Vadilal opens the first dessert café in Ahmedabad

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February 26, 2022

With the launch of Vadilal Enterprises Ltd’s first café, Ahmedabad residents had reason to rejoice. Now For Ever promotes fusion food, delectable desserts, and a visually appealing atmosphere to cater to millennials and Gen-Z and cultivate their passion for gourmet cuisine. Vadilal Enterprises wants to expand it to significant locations such as New Delhi, Surat, and Jaipur by the end of the year. In addition, Vadilal Enterprises intends to open a ‘Vadilal Now For Ever’ in every major city where it does business.

It serves approximately 60 dishes, all of which are produced with Vadilal products and ingredients, exported to countries such as the United States, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Australia, and others. Along with Vadilal’s well-known ice creams, the dessert cafe has added a new menu of fashionable and Instagram-worthy desserts and fusion culinary dishes to its menu. The effort is in line with the company’s aim to offer customers delectable and unique experiences.

“This concept came about from the simplicity that Vadilal Ice Creams embody. his is how we conceptualised Vadilal Now For Ever. We have over 150 flavours available in more than 300 formats. We wanted to use the same products that you get at any Vadilal store but with a never-before-seen twist to give you an unforgettable experience,” said Aakanksha Gandhi, brand director, Vadilal Enterprises Ltd.

Vadilal Group, founded in 1907, has many achievements to its name. It was the first brand in India to obtain a completely automated candy manufacturing line, and it was the first to introduce ice cream dollies, cones, and sundaes. Its Pundhra facility is the country’s largest completely automated plant.

Over four years, it has received more than 27 honors at the Indian Dairy Association’s Great Indian Ice Cream Contest. In addition, the Trust Research Advisory Council and the Brand Equity Survey named it the Most Trusted Ice Cream Brand in 2013. Consumers also chose it as a Superbrand for the years 2019-2020.

Craft Coffee plans to add Craft Coffee Experience Centre

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February 26, 2022

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In March 2021, Craft Coffee opened its first kiosk in Kolkata. Abhinav Kumar and Dipraj Das established the company with the goal of “plan a millennial-centric scalable format on handcrafted coffee and food pairing.” In Kolkata’s Ballygunge neighborhood, they opened a Craft Coffee Experience Centre.

Both the founder and co-founder left their jobs and invested INR 20 lakh in getting things started. Vijay Choudhury, an angel investor, provided additional funding of INR 60 lakh.

“At Craft coffee our pursuit is to continuously innovate towards making a cup of high-quality coffee while also engaging customers in the story of the coffee and hence the concept of the hub and spoke model where we open one or two experience centres in a city based on its potential and have self-service speciality coffee kiosks around them. We continuously strive to bring out the different flavour nodes suited to the palette of millennials—hence products like Coffucha or Coffee Kombucha, Cascara refresher or cranberry lime coffee tonic,” Kumar said about his brand’s ethos.

They spent a lot of time experimenting with coffee and food pairings, matching desserts and savory dishes to the types of coffee offered to customers. He said their baristas were taught as tour guides to engage customers in conversation and share the coffee trip.

“We source our beans from the Nandipura estate situated at an altitude of 2200 feet in the Mudigere area of Karnataka. The region grows some high quality grades of Chandragiri Arabica. The concept is built on the platform of promoting take away / hyper local delivery and home delivery model thereby making specialty coffee easily and affordably available,” he added.

Kolkata, Bhubaneswar, Patna, Bengaluru, Jaipur, and Delhi were among the cities the company planned to reach in phase-1 of its expansion. According to him, each city would have one or two experience centers with a combined area of 5000-7000 square feet and 20-35 kiosks, depending on the coverage radius. Quality coffee, reasonable costs, and simple accessibility were all priorities.

By creating a coffee box subscription service, the company hoped to develop a parallel online and institutional sales presence. Their products would be customized and selected according to consumer preferences.

