Rebel Foods forays into Saudi Arabia, expands focus on Middle East

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July 3, 2023

With the opening of two cloud kitchens in Riyadh, cloud kitchen startup Rebel Foods, home to brands such as Faasos, Behrouz Biryani, and Oven Story Pizza, has entered Saudi Arabia.

The foodtech startup is already established in the United Arab Emirates. According to Rebel Foods, the company’s focus on the Middle East is strengthened by its entry into the Saudi market.

According to Rebel Foods, it was the first foodtech company from India to enter Saudi Arabia.

Over the next three years, the company hopes to use its cloud kitchen network to grow a $100 million food delivery business in Saudi Arabia. It plans to expand to other cities nationwide, including Jeddah, Dammam, and Khobar, and add more than 60 internet restaurants in Riyadh.

The Riyadh kitchens are a partnership between Dubai-based KitchenPark and Kitch. They are in Sulemaniya and Qurtoba and feature Rebel’s signature brands, including The Messy Burger, Oven Story Pizza, Fricken’ Fried Chicken, and The 500 Calorie Project. The launch of Behrouz Biryani, Faasos, and Mandarin Oak will follow this.

“The Middle East or the MENA market is a key region for Rebel Foods, and we are investing significantly to build our cloud kitchen network and to strengthen our brands,” said Vishal Khithani, CEO, International Markets, Rebel Foods.

According to Khithani, the company is committed to meeting unfulfilled customer demand, focusing on their satisfaction.

“In addition to introducing iconic brands that resonate with the market, we are dedicated to serving multiple food missions as per the surging demand,” he added.

Spotify explores full-length music videos to bolster competition against YouTube and TikTok: Report

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July 1, 2023

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Spotify Technology SA is testing the inclusion of complete music videos within its application, potentially enhancing its ability to rival Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube and ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok in the streaming service market.

Bloomberg reports that Spotify has started discussing the potential offering to bring full-length music videos to its platform with potential partners.

According to the Bloomberg report, Spotify’s ongoing attempts to make video a significant part of its application align with the prospective addition of full-length music videos to its platform.

Video content has consistently been shown to be more valuable than audio in the era of streaming media. Musicians may already upload brief looping GIFs to Spotify called “canvases,” which are displayed on the screen while music is playing. This year, the platform unveiled “clips,” short videos under 30 seconds, to provide artists a storytelling tool to interact with their fans and talk about their music, much like TikTok.

Before listening to a complete track, users can preview and swipe through highlighted videos on Spotify’s new music home screen, reminiscent of TikTok. Additionally, the company recently disclosed that its platform now supports over 100,000 podcasts with video, highlighting Spotify’s commitment to expanding its video offerings.

Spotify is trying to strengthen its position in response to the growing competition from YouTube and TikTok, particularly in pursuing the Gen Z audience. The platform has widened its reach by incorporating podcasts into YouTube Music, which provides a streaming music service in addition to full-length music videos and shorter Shorts.

ByteDance, on the other hand, is reportedly looking into ways to expand Resso into regions where Spotify is already present. TikTok has developed into a powerful music discovery tool that helps various musical artists.

Spotify has previously developed original series and worked with media giants like Paramount Global and Vice Media to enter the world of video content. Due to this, TV content, such as snippets from the Comedy Central program “Broad City,” was included in the Spotify app. Some of these partnerships, meanwhile, eventually came to an end. Despite this, Spotify is committed to finding innovative ways to reach more people and remain a leader in the fast-changing streaming service industry.

Chai Sutta Bar expands its presence in Andhra Pradesh with Visakhapatnam

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July 1, 2023

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Chai Sutta Bar (CSB), the tea chain renowned for its unique concept and tea experiences, announced the opening of its first outlet in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. The inauguration ceremony was attended by Gudivada Amarnath, minister for industries, infrastructure, investment & commerce, IT, handlooms & textiles, the government of Andhra Pradesh, CM Trivikram Varma, police commissioner, Visakhapatnam, and Anubhav Dubey, among others.

The outlet, near the Tu 142 Aircraft Museum Rk Beach, across from the Submarine Vizag, aims to offer tea enthusiasts in Visakhapatnam an authentic CSB experience.

The outlet will provide an extensive range of unique tea flavors, including popular kulhad tea, providing customers with a pleasant and refreshing experience.

Chief guests Akramani Vijaya Nirmala, Visakhapatnam Metropolitan Region Development chairperson, and G Hari Venkata Kumari, mayor of the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC), also graced the occasion.

