IHCL announces the launch of Vivanta in Ahmedabad, Gujarat

By

-

August 20, 2022

Indian Hotels Company (IHCL) has launched its first Vivanta hotel in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. The hotel boasts a contemporary design that reflects the city’s vibrant spirit.

Deepika Rao, the executive vice-president of IHCL, said, “The opening of this hotel is in line with IHCL’s strategy of strengthening its presence in India’s key cities. Ahmedabad has emerged as an important economic and industrial centre and we believe that it has tremendous business and tourism potential. We are delighted to launch Vivanta Ahmedabad SG Highway, making it a part of the city’s rapid evolution in partnership with Leela Group of Companies.”

The Vivanta Ahmedabad SG Highway is ideally situated near the airport, Gandhinagar, the state capital, and major city landmarks. The hotel includes 176 stylishly designed rooms and suites with a range of unique culinary offerings and a spectacular skylight in the lobby.

The versatile banqueting space, measuring 540 square metres, is perfect for gatherings and social events. In addition, the outdoor pool and exercise centre is ideal for relaxing after a hectic day.

Plaka- a Greek-themed, fine dining destination opens in Gurgaon

By

BRL Editor

-

August 20, 2022

0

Simpatico Hospitality Pvt Ltd has announced the opening of their Greek-themed restaurant, Plaka, at Cyber Hub Gurgaon, Haryana.

In addition to other cuisines and cocktails, the restaurant will feature Greek, Turkish, and Continental food.

Priykant Gautam, the company’s director, is highly experienced in the hospitality sector, even though this is Simpatico Hospitality’s first operation. His previous ventures, Smoke Factory, Skyhouse, The Knot, and Karigari, are well-known in the restaurant business and have enjoyed the flavours of success while reaching new heights.

Gautam said, “We aimed to introduce the city to Greek Mediterranean-themed hospitality & cuisine, complete with a splendid and timeless dining experience.”

He added, “Detailed importance has been rendered to keep the ambience very authentic and Greek, with its interiors and exteriors soothing non-monotonous surrounding spaces in blue and white soft colours and live vibrant corners”.

The company plans to open more outlets of Plaka across the country in the future.

Hospitality, retail industry hiring on the rise

By

BRL Editor

-

August 20, 2022

0

On the strength of rising demand and a bullish outlook for the upcoming holiday season, hiring for customer-facing roles in sales and commercial operations and other divisions is gaining momentum across the hospitality and retail sectors.

Given chains’ revenge spending and expansion plans through new outlets and inventories, hiring is surging across restaurants and hotels.

“Ahead of the festive months, we see a shortage of staff for roles in customer service and kitchens. Since the unlocking in March, recovery has exceeded pre-Covid levels in many instances and now that the festive season is around the corner, demand and consumption are expected to increase even further,” said Kabir Suri, president of the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) that represents more than 500,000 restaurant operators.

“There is a talent crunch as many workers had lost their jobs during Covid-19 and went back home or changed their profession,” Suri added. “Many (restaurateurs) are now training raw talent which is a lengthier process. We are also simultaneously looking at other industries such as retail, or anything that is customer facing.”

Retailers are also feeling the pinch of reverse migration that happened during Covid-19.

“Many of them never came back. This led to a shortage of staff across segments in the retail industry as it requires a special skill set where the attitude is very important,” said Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO of Retailers Association of India (RAI). “Because retailers are witnessing growth in sales, hiring has also picked up at every level and this will continue till the festive season.”

Rajagopalan said hiring in the retail industry might cross pre-pandemic levels by the end of this year.

Nikhil Sharma, regional director for Eurasia at Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, said the company is expanding its commercial team and hiring a head of sales and marketing in India, besides expanding its global sales team by adding additional resources in Bengaluru.

The hotel chain is on an “exponential growth journey” in India, according to Arif Khan, regional vice president of human resources at Hyatt, and the business is hiring employees in various roles and divisions for the commercial function.

“One of the major changes brought about by the pandemic was the digitisation of businesses, and therefore we introduced new positions in the digital and social media departments,” Khan said. “We have also created new positions in sales in order to target particular markets and segments as we continue to expand across India and in Southwest Asia. Additionally, we are also consolidating our cluster setups spread all over the country to improve functional efficiency across locations.”

