| June 22, 2022 |  | | Hello Reader
The Indian startup ecosystem is seeing glimmers of hope amid the otherwise dreary market conditions.
Software-as-a-service company LeadSquared became the 18th startup this year to cross the billion-dollar valuation mark and enter the coveted unicorn club. The Bengaluru-based sales automation platform raised $153 million in a Series C funding round from WestBridge Capital.
Also, Matrix Partners India announced its fourth fund which will have a corpus of $450 million. The leading venture capital firm plans to invest in emerging startups, joining other VC firms including Sequoia Capital, Accel, and Elevation Capital that have launched India-focused funds.
Meanwhile, YourStory is hosting the week-long MSME India Summit 2022—from June 21 to June 27— to discuss the challenges and the opportunities in the MSME sector. While Day 1 saw panellists discuss the way forward for small businesses, Day 2 will focus on what it takes for MSMEs to get listed on the bourses. Don’t miss out on all the action!
In today’s newsletter, we will talk about Here’s your trivia for today: QR codes were invented back in 1994 as a way to track what?
| | | | Quick commerce | | Zomato vs Swiggy
|  | | There's a new frontier for India's foodtech industry: quick commerce. According to a RedSeer report, the country is now the fastest in the world to adopt quick commerce—with the sector expected to grow 15X to reach $5.5 billion in market value by 2025.
To conquer quick commerce, one must tame hyperlocal logistics, and this is where India's two foodtech giants—Zomato and Swiggy—are drawing their swords.
While Zomato has been slowly but steadily transforming itself from a foodtech venture to a logistics platform—priming the market to diversify its hyperlocal delivery network, Swiggy was built as a hyperlocal logistics platform from the get-go.
But while Swiggy can safely rely on its grocery delivery service InstaMart—which has expanded to 28 cities—as well as pick-up and drop service Genie, Zomato has been making advances to buy out BlinkIt (formerly Grofers).
Battling it out: -
While Zomato has been learning logistics tricks with each of its 10 acquisitions since 2014, Swiggy's acquisitions show its bent for diversification and hiring talent.
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Having run InstaMart for nearly two years, Swiggy has reduced its net loss from Rs 3,920 crore in FY20 to Rs 1,617 crore in FY21. Meanwhile, Zomato reduced its net loss by nearly three times during the same period.
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While at least 25 percent of Swiggy's gross merchandise value (GMV) in November 2021 was from non-foods businesses, Zomato took a 9.16 percent stake in Grofers India in August 2021. | | Read More | | | | | | | | $153 million | | LeadSquared
Series C | | | | | $15 million | | Immuneel Therapeutics
Series A | | | | | $14 million | | Vahak
Series A | | | | | Healthcare | | Inside Redcliffe Labs |  | | Despite the presence of over one lakh labs, the Indian diagnostic industry is highly fragmented and underpenetrated, according to a report by Edelweiss. The ecosystem includes hospitals, standalone centres, and larger chains. Organised diagnostic chains—including SRL Diagnostics, Metropolis Labs, and Dr Lal Path Labs—only have a 16 percent market share.
Losing two family members to cancer set Dheeraj Jain, Founder of Redcliffe Labs, on the path of addressing these gaps.
A serial entrepreneur, Dheeraj previously founded investment firm Redcliffe Capital, personal hygiene brand Peesafe, and Crysta, an end-to-end prenatal diagnostic services platform.
Incorporated in 2018 by Dheeraj, Redcliffe Labs, a unit of US-based Redcliffe Lifetech Inc, strives to provide affordable diagnostic tests and quicker results.
The checklist: -
Redcliffe Lifetech has five offerings—direct to consumer, direct to clinics and hospitals, specialised collection centres, radiology tests, and IVF. -
In March 2021, the startup raised about $2 million in a Pre-Series A funding round from Alkemi Venture Partners, Y Combinator, and LetsVenture, among others. -
About 40 percent of Redcliffe Lifetech’s revenue comes from online test bookings. The startup says its present annual revenue rate is $55-60 million, and aims to grow it to $100 million by September 2022. | | Read More | | | | | | Startup | | Helping SMBs grow online |  | | While small and medium businesses (SMBs) form the backbone of India's economy, the vast majority of them operate without any data insights.
Childhood friends Raja Chitharanjan and Vellayan Lakshmanan realised that there was a gap, especially for online marketplace sellers. In 2019, they founded ForceSight—a sales enablement software that provides end-to-end integrated technology-enabled solutions for SMBs.
ForceSight helps business owners get detailed information on all marketplace costs, ad spends, return costs, shipping, and GST for their SKUs—all in one single dashboard.
Key takeaways -
The Coimbatore-based startup offers a plug-in SaaS product that collects information from multiple marketplaces to derive intelligence. -
It also automates review request flows, payment reconciliation and sales defence. -
Out of 500 customers pan-India, 100 have taken subscriptions—each generating a monthly run rate of Rs 2,000. “ForceSight is well positioned to help new entrants and existing sellers to help scale their business with little effort,” says CEO and Co-founder Raja. | | Read More | | | | | | News & Updates | | | -
Insta cash : Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company is rolling out more ways for creators to make money on Facebook and Instagram, and is also expanding some of its current monetisation tools to more creators. The company is also testing a designated place on Instagram where creators can get discovered and paid for their content. -
Trimming workforce : Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, said a 10 percent cut in salaried staff at the electric car maker will happen over three months. The news comes amid fears of a possible recession in the US. -
It’s time for 5G : Swedish telecom equipment maker Ericsson expects global 5G mobile subscriptions to surpass 1 billion in 2022, helped by higher adoption in China and North America, according to the company’s biannual Mobility Report released on Tuesday.
| | | | | Here's what you should watch out for | | | - Day 2 of the YourStory’s India MSME Summit 2022. Register here to access the online event.
- Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will give his report on monetary policy to the US Senate.
| | | What do we have for you? | | |  | | Noida-based web and mobile application company AppSquadz has taken quite a journey since 2014 — from finding funds to start the company, to building a vital partnership with AWS. Today, their secured video streaming solution VideoCrypt is making waves in vernacular education. | | Read More |  | | As chatbots become a necessity across major industries, CM.com is helping brands enhance their customer experience through automated and scalable Conversational AI solutions services. | | Read More | | | | | | QR codes were invented back in 1994 as a way to track what? | | Answer: The QR code (short for Quick Response code) was invented in 1994 by former Toyota subsidiary Denso Wave as a means of quickly tracking vehicles and parts through their manufacturing process.
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