Binny Bansal's second innings; OLX acquires Aasaanjobs to strengthen job vertical

Tuesday January 08, 2019 , 4 min Read

Former Flipkart boss Binny Bansal is once again back in the news. This time, though, the buzz is surrounding his latest endeavour, called ‘021’ – a venture capital fund founded by Sailesh Tulshan, of which Binny Bansal is the anchor investor. Having garnered media attention already, 021 is said to have made its first close of $32 million. According to media reports, the fund raise saw limited partner participation from the Azim Premji Foundation, and other former employees of Flipkart.

Binny Bansal's second innings

What does a Flipkart Co-founder do after resigning from his position as group CEO at India’s top ecommerce Unicorn? He starts up again! Binny Bansal is teaming up with Saikiran “Saiki” Krishnamurthy, a former Senior Partner at global consultancy firm McKinsey, to launch xto10x Technologies, a tech startup that will address issues related to scaling up for growth-stage startups globally. The venture will offer tech tools and a learning platform for startups all over the world looking to scale up rapidly.

Zolostays raises $30 million in Series B led by IDFC Alternatives

The week is off to a great start for Bengaluru-based co-living startup Zolostays. After raising $5 million in Series A from Nexus Venture Partners, the company has latest secured a funding of $30 million in the Series B round. Among the participating investors were IDFC Alternatives, Mirae Asset and Nexus Venture Partners. “The idea is to get strategic help in real-estate, expansion in different geographies and corporate connects, with these strategic partnerships,” said Nikhil Sikri, Co-founder of Zolostays.

OLX Group acquires Aasaanjobs, plans to strengthen its job vertical

One step at a time, the OLX Group is strengthening its verticals while leveraging technology to the optimum level. Latest, the global online classifieds business leader announced the acquisition of Mumbai-based recruitment marketplace for blue and grey-collar jobs in India, called Aasaanjobs. With this acquisition, OLX plans to strengthen its job vertical to address the growing requirement of a 60 million urban workforce in India, valued at over $1 billion.

Tim Hilpert, OLX — Tim Hilpert, CEO- OLX Markets

Flipspaces, a VR-tech startup, raises $3.5 M from Carpediem Capital

Leveraging virtual reality for interior design services, Flipspaces has carved a niche for itself in the market. And it has no plans of slowing down in the future. The startup recently raised a fresh round of funding worth $3.5 million led by Carpediem Capital. In case you are wondering how it all works, it’s pretty simple. Flipspaces enables prospective customers to visualise home or office decor products that they browse on the website, in a virtual environment similar to their own.

Shell announces the second batch for E4 – and it includes two Tech30 startups!

After careful examination and evaluation, eight startups have been selected for incubation at the Shell Technology Centre Bangalore (STCB), including two of YourStory's Tech30 startups - Mobycy and AutoVRse. The second batch was announced after a successful cohort-1 of the E4 (Energizing and Enabling Energy Entrepreneurs) Programme. “We are scaling up by launching five tracks, to accommodate around 30 startups annually,” added Nitin Prasad, Chairman of Shell Companies in India.

Apparel brand Turms brings three advisors onboard to chart future growth strategy

Founded in December 2016, intelligent apparel brand Turms has turned to experts for advice in three areas – R&D, new revenue channels and optimising its supply chain. As part of the initiative, the startup will be bringing onboard Dr Murali Sastry, CEO of IIT B-Monash Research Academy and Sanjay Modi, former MD (APAC and Middle East) at Monster.com and Sridhar Viswanathan, Managing Partner at Silver Cruste as advisors. This latest bit comes after last year’s funding round, where Turms raised Rs 6.3 crore.

Apple loses most valuable company tag to Microsoft

In August last year, Apple became America’s first trillion-dollar corporation as its stock price surged to $207.39. Apple’s valuation hit $1.16 trillion over the next two months, with the stock peaking at $232.07 on October 3. And then, the tide turned. In the three months since October 2018, about $464 billion has been wiped off Apple’s valuation, and the stock has fallen to a six-year low. Not only this, Apple now trails Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet in the list of world’s most valuable companies, at $674.8 billion.