building plan approval system, National Highways etc.

“To reduce its carbon footprint, IEX voluntarily cancelled CERs (certified emissions reductions) from clean projects registered under the Clean Development Mechanism of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,” it said.

“We are honoured to achieve another milestone as a carbon-neutral exchange, as we further our commitment towards India’s net zero ambitions. This achievement is yet another milestone in our 15-year journey towards enabling India’s energy transition in a sustainable manner,” said SN Goel, chairman and managing director at IEX.

IEX’s commitment towards climate mitigation will support corporates and industries who want to be associated with an environmentally responsible organisation and will enable them to contribute towards the critical challenge of climate change.

According to the UNEP 2022 report, global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions must be cut 45% by 2030 to get on track to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. Total global GHG emissions were estimated at around 53 GTCO2eq in 2021.

The recently concluded COP 27 reiterated the need to ramp-down GHG emissions. India has set a target to net zero emissions by 2070.

IEX said it is committed to fulfilling India’s net zero emissions target by creating an ecosystem for reducing emissions.

In becoming India’s first carbon-neutral power exchange, IEX had EKI Energy as the sustainability partner, which provided it with advisory and consultancy services in this climate action exercise, said a press release.

State-run power giant NTPC on Wednesday said that the company plans to raise ₹500 crore through the issuance of unsecured, non-convertible debentures on a private placement.

The company said that the bonds will be issued at a coupon rate of 7.44 per cent p.a. with a maturity of 10 years 3 months.

“NTPC has decided to issue unsecured non-convertible debentures of Rs.500 crore on 16.12.2022, through private placement at a coupon of 7.44% p.a. with a door to door maturity of 10 years 3 months 30 days on 15.04.2033,” NTPC said in a regulatory filing.

The proceeds will be utilized for funding of capital expenditure, refinancing of existing loans and other general corporate purposes. The debentures are proposed to be listed on BSE.

“These debentures are being issued under the recommendation of board resolution dated 29.07.2022 and subsequent approval obtained through shareholders’ resolution dated 30.08.2022,” the regulatory filing stated.

This is the first issue of debentures under the mentioned approval, the filing stated.

NTPC registered over 5.5% growth in standalone net profit to ₹3,331.20 crore for the quarter ending September 30, 2022 (Q2FY23) compared to a PAT of ₹3,156.74 crore in the same quarter of FY22. However, Q2 PAT declined by 10.4% from ₹3,716.96 crore in the preceding quarter.

Standalone revenue from operations stood at ₹41,015.14 crore in Q2FY23 rising by 39.17% from ₹29,471.16 crore in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal. In Q1FY23, NTPC registered a revenue of ₹40,026.25 crore. Sequentially, revenue rose by 2.5% in Q2FY23.

The company’s scrip was up by 1.36 per cent at ₹171.50 on BSE