India’s first listed e-commerce entity, Infibeam Avenues is doubling down on its fintech play with an investment of Rs 250 crore to build a backend blockchain enabled fintech platform catering to BFSIs, SMBs, and corporates. The move is in line with the company’s continued focus to divest its non-core businesses including consumer marketplace (B2C) and […]
Archives for 2019
Amazon looks to clean up rivals with private label Presto
Image Credit: Getty Amazon, which had quietly launched its own range of home-cleaning products under Presto! in India last year, has been significantly undercutting the prices of best-selling brands in the category such as Harpic, Lizol and Pril, to name a few. The drive to grow its private-label business in the FMCG category comes even […]
Your binge-watching habit is creating jobs
Two years ago, 25-year-old Animesh Panwar was fretting over how to cough up next month’s rent for the Andheri flat he shared with three others and even debating whether to return to Ajmer, the hometown he left two years earlier to make it big in the fickle world of entertainment. The work the aspiring director […]
Emails, hashed passwords of 18m Ixigo users stolen
User data of 18 million, largely email IDs and hashed passwords, were allegedly stolen from online travel aggregation platform Ixigo. This is part of a broader data steal that saw user information being leaked from seven other global sites, including home improvement website Houzz. Ixigo founder and CEO Aloke Bajpai told TOI the company will […]
Infosys offers digital courses for engineering students
Infosys has launched a digital learning platform, offering curated content targeted at engineering students in their third and fourth years. The idea is to create more industry-ready talent among fresh graduates. The InfyTQ (talent quotient) app, as it is called, was rolled out on Friday in Mysuru with 300 colleges participating in the event. Students […]
E-commerce companies may adapt to new FDI Rules: Doug DeVos
“Ecommerce marketplaces are just going to have to find some new ways to operate and adjust their business models,” said Amway Corp co-chairman Doug DeVos, referring to India’s revised guidelines on foreign direct investment (FDI) in the sector that took effect on February 1. “Ecommerce isn’t going to stop.” Online sales for the maker of […]
Amazon, Flipkart in talks for minority stake in Hopscotch
E-commerce majors Amazon and Flipkart are in talks with Hopscotch to buy a significant minority stake in the six-year-old company that sells kids’ apparel online, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said. Hopscotch has appointed Barclays as the investment banker to raise up to $60 million (Rs 428 crore) to fund its expansion […]
Facebook taps user data to defend network, workers from threat
Facebook gathers intelligence from its platform to identify people who threaten the firm or its workers, the social network said on Thursday in response to media reports of the security tactic. CNBC reported that it interviewed more than a dozen former Facebook security employees, some of whom questioned the ethics of what was portrayed as […]
Brightcove to acquire Ooyala’s online video platform business
Nasdaq-listed Brightcove, a leading provider of cloud services for video, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the online video platform (OVP) business of Ooyala, a provider of cloud video technology. Brightcove is acquiring Ooyala’s OVP technology, including video content management and publishing platform Backlot, analytics, live, and underlying IP and associated patents. As […]
Alibaba-backed Paytm wants to cash in on Amazon’s India distress
By Saritha Rai India’s online retail industry has been in turmoil since the government implemented stringent new rules to rein in major players like Amazon and Walmart’s Flipkart. Amid the uproar, Vijay Shekhar Sharma — whose two-year-old Paytm Mall is backed by Alibaba Group — is quietly devising ways to outstrip his rivals. The new […]