“We are proud to inaugurate our maiden outlet in Vishakhapatnam, marking our expansion in Andhra Pradesh. This is an important milestone for Chai Sutta Bar, as we bring our unique tea experience to the vibrant city. With the support of esteemed guests and the overwhelming response from the crowd in this region, we are confident in delivering an exceptional tea experience. Our focus remains on creating a welcoming atmosphere where customers can indulge in our delightful teas and savor the rich flavors we have to offer,” said Anubhav Dubey, co-founder and CEO of Chai Sutta Bar.

Zomato launches ‘Zomato Food Trends’, aim to help both existing and budding restaurant partners

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June 30, 2023

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With the introduction of “Zomato Food Trends,” Zomato, India’s food ordering and delivery platform, aims to help existing and emerging restaurant partners in taking a data-driven approach towards decision making.

Zomato Food Trends, a free, open platform accessible to everyone, will offer insights through analyzing data from millions of transactions across hundreds of Indian cities. These insights can be used by restaurant partners to customize their strategies and make data-driven decisions that will accelerate and increase their success.

Restaurant partners can use this platform to view pricing distribution and demand trends for various dishes or cuisines, demand-supply comparison for multiple dishes or cuisines, demand and supply gaps (zoomed in to a location level), and price and demand trends for different dishes or cuisines. This information can be used by restaurants to decide on dishes, locations, prices, etc.

Elaborating on the platform in its blog, Zomato stated, “We strive to be a trusted partner to everyone, providing a level playing field, particularly for smaller restaurants, to help them flourish in this dynamic and competitive market. That’s why we have made Zomato Food Trends accessible not only to all our listed restaurant partners, but also to the general public, free of charge. We firmly believe that anyone who dreams of starting and scaling a restaurant business should have the opportunity to do so.”

Indian restaurants have seen significant transformation in recent years to adapt to the market’s shifting demands and consumers’ evolving preferences. Traditional cuisines such as Mughlai or Chinese now co-exist with an increasing demand for artisanal pizzas, gourmet burgers, and authentic regional Indian cuisines. The Indian food entrepreneur has an outstanding ability for spotting trends, identifying gaps in market need, and innovating to close those gaps. Zomato Food Trends offers support to both current and budding restaurant partners in their endeavours.

Sharing their experience of incorporating Zomato Food Trends in their business, Shadman Faize, Founder, Zam Zam said, “Zomato Food Trends helped me understand what customers prefer in my area and at what price points. It helped me to re-design my menu and serve my customers better”. Another food entrepreneur Kanan Rai, Founder, Motu Ki Kachori quoted, “I’ve been using ‘Zomato Food Trends’ ever since it was launched, and it’s such a great tool to get insights into food consumption and supply trends which have been a black box so far. Say if I want to know if people like Paani Puri or Kachori, when they like to order it and from which area- there is now a simple tool”.

AI startup Inflection raises $1.3 billion from Nvidia and others

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June 30, 2023

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Inflection AI, a startup backed by several prominent Silicon Valley companies, announced on Thursday that it raised $1.3 billion from investors, including Microsoft and Nvidia, amid a boom in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector.

According to a source familiar with the matter who spoke to Reuters, the investment—a combination of cash and cloud credit—valued the one-year-old company at $4 billion.

Last month, Inflection launched its chatbot Pi. It was founded by Mustafa Suleyman, a co-founder of Google DeepMind, and Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, focusing on building consumer-faced AI products. It is considered the top rival of OpenAI.

Like ChatGPT, Pi interacts with users through dialogues that let users ask questions and provide feedback. A personal AI that helps in planning, scheduling, information gathering, and other duties is what Inflection said it aims to build.

Palo Alto, California-based Inflection AI has about 35 employees. It raised $225 million in a first round of funding in early 2022 from Greylock, Microsoft and Reid Hoffman.

It claims in a report released last week that its model Inflection-1, which powers Pi, outperformed most models on the market.

Suleyman, CEO of Inflection, stated that most of the funding would improve computational capacity to build a more powerful foundation model.

“We’ll be building a cluster of around 22,000 H100s. This is approximately three times more compute than what was used to train all of GPT4. Speed and scale are what’s going to really enable us to build a differentiated product,” Suleyman said at Collision Conference on Thursday.

After OpenAI’s bot, ChatGPT, became popular late last year, the AI space has been regarded as the next technological frontier.

The sector has drawn several investors in recent months as companies look for ways to incorporate the technology into their operations and regulators look at how to deal with it.

Microsoft, an existing investor and backer of the rival OpenAI, participated in Inflection’s latest fundraise.

Hoffman, Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, and Nvidia—which has recently increased its AI investments—were also present in the most recent round, according to Inflection.

Proptech firm Reloy bags Rs 7.2-Cr from investors

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June 29, 2023

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Reloy, a proptech company backed by HDFC Capital that helps realtors generate referral sales, raised Rs 7.2 crore from investors to expand its operations. All of the company’s existing and new investors, including BlueLotus VC and Dream Green Capital, participated in a pre-series A2 funding round, according to Reloy (formerly known as Loyalie).

