Inside the tepid placement season at IITs; A platform for affordable speech therapy

Hello,

Profitability is just around the corner for Urban Company.

The service marketplace’s Co-founder Abhiraj Singh Bhal shared that the company has turned profitable at the profit-before-tax level. While its India business had previously achieved profitability, it is now offsetting overseas losses.

Meanwhile, a familiar face is back at the Ola office.

Bhavish Aggarwal has roped in his brother, Ankush Aggarwal, to help lead the ride-hailing firm as part of the core team. He was also named CEO at Ola Financial Services—a second fintech stint after his lending startup Avail Finance was acquired by Ola parent ANI Technologies in 2022.  

Elsewhere, early-stage accelerator 9Unicorns has rebranded to 100Unicorns, and is doubling down on investments. It launched 100Unicorns Fund II to invest in 200 startups, with a target size of $200 million and a $100 million green shoe option. 

Also, Amazon has reportedly infused Rs 1,600 crore into its India entity, Amazon Seller Services, in a bid to match Walmart’s recent $600 million infusion into Flipkart as the ecommerce wars intensify.

ICYMI: All you need to know about the new OpenAI model, GPT-4o.

Oh, and did you know Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia church has been under construction for 124 years? In 2026, the church, which is entirely funded by people, will be the tallest in the world. Here’s how.

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Inside the tepid placement season at IITs
• A platform for affordable speech therapy
• PE firm ChrysCapital’s eyecare bet

Here’s your trivia for today: Which is the only country in the world whose main territory touches all four hemispheres?

In-depth

Inside the tepid placement season at IITs

While entrance into the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) often takes years of hard work, passing the four-year course is a different beast altogether. 

The promise of a lucrative career kept IIT students’ morale high. However, YourStory finds that many graduates are yet to find a job and are hoping against hope to get an offer before the end of this year’s placement season.

Reality check:

• At IIT Bombay, about 665 students, or 34% of the total participants in this year’s placements, remain unplaced as per the latest data (as of April 5) from the institute. It’s important to note that the placement season is scheduled to officially wrap up by June.
• This should be worrying because the number of students without offers at the end of the placement season is increasing each year. In 2021-22, 11% of the students were without any offers and the number was 18% in 2022-23.
• The total headcount across India’s top IT services companies saw a decrease of over 70,000 in the fiscal year ended March 2024. The IT firms reportedly had their lowest intake of fresh engineers in over two decades at the end of the last fiscal year.

Funding Alert

Startup: CelciusLogistics

Amount: Rs 40 Cr

Round: Pre-Series B

Startup: Highperformr.ai

Amount: $3.5M

Round: Seed

Inspiration

A platform for affordable speech therapy

Elizabeth Jean Thomas started Phonologix in 2020 to provide an assistive technology platform to enable users to access quality speech therapy services. 

Phonologix has so far served over 2,800 children and provided almost 30,000 online speech therapy sessions in 10+ countries, including India and the GCC. The therapy sessions are conducted in seven languages, including English, Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, and Kannada.  

Success:

• Starting with two therapists, Phonologix has now grown to a team of 14 in four years, offering speech therapy for children and adults, a parent coaching programme, applied behaviour analysis, occupational therapy, and special education.
• It has users from all over India, including Darjeeling, Jaipur, Ajmer, Kottayam, Pathanamthitta, Kollam, Shimoga, Erode, Jammu, Tiruchirapalli, and many other semi-urban places.
• Thomas believes women founders are constantly judged, their abilities questioned, and they have to work harder to prove they are capable.

Investor

ChrysCapital’s eyecare bet

India-focused private equity firm Chrys Capital will invest up to $100 million in the Delhi-headquartered eye care chain, Centre for Sight (CFS), in a mix of primary and secondary transactions. It will now hold a significant minority stake in the eye care chain. 

Key takeaways:

• As part of the deal, ChrysCapital has acquired the entire stake held by Mahindra Holdings Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mahindra & Mahindra Limited. The entity had invested Rs 206.5 crore in CFS in 2019. 
• Founded in 1996 by ophthalmologist and Padma Shri awardee Dr Mahipal Sachdev, CFS offers eye care services and surgeries. It operates 15 centres and 13 vision stores in Delhi-NCR. 
• This also adds to ChyrsCapital’s bet in the healthcare and pharma space. The firm, which recently announced the final close of its $700 million Continuation Fund, had invested $70 million in pharmaceutical company, La Renon. 

News & updates

• Lucky money: Struggling theatre chain AMC Entertainment raised about $250 million of new equity capital through the sale of 72.5 million shares during the revived meme stock craze triggered by the return of “Roaring Kitty,” whose bull case on GameStop ignited the meme stock rally back in 2021.
• Slowdown: Sony Pictures Entertainment's operating income fell nearly 10% for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024 to $808 million. Sony saw net sales for its Game and Network Services division, which includes PlayStation, rise by 17% YoY to $27.5 billion, while operating income rose 16% to $1.9 billion.
• Earnings: China's Ant Group posted a 19% fall in net profit of 7.87 billion yuan ($1.09 billion) in the quarter ending December. The ecommerce giant reports profit from Ant one quarter in arrears. Chinese authorities last announced a fine of 7.12 billion yuan for Ant Group for violating laws concerning consumer protection and corporate governance.

Which is the only country in the world whose main territory touches all four hemispheres?

Answer: The Pacific island nation of Kiribati.

We would love to hear from you! To let us know what you liked and disliked about our newsletter, please mail [email protected]. 

If you don’t already get this newsletter in your inbox, sign up here. For past editions of the YourStory Buzz, you can check our Daily Capsule page here.