Startup news and updates: daily roundup (Dec 28, 2021)

Biryani remains king on Zomato but more momos were ordered

Biryani remained the soul food of India during 2021, but there is something interesting happening when it comes to eating snacks as momos ruled the roost, beating the ever-popular vada pav and samosa hands down.

These were some of the interesting trends observed by Zomato as it revealed what all Indians ordered in 2021.

Biryani still remains the most popular food that was delivered by Zomato as two dishes were being ordered from their platform every second.

However, there was a triangular battle for the most popular snack between momos, vada pav, and samosas. Here momos emerged as the undisputed winner with over 10.6 million people ordering this snack while vada pav and samosa together could not beat momos.

Spinny in 2021: top cars, cities, buyers, and online car buying trend

Spinny said that 62 percent of new Spinny buyers opted for home deliveries and home test drives and a staggering 38 percent of cars were sold online on spinny.com.

Sharing 2021 trends, Spinny said that its top cities include Bengaluru, which has yielded the brand a 64 percent increase in buyers, followed by Ahmedabad, the National Capital Region, and Hyderabad.

In terms of favoured brands, Maruti, Hyundai and Honda cars were home-delivered most often, with Spinny’s trademark flair. Among model types, hatchbacks reign supreme in Spinny buyers wish lists, followed by sedans and then SUVs.

Spinny said that 57 percent of its new buyers are and 28 per cent were women through 2021.

Multi-storey apartments, home buying and more: 2021 lookback report by Magicbricks

With subdued effects of the pandemic, Mumbai, Pune and Bengaluru respectively shone as India’s most searched cities for buying properties, according to a report–How India Searched for Properties During 2021 – by Magicbricks.

Multi-storey apartments ruled the roost as the most preferred property type across cities. Magicbricks’ research further indicates that about 67 percent of prospective buyers searched for apartments in 2021. Interestingly, 45 percent of home seekers in Delhi were looking for builder floor apartments.

The report further reveals that 2 BHK and 3 BHK were the most searched bedroom configurations across Indian cities in 2021. 2 BHKs stole the show in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and Pune with 39 percent and 44 percent shares respectively. However, it is interesting to note that Bengaluru recorded good demand for larger configurations, including 3 and 4 BHK. Similarly, in Gurugram, 50 percent of prospective buyers searched for larger homes sized in the range of 1,500-2,000 square feet.

Sudhir Pai, CEO, Magicbricks said, “How India searches for properties and homes is always intriguing and at Magicbricks, we are always monitoring recent trends and developments in this space. With strong signs of economic recovery, home buying bounced back with a lot of vigour in 2021, though there have been occasional dips. Higher demand for affordable homes for both buying and renting are indicative of a gradual surge in consumer confidence and spell optimism for the overall Indian real estate sector.”

Attero earmarks investment of Rs 300 Cr for expansion of Li-ion battery recycling

Electronic waste recycling company and lithium-ion battery recycling company, Attero Recycling has announced that it will be investing Rs 300 crore into lithium-ion recycling over the next nine months. The influx of funds will be utilised to ramp up the company’s lithium-ion battery recycling capacity by 11 times to 11,000 metric tonnes. 

Attero Recycling currently has a lithium-ion battery recycling capacity of 1,000 metric tonnes per annum. India is presently generating a whopping 50,000+ tonnes of lithium-ion battery waste every year. Through this enhanced capacity, Attero Recycling envisions capturing 22 percent of the total potential market size by October 2022.

Attero Recycling is also in the process of increasing its e-waste capacity via franchise route. As a part of its futuristic roadmap, Attero is already in process of setting up plants to recycle e-waste at 14 other locations by the end of 2022. These plants will be strategically located across the country and will enable Attero Recycling to enhance its e-waste management capacity to 3,00,000 metric tonnes per year.

slice plans to hire 800 people across product, operations, design, engineering in 2022

Fintech unicorn Slice has announced that it is planning to hire close to 800 people across various posts in the operations, design, product, and engineering verticals in the coming year. It aims to further expand and ramp up hiring by at least 2x in 2022, slice said in a statement.

It further said the new hires will focus on scaling the card product and upcoming UPI product integration and that 40 per cent of the new hires in 2022 will be onboarded into the firm’s engineering, product & operations teams.

slice’s ideology is to hire young talent under experienced management by valuing potential over just experience, the company said. The average age of the employees at slice is 26 years, and the team expansion strategy for the coming year is to stick to the same philosophy: hiring people who might not have relevant experience but showcase immense potential and promise.