GoDaddy calls SMEs to become ‘visible’ in a new campaign

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July 5, 2022

GoDaddy has started a brand-new marketing campaign to promote its offerings. The “Become Visible with GoDaddy” campaign emphasizes how the company assists in building an online presence to make businesses “visible” worldwide. The programme aims to encourage and equip female entrepreneurs to use the internet to expand opportunities.

The female protagonist of the advertisement explores a crowded market street at the beginning of the clip. Disappointed with the pathetic status of small businesses, she takes action to encourage owners to expand by creating a website.

The advertising campaign has been launched in seven regional Indian languages, including Hindi, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu. It was developed and conceptualised by Mumbai-based creative agency Tilt Brand Solutions.

Nikhil Arora, vice president and managing director of GoDaddy India, said, “At GoDaddy, we aim to bring small, micro, and medium businesses across India, online. The campaign is our way of raising awareness with India’s SMBs and MSMEs to make the most out of having an online presence. We want to encourage women entrepreneurs to take the plunge with entrepreneurship and make an impact in their local area and around the world.”

Digital banking YAP secures $41mn, plans to expand the business

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July 5, 2022

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YAP, a digital bank in the United Arab Emirates, announced that it had raised $41 million and aimed to raise an additional $20 million to fund its expansion plans.

Aljazira Capital, Abu Dawood Group, Astra Group, and Audacia Capital, all based in Saudi Arabia, were among the investors to date. YAP stated that it plans to finish its Series A before the year’s end.

According to YAP’s CEO and co-founder, Marwan Hachem, the company would use the capital to expand into Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, and Ghana.

“We just got the EMI (electronic money institutions) license in Pakistan and PSP (payment service provider) in Ghana, same thing in Saudi Arabia. Together with the bank we are going to apply to the central bank,” Hachem said.

To become the first independent digital banking platform in the UAE, YAP teamed with Emirati lender RAK Bank and was launched in 2021.

According to YAP Managing Director and co-founder Anas Zaidan, it has collaborated with Bank AlJazira in Saudi Arabia, where it will soft-launch in October before going live fully in the first quarter of next year.

“That’s a very important step for us because we believe Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest markets in the Middle East.”

YAP plans to launch its services in Pakistan and Ghana by the end of the year, where they are currently being researched, and in Egypt, the most populous Arab nation, the following year.

According to CEO Hachem, YAP will focus on providing services to the large remittance market of Pakistani workers employed in the Gulf who send billions of dollars to home each year.

The digital bank reported that over 130,000 individuals have signed up for the YAP app.

Tech Mahindra strengthens India operations; plans to hire 1000 associates

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July 4, 2022

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Tech Mahindra, a provider of business reengineering, consulting, and digital transformation services and solutions, announced its plan to hire 1,000 associates in FY22-23.

According to a statement, the announcement results from the company’s efforts to identify local talent, increase its ability to deliver solutions quickly, and give its present employees the freedom to work from home.

The business has opened a new campus in Tamil Nadu’s Tidel Park Coimbatore.

According to the statement, the new campus, which covers more than 10,000 sq ft, will focus on creating a next-generation technology hub in Coimbatore to provide cutting-edge solutions for Tech Mahindra’s international clients in a variety of industry segments, including automotive, banking, e-commerce, finance, and research & development, among others.

Additionally, the campus will create new technology stacks for Intelligent Automation, Artificial Intelligence/Robotic Process Automation, Full-Stack Development, Customer Experience (CX), and other Next-Gen Application Development and Management Skills (ADMS).

Harshvendra Soin, Global Chief People Officer and Head of Marketing, Tech Mahindra, said, “At Tech Mahindra, we believe that Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities are emerging as future talent hubs and have the potential to drive the next phase of growth. Our biggest focus for FY 22-23 is to create a more diverse and inclusive talent pool.”

“We are excited to inaugurate a new campus in Coimbatore and we truly believe that it will help us drive business growth in unexplored markets by providing a seamless customer experience. Through this new campus, we aim to provide growth opportunities and make the most of the immense potential held by several individuals residing in Coimbatore,” added Soin.

Tech Mahindra is a $6 billion organization with over 151,000 professionals across 90 countries. The statement noted that it is a part of the Mahindra Group, one of the largest multinational federations of companies with 260,000 employees in over 100 countries.

Suba Group now acquires master franchise Choice Hotel in India

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July 4, 2022

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Suba Group of Hotels, based in Mumbai, and Choice Hotels Asia have signed a 15-year master franchise agreement. With this, the Suba Group of Hotels in India will be the master franchise owner for 58 Choice Hotels in India, which are already operational and under development.

