Zomato and Zepto will raise more money, TSMC raises guidance in today’s startup news digest

Zepto’s valuation is likely to remain at $5 billion, unchanged since August 2024. This would be Zepto’s third fundraising round in the last four months. Founders Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra would have raised over $1 billion in 2024 alone, after the next funding.

Zomato has announced that its board will review raising funds through qualified institutional placements (QIP) on October 22, as per a regulatory filing. The board will also approve the company’s second-quarter results on the same day, with an earnings call scheduled for 5 p.m. IST. The new capital from the QIP could help Zomato expand its ‘going-out’ division, especially after acquiring Paytm’s ticketing arm for ₹2,048 crore. The company has seen increasing demand for exclusive event tickets on its platform.

In the first quarter of the current financial year ending March 2025, Zomato reported a surge in net profit to ₹253 crore, up from ₹2 crore a year earlier. Revenue grew 74%, driven by its quick commerce unit Blinkit. However, fierce competition in the quick-commerce sector, with rivals Zepto, Swiggy Instamart, Flipkart Minutes, BigBasket, and JioMart, continues to pose challenges.

IPO-bound Ecom Express will cut costs to boost profit margin ahead of IPO. Ecom Express, an e-commerce logistics provider, is focused on cost rationalisation to boost margins ahead of its ₹2,600 crore IPO, sources told CNBC-TV18. Backed by PG Esmeralda and Warburg Pincus, Ecom Express has filed draft papers for its ₹2,600 crore IPO with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) in August. According to sources, Ecom Express is actively working to optimise its cost structure through continuous re-engineering of network design, technology initiatives, innovations in its operating model, and process improvements.

Top-level reshuffle at Uber: Two executives, Chief Product Officer Sundeep Jain and the head of engineering – delivery Anirban Kundum who left the ride-hailing giant on Wednesday, October 16. Sundeep Jain’s next steps remain unclear, whereas Anirban Kundu has joined grocery delivery company Instacart as its new Chief Technology Officer. Confirming Sundeep Jain’s departure, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced in a LinkedIn post the promotion of Sachin Kansal (Vice President – Product Management) to Chief Product Officer.

In the same post, Khosrowshahi also announced that Praveen Neppalli Naga (Vice President & Global Head of Mobility Engineering) will step up as Chief Technology Officer for Mobility & Delivery. The CTO role had been vacant for around three years following the departure of former Amazon and Microsoft executive Sukumar Rathnam in 2021. File Photo: Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber, speaks at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in San Francisco, California, U.S., November 15, 2023. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Stride Green, a new-age asset finance and management platform for sustainable businesses, aims to facilitate asset-level financing of up to $500 million, underscoring its mission to drive India’s green transition. With a key focus on enabling green mobility, Stride Green has been helping large and small fleet operators, as well as drivers, to own electric assets.

So far, over 1,500 electric vehicles and hyperchargers have been financed with partnerships that span across all leading original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) including TATA, Switch Mobility, Bajaj, Mahindra, Euler, Omega Seiki, Ola Electric, Zen Mobility etc. The platform, which is a part of Stride Ventures, initially focused on enabling the electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem but is rapidly expanding to support key climate sectors such as renewable energy, green hydrogen, waste management, and circular economy solutions.

Budy.Bot, GreyOrange founder’s latest venture, secures $4.2 million funding led by RTP Global. Budy.bot is an AI-driven agent designed to simplify the deployment and management of sales and marketing software stacks. The latest round also saw participation from BeeNext, The Neon Fund, BITS SPARK Angels and a group of over 15 angel investors including Raju Reddy, Abhinav Asthana (CEO & Co-founder of Postman), John Hayes (Co-founder of Pure Storage), Bruno Kurtic (Co-founder of Sumo Logic) and past executives of GreyOrange, among others. The startup was founded by Samay Kohli, who has also co-founded GreyOrange, a leader in AI-driven software and robotics systems that are used for automating supply chain operations and warehouse fulfillment by Fortune 100 companies such as Walmart, Nike, H&M, GAP and others.

Meta layoffs: WhatsApp, and Instagram have cut jobs, according to a report by The Verge on October 17. The Verge report did not specify the exact number of job cuts but mentioned that they were small. Meta did not comment on the numbers.

TSMC raises revenue outlook showing confidence in the AI boom. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. raised its target for 2024 revenue growth after quarterly results beat estimates, allaying concerns about global chip demand and the sustainability of a boom in hardware for artificial intelligence, as per a report by Bloomberg.

The main chipmaker for Nvidia Corp. and Apple Inc., now expects sales to climb 30% this year, up sharply from previous projections for a maximum mid-20% rise. That’s after TSMC reported better-than-predicted earnings for the September quarter. It foresees capital expenditure of a little more than $30 billion in 2024 — in line with previous expectations. TSMC’s raised outlook should help tamp down fears that investors misjudged the AI demand. Its shares have surged more than 70% this year, outpacing many of Asia’s biggest tech firms in a reflection of strong sales of the Nvidia Corp. chips vital to artificial intelligence development.