Conrad Bengaluru enhances its leadership team with two new appointments

By

-

August 10, 2022

Luxury property Conrad Bengaluru has appointed Sanjay Kumar as the Director of Finance and Shilpi Khanna as the Director of Operations.

Before joining Conrad Bengaluru, Kumar was associated with an array of well-known Indian and international hotel chains, including Accor International, Hyatt International, Marriott International, and Bharat Hotels Ltd. His responsibilities included overseeing a broad range of Finance & Accounting activities, including forecasting, taxation, auditing, cash flow management, board representation, and budgeting, while putting an emphasis on efficiency and developing strong financial procedures.

He is known for making firm decisions and carrying them out perfectly. As a Chartered Accountant with extensive experience in the hospitality industry, he will be in charge of overseeing all financial operations for Conrad Bengaluru. In his new position, the focus will be on maximising shareholder returns, developing sustainable business strategies, overseeing annual budgets, and establishing monetary objectives and policies that contribute to the hotel’s overall operational efficiency.

On the other hand, Khanna’s new role includes leading and managing the hotel operations at the property.

She has almost 20 years of industry experience and comes from the illustrative hospitality sector. She has worked for a number of well-known luxury hotels, including The Oberoi, New Delhi, The Oberoi, Mumbai, and The JW Marriott, Mumbai Sahar.

In her previous role at the JW Marriott Mumbai Sahar, Khanna was in charge of managing the hotel’s entire rooms division with a focus on guest delight. She has also worked on pre-opening teams that successfully opened hotels like the Ritz Carlton in Pune, the Weligama Bay and Resort in Sri Lanka, and the ITC Sonar in Kolkata.

Brigade Group to develop land parcels in Chennai and Bengaluru

By

BRL Editor

-

August 10, 2022

0

Brigade Group has signed agreements for prime land parcels in Chennai and Bengaluru, the company announced in a press release. These deals have a total potential revenue of Rs 4,000 crore over the next 4-5 years.

A million sq ft of office, retail, and residential space might be developed under the agreement to buy the Mount Road property in Chennai from the TVS Group company.

The joint development land in Bengaluru, which is close to Sarjapur Road and international schools, has a residential apartment building potential of over 2 million sq ft.

M R Jaishankar, CMD of the company said, “The acquisition of both these properties in Chennai and Bengaluru are part of our growth strategy as we continue to focus on South India with emphasis on Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad.”

Brigade Group has a pipeline of upcoming projects of 10 million sq ft. with key projects in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai.

Over 99% of Netflix users have not tried its games: Report

By

BRL Editor

-

August 9, 2022

0

Less than 1% of Netflix’s subscribers are playing its games, according to a recent report, which indicates that the company’s entry into the gaming industry is not off to a good start.

According to Apptopia, an app analytics company, less than 1% of Netflix’s 221 million subscribers—1.7 million people—play the games on average every day, according to CNBC.

By the end of the year, the platform plans to double the selection of games it offers, but as of right now, only a small portion of its subscriber base is playing.

The company has been featuring the games to keep users interested between episodes of shows since last November.

Only subscribers have access to the games but must be downloaded as separate apps.

After losing 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter, Netflix lost over a million users in the second quarter, marking the company’s first subscriber decrease in more than ten years.

In a letter to shareholders last year, Netflix listed TikTok and Epic Games as two of its main competitors for users’ interests.

“One of the many advantages to Netflix in pursuing the strategy is the ability to drive engagement beyond when the show first comes out on the platform,” D.A Davidson senior analyst Tom Forte said.

Still, the report said that Netflix Chief Operating Officer Greg Peters said last year the company was “many months, really, and, frankly, years” into learning how games can keep customers on the service.

Dyninno India plans to hire over 500 more employees

By

BRL Editor

-

August 9, 2022

0

Dyninno India, which presently employs more than 300 people, plans to increase its staff strength to over 500 employees by the end of 2022.

