Daily News Digest- 20th Nov'14

Thought of the Day:

Today in History:

Following made the Headlines:

India:

• Zomato Adding More Zing, Mops up Rs 370 Crore: Zomato has raised $60 million (₹ 370 crore) in a funding round that quadruples its valuation as investors bet that the online restaurant guide has the potential to become a significant global player. Vy Capital, founded by a former associate of Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, has joined Zomato as its new financial backer, partnering with existing investors Info Edge and Sequoia Capital to value the Gurgaon-based company at $660 million (about ₹ 4,070 crore).` Zomato, the ET Startup of the Year 2014, will use the money to expand more aggressively overseas as it eyes larger acquisitions and competes to be a global leader in its business. Silicon Valley-based Vy Capital benchmarked the valuation while Info Edge and Sequoia Capital participated to maintain their shareholding. Info Edge's share of the investment was ₹ 185 crore. This round of funding had also seen interest from investors like private equity firm General Atlantic and Chinese hedge fund Hillhouse Capital. But sources said they were looking at a deal valuation of $400-450 million. Zomato is currently present in 18 countries. It has acquired four companies in the last few months, including MenuMania in New Zealand, Lunchtime in the Czech Republic, Obedovat in Slovakia and Gastronauci in Poland. “These acquisitions have worked well for us. Now we are looking at bigger acquisitions, which includes similar players in new geographies and companies that can help us expand our service portfolio,” said 31-year-old founder CEO Deepinder Goyal. Zomato plans to expand to 14 more countries across Europe, Southeast Asia, Australia and the Americas. The company currently has seven overseas acquisitions in the pipeline.

• In a First, Uber Driving in Low-Cost Cabs here: In a global first, Uber Technologies will on Thursday launch lowcost service UberGo exclusively for the Indian market, its fastest-growing territory outside the US, posing a threat to rival taxi aggregators such as OlaCabs and TaxiForSure. The company said the service will be as cheap as travelling by autorickshaw. UberGo will use hatch backs for ferrying customers who will be charged 40 as base fare plus ₹ 11-12 per km and ₹ 1 per minute. This is much less than the base fare of ₹ 2 per minute 75, and per km rate of ₹ 18 for premium service UberBlack. It's also below the base fare of ₹ 2 per minute and ₹ 50, ₹ 15 per km tariff charged by UberX, which will now become its mid-range service. The UberGo service will be offered in the 10 cities where the company has operations and has been tailormade for India, which has a taxi market estimated at as much as $9 billion.

• Reliance Retail, Cherokee Tie up to Develop new Fashion Label: Reliance Retail and US firm Cherokee Global Brands are jointly developing a new fashion brand that will be retailed through Reliance Trends outlets to tap the growing demand for such products in the country. The two companies on Wednesday said they have entered into a “longterm” licensee agreement to develop what will be value brand, which they plan to subsequently expand globally. “For years, we have been impressed with the quality of brands, managed and developed by Cherokee Global Brands and are now excited to partner with them on this key initiative,” said Akhilesh Prasad, CEO at Reliance Trends. The Nasdaq-listed Cherokee owns various fashion and lifestyle brands including Cherokee, Tony Hawk and Liz Lange. “We are excited to partner with Reliance on this endeavour and continue developing relationships with world-class retailers in all major markets,” said Howard Siegel, president & COO at Cherokee Global Brands. This would be the second agreement for Cherokee in India as it has licenced Arvind Brands to manufacture and sell its label in the country.

• Game On! Flipkart's Bansals Among Angel Investors Funding Start-up: The poster boys of ecommerce in India, Flipkart founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, have made an investment in an offline games start-up MadRat Games. The other investors who have participated in the funding round of about $1 million (about ₹ 6.2 crore) include the founders of IT outsourcing firm GlobalLogic – Rajul Garg, Sanjay Singh, Manoj Agarwala and Tarun Upadhyay. MadRat, founded in 2010, started out by launching a Hindi word game Aksharit. Since then, the company started by IIT graduates Rajat Dhariwal, Manuj Dhariwal and Madhumita Halder has launched over 70 board games, puzzles and toys. The young firm, which distributes its products primarily through offline stores, plans to use the funds for branding, marketing and expansion. Its existing investors Blume Ventures and First Light Ventures did not participate in this round.

