Also in this letter:
■ Cybersecurity threats for SMEs
■ ETtech made agreements
■ Approval of cabinet for Kaynes Semicon chip unit
Fast-trading companies rush to snap up dark store sites and staff amid rapid growth
Companies, flush with cash from recent fundraisings at lofty valuations, are doing everything they can to snap up two more essential assets: Real estate and human resources.
Driving the news: There is a rush to open more dark stores and companies are competing for suitable locations. Finding these sites is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive in big cities as these micro warehouses are essential to servicing local areas. Moreover, the need to hire staff to manage this growing infrastructure and supply chain has opened up another battlefront, with companies like BigBasket, Zepto, Flipkart Minutes and Swiggy Instamart hiring aggressively, even from their rivals.
Tell me more: “All platforms are in land grab mode and looking to nearly double their dark stores in the coming years,” Bofa Securities said in a report dated Aug. 30.
Senior executives told us that acquiring dark stores and managing day-to-day operations are critical to running the fast-commerce business, which enables orders to be delivered within 15 to 30 minutes. Rents for such retail spaces in central locations are higher than those of warehouses operated by e-commerce companies like Amazon and Flipkart outside city limits.
Challenges: Aadit Palicha, CEO of Zepto, which closed a $1 billion funding round last weekPalicha said finding land for dark stores in the most densely populated areas of a big city is a challenge. “It is a geographically specific issue. For example, in South Mumbai or Koramangala in Bengaluru, these areas will see aggressive deals to get dark stores,” he said.
Increase in hiring: Fast-paced e-commerce companies are actively seeking talent to support their growth. “The sector is experiencing rapid growth due to high funding and the fact that the winner of this sector is likely to capture the largest e-commerce category – grocery,” said Anshuman Das, founder and CEO of executive search firm Longhouse Consulting.
Read our in-depth report on the rise of fast commerce:
Payment apps open pilots to cash in on NPCI’s new UPI Circle
Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the popular digital payments railroad, is betting big on UPI Circlea new feature to increase the number of active users on a platform.
Driving the news: Major payment apps are looking to implement this feature, including Amazon Pay, Google Pay and PhonePe, which are testing it on closed user groups. Bhim, backed by the National Payments Corporation of India Limited (NPCI), will also be rolling it out very soon.
Read also: ETtech In-Depth | Bhim promised the moon but failed to deliver. Can NPCI turn things around?
Why is it important?: UPI Circle is being built to solve multiple digital payments use cases for different members of a single family, perhaps with one bank account.
- Children and senior citizens in the family can become secondary users of the UPI app
- Control over the payment process remains in the hands of the primary user.
- ‘Housekeepers’ can be given this product to use to purchase household items for the family.
Read also | UPI’s lagging market share will likely keep the online payments pie unchanged
Overview: Industry experts noted that while UPI transaction volume is growing every month, the number of new users is joining at a slower pace. UPI Circle aims to solve this problem by attracting younger consumers who do not yet have a bank account and older people who are wary of using digital payments.
Read also | Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das’ five-point agenda for India’s financial future at GFF 2024
Insight Infographic: The Cybersecurity Threat Facing Small and Medium-Sized Businesses
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in sectors such as healthcare, e-commerce and retail An increase in cyberattacks was observed in 2024according to the latest report from the security company Indusface.
Globally, SMBs faced over 559 million attacks between April and June 2024. A survey of over 1,400 IT professionals in these SMBs showed that the majority of respondents were on the receiving end of cybersecurity incidents in the past 12 months, while around 79% are concerned about ransomware attacks affecting them.
ETtech does business
From left to right: Nutrabay founders Shreyans Jain, Divay Prakash Jain and Sharad Jain.
D2C sports nutrition startup Nutrabay raises $5M: Nutrabay, a direct-to-consumer (D2C) sports nutrition retailer, has raised $5 million in a Series A funding round led by RPSG Capital VenturesKotak Alternate Asset Managers Limited also participated in the round.
BigEndian Semiconductors Raises $3 Million: BigEndian Semiconductors, a fabless semiconductor design startup, raised $3 million in funding round led by Vertex Ventures SEA & India. The funds will be used to expand the company’s engineering team, enhance research and development capabilities, and scale up operations.
Other featured stories from our reporters
Union Cabinet approves Kaynes Semicon’s proposal for Gujarat chip unit: The Union Cabinet on Monday Approved the proposal for outsourced semiconductor assembly and testing (OSAT) Kaynes Semicon to set up a semiconductor unit in Sanand, Gujarat. ET was first to report this in March of this year. Kaynes will shelve his plans to set up an OSAT in Telangana and move to Gujarat. The proposed unit will be set up at an investment of Rs 3,300 crore.
Harman’s predictive analytics platform, ForecastGPT, is now available: Samsung Electronics’ wholly-owned subsidiary, Harman’s Digital Transformation Solutions (DTS) business unit, has launched ForecastGPTa predictive analytics platform that enables organizations to forecast sales, supply chain, and financial planning across industries such as retail, manufacturing, healthcare, hospitality, and communications.
Brazil shuts down X, Elon Musk is furious: all you need to know By Elon Musk Social media platform X was suspended in Brazil on August 30 as a result of the dispute that the billionaire maintained for months with the judge of the Supreme Court of the country, Alexandre de Moraes, who ordered the “immediate, complete and total suspension of the operation of ‘X Brasil Internet LTDA’ in the national territory.”
Global Picks We’re Reading
■ Kamala Harris should support tech workers, not their bosses (MIT Technology Review)
■ The Durov case has nothing to do with freedom of expression (FOOT)
■ OpenAI wants AI to help humans train AI (Cabling)
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