“The future of the brand lies in integrating modern technology as a service facilitator thereby ensuring scalability and increased penetration through app based ordering and own delivery platform, loyalty program and self-service kiosks as well as mobile order takers. Hence a lot of planned investment will go into product and technology upgradation,” Kumar said.

IndiGo teams up with MakeMyTrip to launch 6E Holidays

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February 25, 2022

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IndiGo, India’s leading airline, has announced the launch of 6E Holidays, a joint venture with MakeMyTrip, which will offer air and land-based bundled holiday packages on its website and mobile app. Passengers on the airline can choose from various travel options, including leisure, pilgrimage, and adventure travel.

IndiGo will provide holiday packages under 6E Holidays by combining its huge airline inventory throughout the network with MakeMyTrip’s vast inventory of hotels and activities. With a well-rounded and comprehensive choice of holiday offerings, the budget airline promises a hassle-free holiday booking experience.

Commenting on the development, Sanjay Kumar, Chief Strategy and Revenue Officer, IndiGo, said, “We are delighted to collaborate with MakeMyTrip for 6E Holidays. This partnership will enable our passengers to seamlessly book flights, hotels, and various activities bundled under one product. At IndiGo, we strive to offer unique experiences and this holiday package offering will enhance the travel experience of our customers. He further added, “With receding covid wave, we expect a strong summer travel season after a gap of two years. These packages will help customers take advantage of best deals for their choice of destinations.”

Speaking about the partnership, Vipul Prakash, COO, MakeMyTrip Limited, said, “This tie-up between leaders in Indian aviation and Indian online travel space only means incredible value for customers who are looking to book their holidays after pandemic-forced time spent indoors. We are going to leverage strong product capabilities and decades of experience that are sure to provide a delightful holiday booking experience for those looking to travel within India and even overseas. We will continue to deliver on our promise to offer incredible value to travellers across the country.”

Samara Capital to invest in businesses, including retail, healthcare, technology, and finance

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February 25, 2022

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Samara Capital, a private equity firm based in India and a local partner of Amazon.com Inc., is looking to raise up to $500 million for a new fund focused on companies in Asia’s third-largest economy.

In an interview, Samara’s founder and managing director, Sumeet Narang, said the company aims to invest in businesses ranging from retail and health care to technology and finance and that the fund will close in the second half of 2022.

“We have started the roadshows and many of our existing investors across the U.S., Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific have already signed up,” Narang said.

Samara is looking to increase its investment in a consumer market with over a billion people. Last year, nearly 120 companies, ranging from online grocers to food delivery and cosmetics startups, collected $18 billion in initial public offerings, a recent record for the country.

According to its website, the firm was founded in 2007 and has invested more than $1 billion. According to Narang, the new fund will consider investing $50 million to $400 million in mid-market companies for a controlling stake.

Accenture to expand into tier-2 cities for better employee flexibility

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February 25, 2022

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Accenture is opening offices in Jaipur and Coimbatore as part of a move to gain access to more talent and provide employees more flexibility in terms of where they want to work.

Late last year, Accenture issued a note to employees about a new model that would give employees more flexibility regarding where they worked.

“We believe that when it comes to the future of work, there is no “one size fits all,” and our approach to how, when and where we work will vary by business, team, and the type of work our people do. For example, at our Advanced Technology Centres in India, people have the option to choose their own work location from any of the cities where Accenture has a presence,” Accenture said in a statement.

On Accenture’s website, there are presently jobs in Jaipur for finance operations and data collection. “In Jaipur, we are hiring for a variety of in-demand technology skills, in addition to domain and functional experts. A physical office space will be announced soon,” according to the company.

Accenture said, “Our people have also told us that while they value the flexibility provided by virtual working, some-in-person connection time is vital to them, and we are setting up offices in select cities to provide them with work options that fulfil both needs. The new locations will also help strengthen and grow our already rich and diverse talent base.”

Although Accenture has not confirmed Coimbatore, various job portals have listings for BPO and application developers in that location. Accenture employs roughly 2.5 lakh people in India out of a total workforce of 624,000. According to experts, Accenture’s push for additional locations is accelerated by the significant number of resignations that IT firms are experiencing.