Neha Rana Dutta, chief human resources officer at Espire Hospitality Group, said the company currently has around 500 people, but the numbers will ‘comfortably double’ by 2022-23.

A new premium boutique resort brand called “Zana” will be introduced in India by Espire Hospitality. This company owns the luxury “Six Senses Fort Barwara” resort and the mid-range resort chain Country Inn Hotels and Resorts.

“We shall have 11 operational hotels and resorts across brands by the end of 2022 and should be able to achieve our goal of 20 operational hotels and resorts in India, by 2023,” Dutta said. “The hiring approach is aggressive, but this is mostly to combat the positive pressure of the new openings scheduled this year. The first resort of our new brand Zana Lakeside Resort, Udaipur opens in September,” she added.

Yogeshwar Sharma, chief executive of Select Citywalk, one of the most popular malls in New Delhi, said hiring has picked up as new malls are coming up. “Since the leasing has also picked up with more brands looking for expansion, malls have to strengthen the sales team,” he added. Mukesh Kumar, chairman of the Shopping Centres Association of India (SCAI), said malls are back to 100% staffing levels, but there is a shortage of people, especially at the lower levels. “We are hiring people wherever required but there is a scarcity of manpower,” he added.

According to Rajan Bahadur, chief executive officer of the Tourism and Hospitality Skill Council (THSC), which the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) has promoted to help close the skills gap in the tourism and hotel industries, hiring in the hospitality sector is increasing at all levels due to retaliation tourism and spending as well as new supply entering the market.

“A lot of restaurants had closed down during the Covid-19 pandemic, but with spending coming back, chains have expansion plans and quite a few new restaurants are opening now,” he said. “We are also looking at training people for new roles in adventure tourism or food photography.”

Flipkart’s venture arm to invest in six startups

By

BRL Editor

-

August 18, 2022

0

Under its accelerator programme, Flipkart Leap Ahead, Flipkart Ventures, the $100 million venture capital arm of the e-commerce company, announced that it would invest in six startups.

Among them are the startup Dopplr, which focuses on the metaverse, the insurtech firm Livwell, the logistics startup LogisticsNow, NeuroPixel.AI, robotic fulfilment startup Rightbot Technologies, and e-commerce seller-enablement venture Sellerapp.

Flipkart will make an equity investment of up to $500,000 in the selected startups, and Bain & Company will design a mentorship programme for them.

According to the company, entrepreneurs participating in the mentorship programme will have sessions with Flipkart leaders in business, products, technology, and finance. In addition, the startups will present their ideas to potential investors at the end of the programme.

Following a selection procedure that included multiple rounds of evaluation by executives at Flipkart and Flipkart Ventures, the startups were selected.

“Through this endeavour, we aim to be a catalyst in the growing startup community by continuing to expand our programme each year and presenting growth opportunities to emerging entrepreneurs,” said Ravi Iyer, senior vice-president, and head, of corporate development at Flipkart.

Eight startups that presented their business plans to investors and raised funding made up the first cohort of the Flipkart Leap Ahead programme, which graduated in July 2021. ANS Commerce, a seller e-commerce SaaS company, Entropik Tech, a fintech company focused on investments, and others were part of the cohort.

Later, in April of this year, Flipkart acquired ANS Commerce.

Like Flipkart, Amazon has a $250 million venture capital arm called Amazon Smbhav Venture Fund. It funds entrepreneurs that are digitising SMBs and making advances in agriculture and healthcare.

Amazon has made multiple startup investments, including a $40 million investment in the fintech startup Smallcase in August 2021 and a $12 million investment in the digital therapeutic startup Fitterfly most recently.

CapitaLand promotes 2.6 million sqft IT Park in Chennai

By

BRL Editor

-

August 18, 2022

0

A leading global real estate investment manager (REIM), CapitaLand Investment, announced on Wednesday that it is promoting a 2.6 million sq ft international tech park in the city on the Pallavaram – Thoraipakkam Radial Road for a cost of 1,400 crores.

The project will be built in two 1.3 million sq ft phases, the first of which will be completed by the end of March 2023 and the second by the end of 2024.