By coincidence, this development occurred not long after it was announced that the American hotel chain company would shut down its Indian subsidiary.

In June 2021, Click Hotels, a property owned by Suba, also invested in a controlling stake in Gurgaon-based property 1589 Hotels.

Concerning Choice Hotels, this will enable Suba to enter untapped markets, such as tier-2 and tier-3 cities. Choice Hotels is present in almost 57 locations across India, and this partnership will take Suba Group’s ownership to 5,100 keys.

Suba Group of Hotels Managing Director, Mansur Mehta said: “We are delighted to acquire the exclusive master franchise rights to Choice Hotels’ Clarion, Quality and Comfort brands in India. Our dedicated team are excited by the opportunity to service and further develop these trusted and well-recognised brands as we look to aggressively expand within the region”.

Deutsche Bank to increase tech hiring in India

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July 4, 2022

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Deutsche Bank will expand its technology workforce in India, given that the German financial services company is concentrating on enhancing its internal engineering and IT capabilities and conducting more strategic internal technology research.

“With our technology strategy launched in 2019, we want to strengthen engineering and IT architectural excellence in Deutsche Bank, and we need to have these capabilities in-house,” Bernd Leukert, its chief technology, data and innovation officer said.

The bank’s employment in India has doubled in the last two years to 5,000, with most of the new hires working in tech and other roles. This year, it will hire an additional 2,500 workers to “cater to growth and backfill roles,” he said.

Currently, one-third of the world’s tech workforce resides in India.

When job cuts and organisational restructuring were taking place throughout the rest of the bank, the decision to outsource tech development and expand tech hiring was made.

India, said Leukart, was the obvious place to increase its presence given the quality of technology and engineering skills available here. “We decided to grow into technology centres, and India is now our biggest one. It isn’t necessarily about gaining cost benefits, but rather the technology talent that we see in India,” he said.

The India technology centre today offers services in a wide range of industries. It is at the forefront of technological advancement in cloud computing, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and remote work.

This shift in emphasis results from a more significant market shift since bank customers are adopting technology more quickly.

“As our customers are changing their business models, we need to change as well to support them in their transformation … and technology is the enabler for that,” he said.

“The change starts with how we as a bank engage with customers,” said Leukert. “We have redefined it and want to leverage modern technology to incorporate our financial services into the digitalised business models of our customers,” he said.

Deutsche Bank and Google established a collaboration in 2020 to co-innovate new products and services and implement a new cloud-adoption strategy.

Strengthening internal technology talent would be the long-term goal, according to Leukart. It plans to eventually have 30% of its tech personnel from vendors and partners and 70% from internal people. This is now split about equally.

Lendingkart receives ₹75-cr in debt from GMO LLC, Triodos Investment

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July 2, 2022

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Lendingkart, a fintech company, announced that GMO LLC and Triodos Investment had invested Rs 75 crore in debt funding to the company.

According to a statement, the company plans to use the funds to support the origination of MSME (micro, small, and medium enterprises) loans across all states with credit decisions made in a live environment utilising its origination engine, “xlr8,” and “zero-touch” features.

“Lendingkart…raised a total debt funding of Rs 75 crore, Rs 25 crores in debt from GMO LLC, a leading company in the payment industry and Rs 50 crores from Triodos Investment Management via NCDs,” the statement said.

Elaborating on the announcement, Harshvardhan Lunia, CEO and Founder at Lendingkart, said, “The newly infused funds will enable us to disburse working capital loans to underserved MSME customers through our platform”.

Additionally, it will help the company increase its reach and service more pin codes across the country.

“It is our constant endeavour to empower the MSMEs and small businesses and we will continue to bridge the financial gaps for small businesses,” Lunia added.

An impact investor with a global presence is Triodos Investment Management. Along with a strong financial return, it invests in having a positive social and environmental impact.

GMO provides various payment and financial-related solutions and platforms.

“GMO is also promoting global expansion such as overseas payment-related service development and strategic investment and financing for leading-edge Fintech companies overseas,” the statement added.

Reddit acquires natural language processing company MeaningCloud

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July 2, 2022

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Natural language processing (NLP) business MeaningCloud, which specializes in extracting meaning from unstructured content, has announced that it is being acquired by the popular online discussion platform Reddit.

Reddit claimed that the technology would improve the business’ machine learning (ML) capabilities and understanding of unstructured data, ultimately giving redditors the most relevant information.

