CoinSwitch’s Singhal on handling a crypto heist; Kunal Bahl outlines Titan Capital’s new fund

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Zomato may have delivered growth for Blinkit, but at quite a steep cost. The quick commerce platform’s gross order value more than doubled to Rs 6,132 crore, as it added 152 stores and seven warehouses to its roster. 

Its focus on growing in the hypercompetitive space has taken a healthy bite out of its profits, which pared to Rs 176 crore on a QoQ basis, from Rs 253 crore in the previous quarter. Growing total expenses were the main culprit, on account of higher inventory costs due to the increasing number of dark stores. 

Zomato is also looking to raise somewhere along the range of $1 billion in a bid to strengthen its balance sheet. But don’t hold out hope for the fundraise to translate into discount codes for your next food delivery just yet.

Some caution is due on the macro front as well. The International Monetary Fund lowered its global growth forecast for next year and warned of accelerating risks, ranging from wars to trade protectionism. 

The fund has been warning for a few years that the world economy is likely to expand at a level that is too low to give nations the resources they need to reduce poverty and confront climate change.

A key component helping countries move towards their climate goals is the global transition towards electric vehicles. The adoption of EVs represents a fundamental transformation of the global automotive industry, with “far-reaching consequences”, according to the IMF.

ICYMI: Amid the rising urgency to decarbonise, will a $5 trillion industry’s hedge against clean energy and green technology be the final nail in the coffin for a green future?

Lastly, meet the woman shattering the glass ceiling at HSBC.

The first woman to occupy the role of chief financial officer in the bank's 160-year history, Pam Kaur has a mammoth challenge ahead as HSBC navigates a new interest rate cycle and fractitious geopolitical relations–one she aims to conquer with the "Power of Chi". 

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• CoinSwitch’s Singhal on handling a crypto heist
• Kunal Bahl outlines Titan Capital’s new fund
• Capturing precious wedding moments

Here’s your trivia for today: The Europa Clipper spacecraft, which will orbit Jupiter’s moon Europa, carries a microchip featuring waveforms of people saying what word in over 100 spoken languages?

Interview

CoinSwitch’s Singhal on handling a crypto heist

In the wake of the $230 million hack at WazirX, CoinSwitch Co-founder Ashish Singhal shed light on how his company would have approached a similar crisis.

Addressing the idea of socialised loss strategies like the one WazirX employed, Singhal argued that the first priority should always be to fully protect the users. “If you can, as a company, make your users whole, that is the best-case scenario,” he said in a conversation with YourStory.

Stay safe:

• Singhal believes that companies should absorb losses internally when possible. “You, as a company, absorb the impact. You go into the market and see how you can continue to innovate and earn more revenue to make up for the loss that has happened,” he emphasised.
• Reflecting on WazirX’s hack, Singhal highlighted how certain security measures, especially those involving disabling “raw signing” help shield from the kind of risks WazirX faced.
• "Raw signing," or Raw Transactions in cryptocurrency, refers to transactions that are created manually, typically using command-line interfaces, before being broadcast to the blockchain.

Funding Alert

Startup: Neysa 

Amount: $30M

Round: Series A

Startup: WIFY 

Amount: Rs 5 Cr

Round: Pre Series A

Venture capital

Kunal Bahl outlines Titan Capital’s new fund

Titan Capital, founded by Snapdeal’s Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, has traditionally invested in startups at the seed or Series A stages. Now, with its latest fund, the venture capital (VC) firm wants to exclusively invest in follow-on rounds of some of the top-performing companies from its portfolio of 280 startups. 

YourStory spoke with Bahl to understand the strategy behind the firm’s new fund and how he hopes to reiterate Titan Capital’s commitment to its portfolio companies.

Playbook:

• Early-stage venture capital firm Titan Capital, which has invested in companies like Bhavish Aggarwal’s Ola Consumer (back when it was Ola Cabs) and Mamaearth, recently announced the Winners Fund’s final close at Rs 333 crore.
• Titan Capital has historically never relied on external capital and the Winners Fund marks the first time the firm has opened its doors to limited partners (LPs) to invest in its fund. 
• Limited Partners or LPs for the fund are “mainly many large, reputed family offices, CEOs of large listed companies, and many founders as well from the startup ecosystem who have scaled good businesses,” Bahl said. 

Women entrepreneurs

Capturing precious wedding moments

Ankita Asthana’s first step into wedding photography came when a bride, impressed with Asthana’s fashion videos, asked her to cover her wedding. 

This was the turning point for Asthana. Although she secured a seat at IIM Shillong to pursue an MBA, she decided to follow her passion and joined the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, for a master’s in photography. In 2012, she launched WeddingNama, a wedding photography and filming company.

Happily ever after:

• WeddingNama captures weddings through photography and cinematography services. Beyond weddings, the startup also offers pre-wedding shoots, portfolio shoots, destination weddings, and engagement shoots.
• Ankita Asthana and her husband Akash Agarwal have covered weddings across India and internationally. They have also won several awards, including the Best Wedding Photographer of 2024 by Fearless Awards.
• Asthana wants women to take charge and work with passion.“Take on the responsibility that you can handle with ease and ask for help if required. Embrace who you truly are,” she says.

News & updates

• Optimism: Ratings agency Moody's raised its full-year adjusted profit forecast above Wall Street estimates and posted a nearly 31% rise in third-quarter earnings on Tuesday, on strong demand for its research and analytics products.
• Shelved: Allianz SE is in talks to scrap two Indian joint ventures with Bajaj Finserv Ltd., in a dispute over the direction of the partnership, according to people familiar with the matter.
• Smart assistant: Anthropic has enabled its artificial intelligence to control actions on a computer, including searching the internet, clicking buttons and inputting text, as companies increasingly seek to leverage the new technology to build virtual agents.

The Europa Clipper spacecraft, which will orbit Jupiter’s moon Europa, carries a microchip featuring waveforms of people saying what word in over 100 spoken languages?

Answer: Water.

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