“Connecting the OMR, Chennai’s IT Corridor and the GST Road, the Radial Road is fast emerging as the new IT corridor with several IT Parks being promoted by leading developers, besides largescale residential apartments by prominent players. Located close to several catchment areas like Velachery, Pallikaranai, Pallavaram and Chromepet for IT professionals, the Radial Road has become the ideal location for IT/ITeS services,” said Gauri Shankar Nagabhushanam, CEO, India Business Parks, CapitaLand Investment.

The company has the scope to develop an additional 2.5 million sq ft at the same location on its approximately 25 acres of property, he added.

He claims that with investments in IT Parks, industrial townships, warehousing, and lodging spread across nine assets, Chennai is one of CapitaLand’s key markets and is the company’s most diversified market in India. It made its initial foray into Chennai in 2005 by opening the International Tech Park Chennai in Taramani as a joint venture with the state-owned Tidco.

“Chennai and Mumbai is a key market for us to establish data parks due to the submarine cable landing facilities in these two metroes. While the company has already committed 1,200 crore for a large data centre park in Navi Mumbai, new data centres would come up in Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad,” Nagabhushanam said.

“Keeping in mind the focus on sustainability, the Radial Road project is being developed as a green building with thrust on natural lighting. We are in talk to attract green funds to enable its development in tune with the company’s global Net Zero commitments. The Radial Road is well connected with all modes of transport,” C Velan, Head – Chennai Operations for CapitaLand Investments, said.

Razorpay acquires Ezetap to tap into offline payments

By

BRL Editor

-

August 18, 2022

0

The Sequoia Capital-backed Indian company Razorpay said it had acquired the offline payments company Ezetap. A source with knowledge of the transaction estimated the deal’s value at $150 million.

The acquisition was the biggest one made by Razorpay, a company that provides payment gateway services for online merchants and is valued at over $7 billion, according to a release.

It said the agreement would strengthen initiatives to reach the offline sector, which still represents the majority of electronic payments in India. Point-of-sale devices are made by Ezetap, which also processes over $10 billion in transactions annually in India.

Razorpay co-founder Shashank Kumar said Ezetap would help it develop in this area. “There is still a large portion of offline payments and in-person payments that we don’t cover,” he said.

According to the source, Ezetap will continue to operate independently following the acquisition. The agreement involves a $150 million payout to the company, with an additional $50 million payment possibly contingent upon how well it performs over the next year.

According to Kumar in an interview, the agreement will also enable Razorpay to cross-sell its services, such as loan offerings, to offline businesses. Razorpay presently provides services to over 8 million businesses and has handled payments totalling $80 billion since its launch about eight years ago.

The acquisition comes as solution providers in India try to secure a tight grip on online and offline payments.

Cashfree Payments teams up with PharmEasy to simplify payment settlements

By

BRL Editor

-

August 17, 2022

0

To enable rapid and efficient payment settlements for its retail clients, Cashfree Payments, a provider of payments and API banking solutions, has partnered with PharmEasy, one of India’s top digital healthcare platforms. Through this collaboration, transactions for the retail network will be automated using Cashfree Payments’ Payouts technology.

With the help of Cashfree Payments’ payouts solution, businesses can promptly pay suppliers, handle customer refunds, and disperse loans, among other things. According to the company, payouts are successful 99.98% of the time.

In its capacity as a marketplace and intermediary, PharmEasy enables and facilitates (a) the sale of pharmaceutical and healthcare products and services across a variety of categories through its third-party retail partners, who are dispersed throughout the country, and (b) the payments for the sale and purchase transactions that are conducted between consumers and retail partners. On the website or mobile app of PharmEasy, a consumer can place an order and choose to pay online or choose COD (cash on delivery). Following the customer’s payment, PharmEasy collects and distributes daily any payments that must be made to the retail partners.

With the help of this collaboration, PharmEasy will be able to fully automate this procedure and provide settlement to retail partners within 48 hours of customer payments.

Cashfree Payments has assisted PharmEasy in tracking, and processing bounced/failed payouts transactions as a result of their partnership.

Reeju Datta, Co-Founder, Cashfree Payments, said, “We are delighted to partner with PharmEasy and extend our payouts solution. Payouts helps PharmEasy to automate their payment settlements to the retailers and vendor payouts reconciliation, thus creating a superior transaction experience for the company’s partners. We look forward to helping the company automate the entire payments process and contributing to its bid to make quality healthcare accessible to the masses.”