The multinational Dyninno Group began operating in India in Gurugram in 2019.

Dyninno India has opened a new office in Gurugram to accommodate its growing employees. By the end of 2023, the company aims to have 1,000 employees and has additional plans to open offices in Mumbai and Gurugram.

According to a statement, the new office, situated at DLF Cyber City, Gurugram, can accommodate up to 600 people at a given time and 1,000 employees in rotating shifts.

Aleksejs Histjajevs, Director, Dyninno India, said, “Our new office has been planned to accommodate the rapidly growing workforce in our operations and IT divisions. With a vision to establish a robust IT division that would support all entities under the global Dyninno group, we are hiring actively in India. Moreover, we plan to develop our fintech and entertech divisions, and the new office has been designed to reflect that vision.”

“We invested millions of dollars in the construction of the new office facility. We firmly believe the workspace should be comfortable, inspiring, and artistic. We’ve invested months on finalising every nitty-gritty to ensure the essence of Dyninno’s culture reflects throughout our new workspace,” Histjajevs added.

Dyninno is a group of companies providing products and services in the travel, finance, entertainment and technology sectors. Alex Weinstein founded it in 2004 in San Francisco, US. Today, 3,500 professionals work in the company around the world. Its offices are in the US, the UK, Colombia, Latvia, India, Moldova, Romania, Egypt, and the Philippines. Dyninno India is a part of the Dyninno Group.

Fintech startup Jodo bags $15mn in a new funding

By

BRL Editor

-

August 9, 2022

0

Jodo, a fintech startup focusing on payments for education, has raised $15 million in a new funding round led by the New York-based investment firm Tiger Global.

The round also included participation from Jodo’s existing investors Elevation Capital and Matrix Partners India, from whom the company received $4 million in 2020.

The company claimed to use the funds to expand its team and accelerate product innovation and sales.

Jodo, a company founded in 2020 by Atulya Bhat, Raghav Nagarajan, and Koustav Dey, offers a variety of specialised payment and lending products to make it simple and affordable for parents of students to pay fees. For educational institutions, it also makes fee collection hassle-free.

Jodo offers lending products through non-banking financial company (NBFC) partners to help students and their parents finance education.

“There has been a resurgence of offline education and we are growing along with that. The last two years (post-Covid-19) have helped in digitising payments offline, and we have noticed that several education institutes are offering flexible payment options to parents. But it is hard to offer this flexibility (for these institutes) without the right solutions since reconciliations can be a nightmare,” Bhat said.

Currently, Jodo partners with approximately 700 educational institutions around the country, 40% of which are offline schools serving students in kindergarten to grade 12 (K–12).

Since its inception, it has served over 100,000 students and handled fee payments totaling more than Rs 1,000 crore on its platform.

With the latest funding, Jodo plans to extend its educational collaborations to 5,000 institutions over the next 18 months, including schools, colleges, and offline coaching centres, and assist 1.5 million students with their fee payments.

Additionally, it looks to process fee payments between Rs 10,000–Rs 15,000 crore on its platform and expects to double its employees in the following 12–18 months.

Jodo plans to introduce newer products to manage payouts made by educational institutions and an education savings product for parents, in addition to offering payments, lending, and loyalty benefits around fee payments.

According to Bhat, the company is also finding ways to help create a payment ecosystem for educational institutions and university campuses.

“Jodo is modernizing payments and credit for India’s education market by increasing convenience and affordability for parents and providing a better workflow for schools and institutions. We are very impressed with Jodo’s progress,” said Alex Cook, partner, Tiger Global.

The company is also looking to apply for its own NBFC licence in the coming months.

“We’re privileged to renew our partnership with Atulya, Koustav and Raghav. The enthusiasm with which their products have been adopted by schools and parents alike proves that not only are they solving a deep pain point, but that they are doing so through tech-first solutions that are intuitive to use,” said Mridul Arora, partner, Elevation Capital.

