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It’s time for a clean-up!

WhatsApp banned more than 75 lakh Indian accounts in October that were violating its terms of service—3X more than in October last year. The move aims to combat abuse, with nearly 19 lakh accounts banned proactively.

Meanwhile, the combined market valuation of nine of the top 10 most valued firms climbed more than 1.3 lakh crore last week, with Bharti Airtel and TCS emerging as the biggest gainers. The BSE benchmark jumped 1,511 points or 2.29%

Speaking of the stock market, the market capitalisation of NSE-listed companies surpassed the $4-trillion mark for the first time ever. The BSE hit this milestone on November 29.

In more good news, foreign portfolio investors (FPI) turned net buyers in the stock market in November after selling for three months. FPI inflows into Indian equities in November stood at Rs 9,001 crore.

And lastly, can sound cure cancer? The US FDA approved treatment using sound waves to break down tumours in the liver—a technique called histotripsy.

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about

Inside Whatfix’s growth strategy
Streamlining event planning

Here’s your trivia for today: Which is the longest above-water mountain range?

SaaS

Inside Whatfix's growth strategy

SoftBank-backed enterprise SaaS startup Whatfix has been working on diversifying its product line-up to maintain revenue growth. Over the last year and a half, the company has focused on building a suite of products for its digital adoption platform (DAP) keeping “userisation” at the core.

"Whatfix wants to promote userisation layer for all critical software such as ERP, CRM and back-end software, while making sure that the security of critical software is not compromised,” says CEO and Co-founder Khadim Batti.

Diversification:

According to Batti, the contribution of non-web or desktop mobile DAP, along with enterprise analytics and simulation products to Whatfix’s revenue will likely double in the next 12-18 months, from 10% at present.
The company saw its revenue from operations rising by nearly 66% for FY23 to Rs 284.7 crore from Rs 172.4 crore in FY22.
It also managed to double its Annual Contract Value (ACV) over the last nine months, with nearly 65% contribution from new customers.

Startup

Making event operations more productive

EventHQ is an EventOps and intelligence platform to help enterprise companies make their event operations and marketing more streamlined. EventHQ’s unified system ensures the unification of event data by streamlining information flow, automating engagement, and offering in-depth RoI analytics.

Assessing RoI:

EventHQ provides analytics and intelligence before the event, and after the conference, maps out all the revenue data to help companies assess the return on investment.
Its event management tools are designed to assist with tasks such as defining event objectives, choosing a venue, budgeting, marketing, registration, programme development, and logistics planning.
EventHQ’s current target market primarily focuses on enterprise-tech companies. It is looking to go beta in the near future.

News & updates

Not all is well: Amazon's Q, the AI chatbot for workers its cloud division unveiled recently, appears to have a few issues. Employees using the chatbot said Q could potentially reveal confidential information—including the location of AWS data centres or unreleased features—according to leaked internal communications obtained by Platformer.
Drug discovery: AstraZeneca has signed a deal worth up to $247mn with Absci Corporation of the US to design an antibody to fight cancer, the latest tie-up in fast-expanding efforts to use artificial intelligence for drug discovery. The collaboration aims to harness Absci’s AI technology for large-scale protein analysis to find a viable oncology therapy
Flop show: Pfizer’s twice-daily version of its experimental weight loss pill has now joined a long list of other scrapped drugs that aimed to treat obesity. The drugmaker will stop developing the twice-daily treatment, danuglipron, after obese patients taking the drug lost significant weight but experienced high rates of adverse side effects in a midstage clinical trial.

What you should watch out for

Climate action: The COP28 Summit in the UAE is in full swing. At least 118 countries have signed a pledge to triple the world's current renewable energy generation capacity by 2030. India, however, was not a signatory to the agreement. The country has already committed to installing 300 GW of electricity from non-fossil fuels by 2030. The COP28 conference will go on till December 12.
Interest rate: The RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) headed by RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das is scheduled to begin its three-day deliberations. The RBI has left the benchmark repo rate unchanged in its past four bi-monthly monetary policy. It last hiked the repo rate to 6.5% in February in the aftermath of the Russia-Ukraine war.

Which is the longest above-water mountain range?

Answer: The Andes. The range is 7,000 km long, stretching through seven countries in South America.

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[YS TV] Ashish Gupta, MD, Helion Ventures

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