With over 50% market share among payment processors, Cashfree Payments leads the way in bulk disbursals in India with its product payouts. Recently, the State Bank of India invested in Cashfree Payments underscoring the company’s role in building a robust payments ecosystem. Cashfree Payments works closely with leading banks to build core payments and banking infrastructure that powers the company’s products and is also integrated with major platforms such as Shopify, Wix, Paypal, Amazon Pay, Paytm and Google Pay. Apart from India, Cashfree Payments products are used in eight other countries, including the US, Canada and the UAE.

Payoda plans over 1000 employee base by 2025

By

BRL Editor

-

August 17, 2022

0

Payoda, a software development and technology company, has plans to double its employee base across several verticals to over 1,000 during the next three years, a top company official revealed. The company has its headquarters in Coimbatore and has offshore workplaces in Texas, the United States, Dubai, and Romania. It also has offices in Chennai and Hyderabad.

“Technological advancements over the past couple of years have triggered a pertinent need for stakeholders to expand their horizon through robust infrastructure and skilled human resources,” company co-founder Karunya Sampath said in a company statement.

“To keep pace with time, we have put in place a strategic hiring plan wherein the strength at all our centres would improve. Even as we would continue to have most team members from India, we foresee expansion in our global teams in the near future,” she said.

She added that all key departments, including technology, sales, human resources, administration, and marketing, are included in the strategic need-based employment plan for the upcoming three years.

The company claims that workers work three days a week in an office setting and have the option of working the other two days remotely.

Furniture decor startup Sunday Design receives $1.5mn from Havells India family office, others

By

BRL Editor

-

August 17, 2022

0

Sunday Design, furniture and home decor brand, has raised $1.5 million from a clutch of family offices, including those of Havells India (QRG Investment & Holdings), SRF Ltd. (Kama Group), and coal logistics firm KCT Group, among others.

To produce and market high-end furniture, Gautam Baid founded Sunday Design in 2021. According to the company, it has expanded at a 10% monthly rate since its inception.

“We are grateful for the trust of our new and existing investors, who have encouraged us to harness this vision and make a greater impact. With this investment, we intend to collaborate with top European designers and grow our footprint in an omnichannel format by introducing product lines on a strategic basis,” said Baid, founder of Sunday Design.

By opening retail locations in Mumbai and Bengaluru and an e-commerce platform, Sunday Design aims to leverage the fresh capital to increase its online and physical presence.

UK-based Fintech BankiFi bags $4.8mn in funding led by Praetor Ventures

By

BRL Editor

-

August 16, 2022

0

BankiFi, a provider of embedded banking products for small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), announced that it had raised $4.8 million. The funds would be used for the company’s foray into the North American market.

BankiFi, a company founded in 2018 by Mark Hartley, aims to help more than two million SMEs globally by 2024 by working with banks and other financial institutions to create technologies that will improve business banking. According to the press release, the company’s offering enables banks to incorporate goods especially helpful to SMB operators into their products.

At the time, Chief Executive Mark Hartley said, “SMBs in the United States are facing the same problems we’ve seen in the United Kingdom and Australia, including late payments and time delays due to financial administration. Within our technology, we aim to transform services available to SMBs within community banking, across the U.S.”

BankiFi announced the launch of its U.S. operation in July of this year.

“Technology investments have been slowing down this year, and to see our investors show such a strong commitment is a huge vote of confidence in BankiFi’s direction and growth,” Keith Riddle, chief executive of BankiFi Americas, said in the release. “Our mission is to make all aspects of cash management and payments easier for SMBs everywhere, and this investment is another huge step to making that a reality.”

The funding is headed by Praetura Ventures, with participation from other investors, including Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA).

Praetura Ventures Managing Partner David Foreman added, “BankiFi has proven to be an industry-leading open cash management provider in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and other countries. Now that they have launched in North America, BankiFi has an opportunity for dramatic growth.”

In addition to Columbus, BankiFi has offices in Sydney, Australia, Antwerp, Belgium, and Manchester, England.

CONNECT WITH US