IHCL announces the launch of its fourth Ginger Hotel in Mumbai

By

BRL Editor

-

August 8, 2022

0

Indian Hotels Company (IHCL) has announced the opening of Ginger Goregaon in Mumbai. With this, the Ginger brand expands its market share in India’s financial capital. The hotel was designed with the brand’s lean luxe design and service philosophy, providing guests with a vibrant, contemporary, and seamless hospitality experience.

Puneet Chhatwal, MD and CEO, IHCL, stated, “Ginger Goregaon marks the opening of IHCL’s tenth hotel across brands in India’s strongest hospitality market. This hotel will tap into the potential of Goregaon, an emerging business hub in the city. We are delighted to partner with Pen Workers Seating Company for this property.”

With 102 rooms, the re-imagined Ginger Goregaon is strategically located off the Western Express Highway. It has easy access to NESCO IT Park, the NESCO Exhibition Centre (Bombay Exhibition Centre) and Film City. The hotel features Ginger’s newly designed signature rooms, a fitness centre and an all-day diner.

Goregaon, a significant commercial and residential area of Mumbai, is home to numerous shopping centres, industrial zones, and corporate and IT parks. It is particularly well-known among tourists for the Aarey Colony, a famous urban forest extension of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park.

IHCL will have 13 hotels in Mumbai after adding this hotel, three of which are currently under construction.

Wealth management startup Dezerv receives $21mn at $100 million valuation

By

BRL Editor

-

August 8, 2022

0

Wealth tech platform, Dezerv Investments Pvt. Ltd., has raised $21 million in a Series A funding round led by technology venture capital investor, Accel Partners, taking its valuation to $100 million.

Existing investors Elevation Capital and Matrix Partners India also participated in the round.

Accel Partners invested about 60% of the funding for this round; the remaining 40% was split equally between Elevation and Matrix.

The company indicated that the team and the founders still held the majority of the company’s shares. However, it did not disclose the quantum of the diluted stake.

Sandeep Jethwani, Vaibhav Porwal, and Sahil Contractor, former executives of IIFL, founded the one-year-old startup, which has already collected assets worth about 800 crores.

“The need for real expertise around how to manage your money is much more acute than ever. There’s a BCG-Amfi study, which says that on average India has 230-240 advisors per million households. Relative to the US, it’s 4,000 advisors per million households. So, there is a massive gap in terms of getting people to help with their money. And that’s essentially what Dezerv is trying to solve through a technology-first approach,” Jethwani said.

The startup wants to concentrate the fundraising from the current round on improving its digital offering, expanding its talent base, and raising brand awareness.

“Ours is a people-sensitive business. So, the talent pool is very important on the investing side and on the digital product side. Secondly, we still have to continue investing in and building further to be able to make investing seamless. Thirdly, brand awareness, which is getting more people to be aware of the fact that there is something called Dezerv, whom they can trust,” Jethwani said.

Fintech platform Scripbox makes strategic investment in Wealth Managers

By

BRL Editor

-

August 8, 2022

0

Online wealth management company Scripbox has strategically invested in Wealth Managers, a wealth advisory company based in Pune.

Regarding the value of the deal, Scripbox declined to comment.

This is expected to boost its geographical presence, expand its customer base, and provide digital solutions to Wealth Managers’ clientele.

Scripbox has actively focused on inorganic partnerships over the last six months to expand its clientele, bolster its staff, and expand its network of financial advisors.

According to founder and CEO Atul Shinghal, it has formed agreements with five to six offline wealth advisory firms in the past six months.

Over the past two years, Scripbox has completed 10 acquisitions and partnerships with independent wealth advisory firms, most recently with Wealth Managers.

“In this business, brand and trust matters. The customers of independent financial advisors partnering with us get an upgraded experience in terms of portfolio creation, while Scripbox gets access to a mature customer base,” Shinghal said.