According to the company, the funds will be used to support its ambitions for growth and expansion.

The company raised Rs 5.9 crore from investors in February of last year, bringing the total value of external funding to nearly Rs 13 crore.

“India is now the world’s most populated nation with only the 7th largest land mass. We need our builders to create the largest cities the world has ever seen. It’s time we empowered good builders with our referrals,” Reloy founder and CEO Akhil Saraf said.

“Our solution streamlines the post-purchase journey that homeowners have with builders and rewards them with benefits across ancillary requirements of home interiors and home finance,” Saraf said.

The platform handles more than 1.4 lakh apartments. Its clientele includes Godrej Properties, DLF, Shapoorji Pallonji Real Estate, Embassy Residential, Mahindra Lifespaces, K Raheja Corp, Brigade and Piramal Realty.

In April of this year, HDFC Capital Advisors announced it would increase its stake in Loyalie IT Solutions (now renamed as Reloy) from 7.2 percent to 9.6 percent.

HDFC Capital Advisors acquired 1.67 lakh compulsory convertible preference share (CCPS).

The price of the preference shares was Rs 89.81 per equity share, making the total transaction amount Rs 1.49 crore.

For Rs 1.1 crore, HDFC Capital acquired a 7.2% equity stake in Loyalie IT Solutions (Reloy) in March last year.

To create the ideal home-owning journey through their customer loyalty programmes, Reloy has been collaborating closely with leading real estate developers.

In the 2022–23 fiscal year, its turnover increased from Rs 4.33 crore to nearly Rs 13 crore.

The company helps homeowners with post-purchase services like document management, construction tracking, and payments. Additionally, it develops a market for associated needs for home finance and interior design.

Reloy was founded in 2015 and has focused on loyalty and referrals in the real estate industry. Builders can manage their clients and brokers more effectively with the help of Reloy, a B2B2C homeowner and broker management platform.

AI startup Typeface valued at $1 billion after Salesforce-led fundraise

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June 29, 2023

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Typeface, a generative AI platform for enterprise content creation, said on Thursday that it was valued at $1 billion after an oversubscribed Series B funding round led by Salesforce’s global investment arm, bringing the total capital raised to $165 million.

According to the firm, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Madrona, GV (Google Ventures), Menlo Ventures, and M12, Microsoft’s Venture Fund, also participated in the $100 million round.

“The transformative potential of AI in content creation is undeniable, but businesses face unique challenges that require enterprise-ready solutions,” said Abhay Parasnis, Founder and CEO at Typeface. “By combining the strengths of generative AI platforms with our brand-specialized knowledge, we have eliminated the barriers for enterprises to harness generative AI. Typeface empowers every enterprise to create high-quality, personalized content that aligns with its unique voice.”

Typeface, a company that offers a wide range of workflows for marketing, sales, product, and human resources departments, signed strategic partnerships with Salesforce and Google this month to build highly customized content into their existing workflows.

When Typeface emerged from stealth and launched publicly in February, Lightspeed Venture Partners, GV, Menlo Ventures, and M12 invested $65 million.

“To make generative AI truly effective in an enterprise environment, it is essential to have a robust solution and a highly experienced team that understands the specific challenges faced by businesses. Typeface represents best-in-class enterprise generative AI with its unique focus on brand personalization, IP ownership, and seamless integration into existing workflows. We are thrilled to invest in Typeface’s talented team and their exceptional vision,” said John Somorjai, Chief Corporate Development and Investment Officer at Salesforce.

AI startups have emerged as a bright spot for investments this year amid a wider slowdown in funding caused by rising interest rates and high inflation.

Epiq Capital Fund II closes at $225 million

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June 28, 2023

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Epiq Capital, a premier growth and late-stage tech investment firm, has announced the final closing of Epiq Capital II, which was oversubscribed at $225 million.

According to a press release, the company will keep investing in exceptional entrepreneurs targeting the $5 trillion digital India opportunity in the next decade. Leading tech entrepreneurs, industrialists, leaders in sports and entertainment, family offices, sovereign wealth funds, and other institutions are among the fund’s domestic and global investors.

Its portfolio includes health-tech firm Pristyncare, leading fitness platform Curefit, local language content platform Dailyhunt, eyewear unicorn Lenskart, and SaaS platform Builder.ai.

According to the investment firm, these companies have an average annualized revenue run rate of over $250 million and have seen a CAGR of over 75% over the last three years.