According to Phil Fersht, CEO of HfS Research, the Great Resignation is a three-to-four-year phenomenon and a milestone moment in the history of IT services.

“This is driving the rapid location diversification of service providers, including Accenture. Wage inflation and employee attrition in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru has never been so problematic and is having a worrying knock-on impact on clients and competitive pricing,” Phil Fersht said.

Over the last 20 years, Accenture has made investments in tier-2 cities in Central/Eastern European locations, but he added on a far smaller scale than tier-2 Indian cities. “India is the one global location that offers talent at scale and the pandemic has strengthened its position,” he said.

“The industry is looking at more automation initiatives, cost associated with retaining and training staff, remote working, and ensuring good employee experience. And allowing users to work from the location of their choice is a big factor in enhancing experience,” he said.

Edtech firm CollegeDekho buys Getmyuni for Rs 50 cr

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February 24, 2022

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According to a top company official, CollegeDekho has acquired its rival firm Getmyuni for roughly Rs 50 crore in a mix of cash and equity deal, which will help the company’s revenue development. Getmyuni will continue to function independently following the acquisition. Part of its leadership will join the combined entity’s board of directors, according to Ruchir Arora, co-founder, and CEO of CollegeDekho.

“We have acquired 100 per cent of Getmyuni which is also a college discovery platform for about Rs 50 crore in cash and equity mix. They (Getmyuni) will continue to operate under their leadership. Some from their leadership team will also join CollegeDekho in the leadership ecosystem,” he said.

CollegeDekho, founded in 2015, is on a mission to institutionalize student counseling in India’s higher education sector.

“We have been growing close to 100 per cent year-on-year. Last financial year we closed with a net revenue of Rs 50 crore. Right now we are already expecting 4 times of that. With Getmyuni, we will have about 50 per cent of all students query through us,” Arora said.

CollegeDekho, he said, is attempting to build an entire ecosystem around student needs, including loan access. He added that Getmyuni is highly similar to CollegeDekho.

“They also run another website called IELTS material. They are very similar to CollegeDekho. They will solidify our position. Between CollegeDekho and Getmyuni, we will cater to almost 50 per cent of all higher education traffic in the country,” Arora said.

Getmyuni, he said, will help the merged organization become the country’s largest student enrollment platform, producing over 25 crores annual student traffic and supporting over 30,000 enrollments across almost 2,000 partner colleges.

India’s buy-now-pay-later sector to reach $40 bn by 2025

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February 24, 2022

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According to a new report released, the buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) industry in India’s fintech space is expected to reach $40 billion by 2025.

According to management consulting firm Redseer, this fintech subsegment, which witnessed 9 times financing growth and massive adoption in 2021, is growing at a 65% (on-year) rate.

Simpl, Lazypay, Zestmoney, ePayLater, Flipkart, Paytm, PhonePe, and Amazon India are the companies and fintech platforms that have jumped on the BNPL bandwagon.

“The majority of consumers use BNPL frequently, have good usage hygiene, and usually pay on time. However, there are some consumer experience areas to be solved to drive higher average revenue per user (ARPU)/customer lifetime value (LTV) from the existing user base,” said Mrigank Gutgutia, Associate Partner, Redseer.

A higher credit limit, cash withdrawals, increased user convenience, and more merchant tie-ups are just a few of the key areas that need to be addressed.

“Regulations will also be key as several nations have started to regulate BNPL to protect users and reduce defaults, while India is still in the nascent stage,” Gutgutia noted.

Multiple products and business models are emerging in India’s BNPL ecosystem, owing to the country’s different BNPL users and ecosystems.

“Close to 73 percent of this segment use BNPL for online shopping. Companies are actively trying to diversify their use cases with wider merchant partnerships,” said the report.

Bharti Airtel bags strategic stake in blockchain technology startup Aqilliz

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February 24, 2022

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Bharti Airtel announced that it had acquired a strategic stake in Aqilliz, a blockchain technology startup.