“We are focused on customers who are in the Rs 50 lakh to Rs 5 crore net-worth range which offline wealth advisors today handle. We are making sure we are prudent in terms of capital, in these acquisitions and partnerships,” he added.

In January, Scripbox had raised $21 million in debt and equity funding, led by Accel Partners.

“We are a cash-flow positive business, so the capital raised is largely for doing these partnerships and acquisitions,” said Shinghal.

In December 2020, Scripbox acquired Mitraz Financial, an investment advisor licenced with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

To assist consumers in managing their finances, Scripbox, founded in 2012, adopts a hybrid methodology that combines financial planners and digital tools.

Since its inception, the organisation has added 100,000 customers and increased its assets under management to over Rs 12,000 crore.

On its platform, more than 8 million transactions have been completed.

“We were always impressed by the technology initiatives and process-driven progress made by Scripbox. Joining hands with them gives us an opportunity to build long-term investments, based on a rational and responsible approach, for a much larger cross-section of investors,” said Bharat Phatak, founder and director of Wealth Managers.

Scripbox is planning to forge two to three additional partnerships with wealth advisory firms this year and is also looking to make insurance advisory live for customers on its platform, Shinghal added.

Startup Mission to organize free workshop for HNIs aspiring to be angel investors

By

BRL Editor

-

August 6, 2022

0

For HNIs (high net-worth individuals) interested in becoming angel investors, the Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) offers a free session on August 13th. In collaboration with Headstart Network Foundation, the event will take place at Kalamassery’s integrated startup complex and be conducted by experienced venture capitalists and successful investors.

Investor Nidhi Saraf, co-founder and CEO of the advisory fund-raising firm Key Ventures, will serve as the event’s host. Key Ventures specializes in raising pre-series A to series D financing for early-stage and growth-stage startups, according to KSUM.

“Permitting only invitees, prospective participants can apply through. The workshop, which aims to answer various questions and doubts of prospective angel investors, can help build a culture around startup investments in Kerala,” organizers said in a release.

The event is being conducted as part of a larger conference ‘Startup Saturday – Funding and Investments’, where 250 founders, entrepreneurs, and ecosystem facilitators are expected to come together to know more about funding and investments.

With 15 years of experience helping startups and early-stage entrepreneurs across the country, Headstart is a not-for-profit organization.

It collaborates with corporate organizations like AWS and Meta in addition to government organizations like Startup India, StartupTN, Kerala Startup Mission, Niti Ayog, and BIF to support startup ecosystems.

KSUM is the nodal agency of the government of Kerala for entrepreneurship development and incubation activities in the State.

Axis Bank makes plan for business expansion in UP

By

BRL Editor

-

August 6, 2022

0

Senior executives of Axis Bank shared the roadmap for how they plan to expand their operations in Uttar Pradesh on Friday, announcing their plan to make it.

Group executive of the bank for retail liabilities, branch banking and products, Ravi Narayanan, said, “The bank is serving multiple government departments and agencies. The minimum support price money to farmers for rabi and kharif crops is also distributed to farmers through the bank’s network within 72 hours.”

The government agencies that work closely with the bank include Agra Nagar Nigam, Aligarh Nagar Nigam, and Prayagraj Smart City Project. In a similar vein, Axis Bank serves as the single nodal account for the integrated child development scheme, the forest department, and the UP sahkari sangh.

The bank operates a network of 1,339 ATMs and 352 branches. 113 branches are located in urban areas, 94 in semi-rural areas, and 46 in rural sections of the state, while 99 branches are in metro areas.

To reach out to its customers, the bank has enlisted 11,500 entrepreneurs from both rural and urban areas. The bank employs 9,000 employees in total. The bank’s officials claim that Axis Bank’s CASA ratio is at 56% and its credit deposit ratio is 70%.

Madhudeep Rai, the circle head for Lucknow, and Rama Velagapudi, the branching head for the local bank, were also present on the occasion.

CONNECT WITH US