“MeaningCloud helps strengthen Reddit’s platform by helping our community get the relevant information they are looking for even faster,” Jack Hanlon, Vice President of Data, Reddit, said in a blogpost.

“With the addition of MeaningClound’s technology, we can continue our mission of providing simpler, richer, and more relevant content to our users,” Hanlon added.

The MeaningCloud team will support ML projects across Reddit’s Product, Safety, and Ads teams.

“We are thrilled to welcome the talented MeaningCloud team to Reddit,” Hanlon said.

“As we continue to expand internationally, this acquisition marks Reddit’s first office in Spain and supports our efforts to grow local communities and provide them with engaging and relevant content,” he added.

The company recently acquired the machine learning (ML) platform Spell for an undisclosed sum.

Serkan Piantino, a former engineer at Facebook, founded Spell in 2016. It offers a cloud computing service that enables users to execute resource-intensive machine learning experiments without high-end hardware.

WNS buys Chennai-based automation services company Vuram for $165mn

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July 2, 2022

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The enterprise automation services provider Vuram with headquarters in Chennai, was acquired by the business process management company WNS.

According to a press release, the transaction’s consideration, which excludes adjustments for cash, debt, and working capital, is $165 million, including the upfront payment and anticipated earn-outs. With funds on hand, WNS has funded the acquisition’s upfront payment.

The acquisition is expected to increase WNS’ net revenue by around 2% in fiscal 2023 and to maximize fiscal 2023 adjusted earnings based on the revenue earned by Vuram in fiscal 2022.

Vuram provides complete business automation as well as the creation of custom, scalable BPM solutions. These solutions include the capacity to construct rule-based processing engines and ML-based augmentation, use advanced analytics, and extract, collect, and categorize data using document processing based on artificial intelligence (AI).

“WNS expects that the acquisition of Vuram will accelerate our organizational journey towards digitally-led, human-assisted services and solutions. Their depth of knowledge in helping large global companies drive fast, scalable enterprise automation and business transformation is well-aligned with WNS’ short-term and long-term strategic plans,” said Keshav Murugesh, chief executive officer of WNS.

Founded in 2011, the target has approximately 900 people across India, the United States, Mexico, Australia, Canada, and the UK.

HCL Tech begins continuous cloud modernization experience for AWS

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July 1, 2022

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The launch of CloudSMART for AWS, a continuous modernization experience to assist businesses in accelerating their journey toward cloud business transformation, was announced today by HCL Technologies and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

According to a press release, this new programme combines specialists from HCL and AWS to collaborate with customer teams to develop a long-term plan and critical milestones to propel an organization’s continuing digital transformation at an expedited pace and scale. The strategy combines the best frameworks and practices from the HCL AWS Ecosystem to promote company transformation through contemporary working styles and quick delivery.

To transform from their present cloud state to the modern cloud and build digital enterprises for the future, firms can employ CloudSMART, a portfolio of strategically targeted industry-focused cloud products. This cloud-native strategy aims to solve company-specific goals by optimizing business value and driving digital transformation.

CloudSMART for AWS is focused on achieving business goals, such as accelerating innovation, achieving operational excellence, and maximizing agility at scale.

HCL is an AWS Premier Consulting Partner with a dedicated full stack business unit which provides an end-to-end road map to enterprise clients for adopting AWS at scale.

Swiggy begins ESOP liquidity worth $23mn, making all employees now eligible

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July 1, 2022

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Swiggy, an online platform for food delivery, announced on Thursday that its employees would have the option to receive liquidity of up to $23 million against their employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs).

The next ESOP liquidity round, according to Swiggy, will take place in July 2023.

According to a company’s statement, this enables employees with ESOPs to accumulate money in parallel with the expansion and success of the brand.

“We are happy seeing the wealth created for employees from the recent ESOP liquidity event,” said Girish Menon, Head of HR at Swiggy.

“Taking this further, we are delighted to now extend the opportunity to own Swiggy ESOPs to all employees through our build your own dollar (BYOD) programme,” he added.

Employees at all levels of Swiggy can choose to participate in ESOPs through the BYOD programme, which was previously only available to those over a certain grade or based on performance.

According to the company, all Swiggy permanent employees are now eligible for the BYOD programme.

Swiggy, founded in 2014, links customers to more than 2,000,00 restaurant partners and stores in more than 500 cities.

Instamart, its quick-commerce grocery service, operates in 29 cities. Swiggy announced in December 2021 that it would invest $700 million in Instamart.

Dineout, a restaurant technology platform for dining out, was purchased by Swiggy last month for nearly $200 million.

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