• GreenDust Owner Looking to Raise $125-m Global Kitty: Refurbished goods retailer Reverse Logistics Corps, which owns and operates GreenDust.com, is in talks with global hedge and wealth funds to raise about Rs 772 crore) in an$125 million (.other round of funding. Among those the Delhibased company is talking to for Series B capital are Temasek, the sovereign investment arm of the government of Singapore, and hedge fund Falcon Edge Capital, according to two persons privy to the development. Separately, two Middle Eastbased sovereign funds and a Far East-based family office are also believed to be in the running to buy a stake in GreenDust, a transaction that could potentially value the company at between $375 million (₹ 2,300 crore) and $400 million (₹ 2,470 crore). GreenDust founder Hitendra Chaturvedi and Temasek spokesperson Stephen Foreshaw declined to comment on the developments. An email query sent to Falcon Edge Capital remained unanswered till as of press time. The company refurbishes damaged or defective electronic products and sells them on the portal and through offline stores. The company is expected to earn ₹ 1,200 crore revenue in the current fiscal. It had a topline of ₹ 618 crore in 2013-14.

• Aerocity Hotels Told to Install Facial Recognition Software: Hotels at the hospitality district near the Delhi airport are now installing facial recognition software in line with the latest addition in the Delhi Police’s tight security norms, which have already caused big delays and cost overruns for hoteliers at Aerocity. Mid-Market operator Lemon Tree Hotels has already installed a facial recognition software by NEC in its Aerocity property. “We have put in place NEC Face Recognition Solution (FRS). With this security agencies will be giving us a black-list and we will also be creating a 'white-list' whereby which we will be able to recognise our regular guests,” said Rahul Pandit, president and executive director at Lemon Tree Hotels. “Our guests will be happy with this as they will be entering a more secure place,” he said. Most hoteliers and industry consultants, however, feel facial recognition software — which identify and verify a person from one’s facial features — is not critical and only adds to their expenses as it costs a few crores of rupees to install and maintain this software and additional cameras around the hotel to capture visitors’ facial features.

• Tesla to Drive in to India with New Sedan at Attractive Price: Tesla Motors, the world’s most successful electric car maker, plans to enter the Indian market with its upcoming sedan that will be priced at less than half of its existing model even as the country’s high import duty remains a big obstacle, a top executive said. Tesla is working on its third-generation car — a smaller and affordable four-door sedan code named Tesla Model 3 — to target emerging markets like India. “Our target price for Model 3 is in the range of $30,000 to $40,000 (approx ₹ 18-24 lakh) that makes it an ideal product in the luxury car segment,” said Jay Vijayan, chief information officer at Tesla Motors. Its existing vehicle, Tesla Model S, is priced in excess of $100,000 (around ₹ 61 lakh). “India is a huge potential market, but we need to have more affordable and economical cars,” Vijayan said. He said support from the Indian government like its US counterpart, where each electric car is bundled with at least $7,500 direct subsidy, would be a key to bring its cars to Indian customers.

• Firstcry.com's offline store count reaches 100-mark: Online baby products portal Firstcry's offline store count has touch the 100-mark. It now has an offline presence in 82 cities and towns. In May the company had 70 stores, all through the franchise format. The brand pursues what is known as the 'kiosk innovation model', where buyers can browse through the inventory and order online as a part of its omni-channel strategy to tap small towns. "With 100 stores, we believe in creating a seamless experience, offering purchasing flexibility for parents through the mobile, web and offline store formats," said Supam Maheshwari, founder and chief executive of Firstcry. The company plans to expand its offline reach to 400 stores by end of 2017.

• Delhi's Khan Market is India's most expensive retail location: National capital's upscale Khan Market continues to be the most expensive place to hire a shop in the country, even though its ranking worldwide has dropped by three notches to 31st position. "India's Khan Market has slipped in global ranking for retail main street locations by three spots to be ranked at 31 from its previous position of 28," property consultant Cushman & Wakefield said in a statement. "Khan Market in NCR, which is the most expensive retail location in India, saw no change in rental from the last year, remaining on an average rental of Rs 1,250/sq ft a month," it added. The fall in ranking is due to fluctuation in rupee value against the US dollar. C&W, in its annual report 'Main Streets across the World 2014' ranked New York's Upper 5th Avenue as the most expensive location in the world overtaking Causeway Bay in Hong Kong.

