Startup news and updates: daily roundup (April 7, 2022)

A third of metro city dwellers purchase from online pharmacies: YouGov 

While demand for online pharmacies have grown during the pandemic years, with ecommerce giant Flipkart also entering the race with Flipart Health+ app, a third of the buyers who purchase medicines online hail from metro cities.

A survey conducted by YouGov, a market research firm, found 32 percent urban Indians say they regularly buy or consult an online health platform — out of which, 31 percent did so during the pandemic, but don’t anymore. 

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Tata Digital acquires majority stake in online pharmacy startup 1MG

The UK-headquartered firm surveyed 1,027 urban Indian respondents between March 22-28, 2022. 

Three in 10 people, about 27 percent consumers, said they used Pharmeasy, making it the most popular digital pharmacy. The platform has the highest traction in North, East and North East India. Apollo Pharmacy turned out to be leading in South India, while 1mg was the most popular in the West. 

While Tier-III cities do show interest in using e-pharmacies, either lack of awareness or access to these platforms makes it difficult to see the platform, according to the survey. 

OYO’s Ankit Sood joins Classplus as global growth head

Classplus, an edtech platform, appoints Ankit Sood to head global growth. Ankit earlier worked at OYO, a budget-hotel aggregator, as a chief revenue officer for South East Asia, West Asia, and Japan.

“I am extremely thrilled to join the Classplus team. I look forward to driving hypergrowth across multiple geographies, opening new business opportunities and building new revenue streams while constantly keeping the success of our educators and content creators at the forefront,” Ankit Sood said in a release shared by the company. 

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[Funding alert] Edtech startup Classplus raises $70M in Series D round from Tiger Global and Alpha Wave Global

Classplus, which is run by Bunch Microtechnologies Pvt Ltd, is a software as a service (SaaS) based platform for offline coaching institutes, teachers and content creators to launch their online teaching business. 

The Noida-based firm is backed by Tiger Global and Alpha Wave Global (earlier known as Falcon Edge), among others.

Bounce to start producing electric scooters in Rajasthan

Bounce, which started as a last-mile mobility provider, will start producing electric scooters named Bounce Infinity E1. 

The facility, which can produce over 200,000 scooters annually, is located in Bhiwandi, Rajasthan. The mobility startup is also planning to set up another manufacturing unit in South India, which it claims would manufacture more than 500,000 scooters. 

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Bounce Infinity customer test ride camps to begin in Bengaluru, Delhi NCR, Kochi and other cities

“With the roll-out of the Bounce Infinity E1 from our plant, we are thrilled that the first batch of our electric scooters will soon make its way to eagerly awaiting customers across the country. All of us are excited about the future of mobility in India, and are proud to play a part in it,” Vivekananda Hallekere, Co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO), Bounce Infinity, said in a statement. 

Proptech firm Propdial enters shared ownership space

Propdial, a Gurugram-based proptech firm, has forayed into the second home shared ownership space. 

The firm credits this increasing demand in investing in alternate properties to the growing income of Indian professionals. 

A proptech startup runs a platform where multiple properties are listed with historical and current details, which is usually not available on regular property listing websites. Users can then evaluate the details and decide to purchase the property. 

US-based Shipbob enters India, launches technology hub

Shipbob, a US-based supply chain and fulfillment player, launched a technology innovation hub in Delhi. The firm has also started hiring.

“Some of the world's finest technology and entrepreneurial talent is based out of India, and we are very excited to launch our first Technology Innovation Hub outside the United States to tap into this talent pool,” said Harshal Wanjari, Chief Technology Officer at ShipBob.  

Pramod Jajoo is the Senior Vice President (SVP) Technology and Country Head. Pramod earlier worked at Flipkart and Bigbasket.  

“The initiatives executed out of our India hub will service our global base of ecommerce brands and fulfillment partners, enabling their scale both in the US and internationally. We are also thrilled to welcome Pramod to ShipBob’s leadership team. Pramod’s experience will be instrumental in further expanding ShipBob’s technology capabilities to meet the needs of the supply chain landscape and help us provide merchants around the world with fast and affordable supply chain, fulfillment and logistics products,” said Harshal.

Zypp Electric promotes Tushar Mehta to co-founder and COO

Zypp, which operates in the last-mile delivery segment for electric vehicles, elevated Tushar Mehta to co-founder and chief operating officer’s (COO) position.

“Tushar has time and again proven his leadership in business resilience and in-depth knowledge of his expertise in the sector that played an instrumental role in the growth of Zypp electric across the country. Now, as a part of the founding team, his understanding and past experience of scaling startups will further help us grow to become India’s largest EV services company with being the most profitable EV venture too,” said Akash Gupta, Co-founder  and chief executive officer (CEO), Zypp Electric, in a statement.  

The move is in line with Zypp Electric’s sustained growth by adding a leadership team to capture a wider market. Tushar joined the firm in 2021 as a business head. In his new role, Tushar’s responsibilities will include scaling overall business and growth.