According to Airtel, Singapore-based Aqilliz has developed Atom, a patented hybrid blockchain platform that mixes differential privacy and federated learning on a distributed digital ledger.

It added that marketers could create secure and consent-based solutions to communicate with customers in a quickly expanding digital economy that is becoming increasingly decentralized.

Airtel plans to use Aqilliz’s blockchain technology across its rapidly developing Adtech (Airtel Ads), digital entertainment (Wynk Music & Airtel Xstream), and digital commerce (Airtel Thanks App) services.

“Blockchain technology is maturing and we see its application across areas such as Adtech, Creator Economy, and Loyalty Programs. We are thrilled to have Aqilliz join our Startup Accelerator Program and be part of Airtel’s digital innovation factory,” said Airtel Digital CEO Adarsh Nair.

Airtel will collect and carry this value exchange in the form of consent and provenance across the digital supply chain owing to Aqilliz’s unique technology.

Aqilliz’s Founding CEO, Gowthaman Ragothaman, said, “We look forward to working closely with the team at Airtel.”

Tata Housing to capitalize $36mn in two Maldives housing projects

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February 23, 2022

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Tata Housing, a subsidiary of Tata Sons Pvt Ltd, announced that it would invest roughly $36 million in two new residential developments in Male, Maldives, at Nadhee and Odean.

There will be 117 premium three-bedroom apartments in the two projects.

The project is being created in a public-private collaboration with the Maldives government and is located on Majeedhee Magu City Centre Road, the island’s retail and residential luxury centre. The two residential plots will be developed by Tata Housing, with a total development area of 2.52 lakh sq ft.

“We are excited to launch the second phase of our projects in Maldives. It is a premier residential development. Tata Housing is committed towards delivering unmatched spaces and elevating the living experience of its homebuyers. We sincerely thank the government of Maldives for being very investor friendly and professional. This development will be followed by island developments in the near future,” said Sanjay Dutt, managing director and CEO, Tata Housing and Tata Realty and Infrastructure Ltd.

Dutt added, “Maldives is fast growing; however Male City needs more to meet the appetite of growth of Maldives as an economy and the rising standards of its citizens. We are committed to play our part as a responsible real estate development company.”

EaseMyTrip joins with Toffee for personalized travel insurance plans

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February 23, 2022

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Toffee Insurance, an insurtech firm, has joined with EaseMyTrip, an online travel platform, to provide innovative and customized travel insurance options to its consumers.

Toffee Insurance will manage all travel insurance packages for added value and provide extra protection to EaseMyTrip customers who have to cancel flights due to medical crises as part of this partnership.

According to EaseMyTrip, the free-of-charge policy minimizes the possibility of losing booking fees because clients will receive a full refund, including any money withheld by airlines.

Rikant Pittie, co-founder, EaseMyTrip, said, “While travel is reviving at a strong rate, customers are still concerned about medical emergencies that can arise right before a travel plan. We are delighted to partner with Toffee Insurance while we continue to offer our first-of-its-kind, free-of-charge, full refund medical policy that provides the additional travel flexibility required during such trying times for our customers. We believe that Toffee’s proven track record of delivering great results will complement EaseMyTrip’s exceptional efforts to offer value-added services to its customers.”

Customers must select this policy while booking their ticket on EaseMyTrip’s website or app to be eligible for this service. A doctor’s prescription specifying the medical issue must be uploaded to claim the policy.

Rohan Kumar, co-founder and CEO of Toffee said, “By joining hands with EaseMyTrip, India’s second-largest online travel platform, we are bringing not only one of the fastest but also the best-in-class insurance services to the Indian travellers. Additionally, our end-to-end digital integration with EaseMyTrip also enables the digitization of the entire insurance process. EaseMyTrip has been at the forefront of travel bookings and exceptional customer service, and we, at Toffee are delighted to partner with them to protect their customers’ travel plans and provide them with additional travel confidence during these unprecedented times.”

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