International:

• Singapore tops ranking of best place to do business: Wealthy city-state Singapore has once again topped a ranking of the best places in the world to do business. The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) ranked Singapore as number one out of 82 countries for its "efficient [and] open economy". The tiny Asian island nation has been at the top of the rankings for seven consecutive years. Other countries ranked in the top five included Switzerland, Australia, Hong Kong and Sweden respectively. The rankings were based on the attractiveness of a country's business environment by looking criteria such as political climate, openness to foreign investment, taxes, the labour market and infrastructure. Last month, Singapore also topped the World Bank's ease of doing business report, which looked at 189 countries.

• Microsoft Azure faults knock websites offline: Faults with Microsoft's cloud computing platform have knocked many third-party sites offline, as well as disrupting the US firm's own products. Microsoft Azure's status page says problems began at 00:52 GMT across the globe. Its European operations are taking the longest to fix. Access to Microsoft's Office 365 online suite of apps and its Xbox Live gaming facility are among services affected. The faults could set back the company's efforts to sell Azure. Microsoft is attempting to make gains on the market leader, Amazon Web Services, as well as IBM, Google and others offering rival products. Their pitch is that it is more efficient for companies to rent computing power from a large tech firm than owning and managing their own computer servers or going to a smaller provider.

• ShopHQ Owner Changes Name to Evine Live: The company known as ValueVision Media Inc., which operates the digital shopping platform ShopHQ, has changed its name to Evine Live after acquiring certain assets connected with evine.com. The company made the disclosure on the same day it posted third-quarter results that, on an adjusted basis, beat Wall Street’s earnings-per-share estimate. For the three months ended Nov. 1, the net loss was narrowed to $808,000, or 1 cent a diluted share, from a loss of $1.2 million, or 2 cents, a year ago. Net sales rose 6.6 percent to $157.1 million from $147.3 million. On an adjusted basis, net income was $1.6 million, or 3 cents a share, against a loss of $900,000, or 2 cents, a year ago. Wall Street was expecting an adjusted loss of 3 cents a share on sales of $158.1 million.

• San Francisco Passes Retail Schedules Rule: As retailers come under fire for scheduling their employees for fluctuating work shifts, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has taken the lead in mandating schedule certainty. On Tuesday, the board voted unanimously to enact a so-called Retail Workers Bill of Rights ordinance that would make San Francisco the first jurisdiction in the nation to address retail employee schedule unpredictability by requiring retailers to post work schedules 14 days in advance, and compensate workers for schedule changes or cancellations made with fewer than seven days notice and for unused on-call shifts. In addition, the ordinance orders retailers to give part-time workers the same starting rate of hourly pay, access to time off and promotion eligibility as their full-time counterparts. 

• Jon Nordeen Joins Hudson's Bay as CIO: A veteran of Target Corp., Nordeen was most recently with Kohl’s Corp. in a variety of positions, including executive vice president of merchandise planning and cio. Prior to joining Kohl’s, he was cio of Spiegel Group with responsibility for five divisions, including Eddie Bauer, Spiegel Catalog and Newport News Catalog. Based in New York, Nordeen will report to the Hudson’s Bay office of the chairman, comprising Richard Baker, chief executive officer, and Donald Watros, president. “With our focus on growth and innovation, Jon’s business experience and understanding of emerging technologies in the retail sector will be instrumental as we continue to execute our corporate strategy,” Baker said.

• Golesic Joins Canada Goose: Tanya Golesic has been named chief commercial officer at Canada Goose, a Toronto-based outerwear company. In her new post, she will oversee the company’s global wholesale business, including sales operations and planning. She reports to Dani Reiss, president and chief operating officer of Canada Goose, and will relocate to Toronto. Earlier, Golesic was senior vice president global sales and business planning at Marc by Marc Jacobs. Before that she was senior vice president of sales and planning at The Jones Group, and before that was vice president of sales and planning at Ralph Lauren Corp. She has also been vice president of sales and marketing at NYGÅRD International.