“We will continue to invest in exceptional entrepreneurs who aspire to build the next Tech Nifty 50. The firm, with its marquee investor base, institutional quality investment team, and exceptional portfolio, is well-positioned as a premier homegrown investing franchise to deliver significant returns to investors,” said Rishi Navani, Founder & Managing Partner, Epiq Capital.

Fintech firm Scapia raises $9mn in seed funding

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June 28, 2023

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Scapia, a credit card and travel rewards platform, raised $9 million in a seed round led by Matrix Partners India, including Tanglin Venture Partners and Binny Bansal’s 3STATE Ventures.

With its portfolio of financial products, the travel fintech company Scapia aims to make travel accessible. Through its portfolio of financial solutions, the travel fintech business Scapia aims to make travel affordable. It has introduced a co-branded credit card in collaboration with Federal Bank developed to target travellers.

“We are excited to partner with our investors to help us scale and meet these customer needs. We see a massive opportunity for Scapia – less than 5 per cent of the population currently have credit cards, and India is projected to have 200 million credit cards in circulation by 2030,” Scapia Founder Anil Goteti said.

The newly-launched venture by Goteti, a consumer tech veteran, plans to use the capital to expand operations and invest in tech capabilities.

The company has also developed a travel platform within the app to allow users to redeem their coins for hotel and flight bookings quickly.

“We are big believers in transaction credit and creating unique user journeys combining commerce and financing. Scapia has created one such user journey, enabling new travel experiences through a fintech suite of products and a business model traversing both these sectors. We are privileged to partner with this team,” Matrix Partners India Managing Director Vikram Vaidyanathan said.

ANAROCK Patents AI-powered Proptech Tool ASTRA

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June 28, 2023

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Revolutionary sales acceleration tool deployed in 200+ projects across 21 cities in the last one year

Mumbai, 27 June 2023: ANAROCK, India’s largest and leading residential real estate services group, has announced that ASTRA, the Firm’s proprietary AI-driven sales acceleration tool, has officially received patent status. This secures the Firm’s exclusive rights to ASTRA and the algorithms and functions that have made it the definitive artificial intelligence tool for real estate developers to speed up their project sales results.

Sunil Mishra, Chief Strategy Officer, ANAROCK Group, says, “ASTRA was created over a two-year period by ANAROCK and its data analytics partner G-Square Solutions. The ASTRA algorithm examines customer behaviour data to produce highly accurate leads, increasing marketing effectiveness while significantly reducing marketing expenses. This pioneering SalesTech solution is now aptly registered with the Controller of Patents and a patent has been granted for innovative practices and processes under the category of a ‘System for Artificial Intelligence-driven Productivity Enhancement for Sales Management.”

With this, ANAROCK is now the first and only real estate services firm to obtain a patent for a disruptive Proptech tool built using Artificial Intelligence for increasing Sales.

Since its introduction in July 2021, ASTRA has transformed how properties are sold in over 200 projects across 21 cities. It radically streamlines processes, maximizes efficiency in sales conversion, and eliminates leads leakage. Built on consumer behaviour data from over 5 million leads from ANAROCK’s database, ASTRA implements 74 varying models to make it a custom fit for real estate projects of various sizes and stages of completion at any location.

According to the 2022 report Proptech – Modelling the Future of the Indian Real Estate Sector, sales automation and enablement – broadly defined as SalesTech – are now necessary for organizations’ sales strategy – especially if sellers want to maintain a competitive advantage in their respective industries. It is an efficient way to optimize the prospecting process and ensure that a company has more time to nurture leads, support current clients, and personalize customer experiences.

About ANAROCK

ANAROCK is India’s leading independent real estate services company with a presence across India and the Middle East. The Chairman, Anuj Puri, is a highly respected industry veteran and India’s most prominent real estate thought leader.

The Company has diversified interests across the real estate lifecycle and deploys its proprietary technology platform to accelerate marketing and sales. ANAROCK’s services include Residential Broking & Technology, Retail (in partnership with Vindico), Commercial, Investment Banking, Hospitality (via HVS ANAROCK), Land Services, Industrial and Logistics (in collaboration with Binswanger), Investment Management, Research, Strategic Advisory & Valuations, Project Management Services (in partnership with Mace) and Society Management Services (acquisition of ApnaComplex).

The Company has a unique business model, an amalgamation of traditional product sales supported by a modern technology platform with automated analysis and reporting tools. This offers timely solutions to its clients while delivering financially favorable and efficient results.

ANAROCK has a team of over 1800 certified and experienced real estate professionals who operate across all major Indian (Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, NCR – Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow) and Middle East markets. ANAROCK has successfully completed over 400 exclusive residential project mandates. ANAROCK also manages over 80,000 established channel partners to ensure global business coverage. Our assurance of consistent ethical dealing with clients and partners reflects in our motto – Values Over Value.

Please visit www.anarock.com

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