Tech:

• Big Retailers Keep Android One Out: India’s leading retailers have refused to sell Google’s Android One handsets in India since the US company chose to launch its products online, a development that highlights the growing friction between brick-and-mortar stores and online retailers. Tata-owned Croma, Future Group, Planet M Retail and Next Retail, BigC, Lot Mobiles, Reliance Retail and Sangeetha Mobiles — which together operate more than 1,800 stores — have not stocked any of the three Android One smartphones launched so far, five senior industry executives said on the condition of anonymity. Micromax, Karbonn and Spice, the three Android One makers, used the online platform to launch the Android One handsets in mid-September, but recently decided to tap the brick-and-mortar stores as sales failed to gather pace. “Since Android One decided not to sell in physical stores during its launch, we as part of modern trade, have decided not to stock Android One either,” said Sangeetha Mobiles MD Subhash Chandra.

• Now, WhatsApp too Encrypts User Messages: Facebook’s WhatsApp is adding encryption so messages can’t be deciphered when stored or travelling between devices, boosting efforts by technology companies to thwart snooping by hackers and government spies. WhatsApp, which was acquired by Facebook for $22 billion this year, is working with startup Open Whisper Systems to enact the change, the companies said on Tuesday. Open Whisper Systems said in a blog post that it has been working on encryption with the mobile-messaging service for the past six months. A WhatsApp representative declined to comment beyond confirming the encryption. Google and Apple, among other technology companies, have also recently expanded their use of encryption on mobile communications. The moves have drawn praise from privacy advocates and criticism from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other law enforcement agencies for potentially hindering criminal investigations. US Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI director James Comey are among those who have said that they glean essential information from the contents of phones seized in criminal investigations.

• Mozilla Switching Default Firefox Search Engine To Yahoo: Mozilla has announced on its blog today that its default search engine will be changing to Yahoo for US customers. The company stated on its blog that “Google has been the Firefox global search default since 2004. Our agreement came up for renewal this year, and we took this as an opportunity to review our competitive strategy and explore our options.” After evaluating partnerships, Mozilla said that one stood out from the rest: Yahoo. Yahoo will become the default search engine for the US beginning in December, featuring an “enhanced Yahoo search experience.” In Russia, the default search engine will become Yandex and in China it will remain as Baidu.

• Google Acquires iOS Prototyping Startup ReadyWave: RelativeWave, the company behind Form which helps you build native prototypes of your app directly on mobile devices, has been acquired by Google. In a note on the RelativeWave site today, the team announced they are joining Google to continue their work on Form, saying that “want to get Form in the hands of as many people as possible, and this is our first step in accomplishing that goal.” Form allows designers and developers to create rich interactive app prototypes for iOS that run on device and have full access to the camera and other sensors. Form was only announced to the public in September. As part of the acquisition, the team has made Form free on the Mac App Store. The team didn’t share how much their company has been acquired for. If you purchased Form previously, the company says they’re happy to issue a refund to those that get in touch.

• Beats Music Will Reportedly Be Bundled Into An iOS Update: After Apple’s purchase of Beats earlier this year, it was only a matter of time until the company started pushing customers to use its music streaming service. A report today by Financial Times says that Beats Music will be rolled into a future iOS update, maybe even as soon as March 2015. Apple bundles a number of its apps into iOS, like Podcasts, but this would be the first time it has included a new paid service in an iOS update. This would mark Apple’s first push into full music streaming. iTunes Radio, which launched in 2013, only allows users to select a genre or track they like and listen to an automatically generated radio station.

• BitTorrent's Dropbox Competitor Sync Hits Version 2.0: Today BitTorrent is announcing a big upgrade for its P2P Dropbox competitor, BitTorrent Sync. As the app hits version 2.0 and sheds the ‘beta’ tag, the company is introducing a number of new features catered to power users and IT departments. The main difference in 2.0 is that the app now offers a premium subscription for users that need to share a lot of data or collaborate in professional works. Sync Pro is also looking to undercut its competitors in price – its subscription is fixed at $39.99 per year, compared to prices above the $80 dollar range for Dropbox and Google Drive. BitTorrent says it’s able to set its price so low because it doesn’t have to maintain huge numbers of centralized servers. But the company says there are more advantages than just the price: because Sync runs on P2P connections, the company claims it can always find the quickest pathway between devices. For instance, users don’t even need to be connected to the internet in order to share files – Sync will route files through a local network if both users are on it. Furthermore, the direct pathway also means it’s easier to share large files, something that’s been particularly difficult to and from mobile devices. Whereas Apple users can use AirDrop, that’s limited to iOS and OS X – Sync lets your work on many more. In fact, BitTorrent is planning on releasing a separate app for this purpose alone.