Walt Disney to move Hotstar content to Hulu, ESPN+ in US

Disney is looking to slowly consolidate its content into a Disney Bundle, which includes Hotstar, ESPN+, Hulu and Disney+ and more than 100,000 movies, TV episodes as well as sports events.

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BillDesk cofounder on Prosus deal; pre-IPO boost for Paytm

BillDesk, the Indian fintech firm that predates the word 'fintech', will soon be acquired by global tech investor Prosus in a $4.7 billion all-cash deal. MN Srinivasu, one of the firm's cofounders, told us why BillDesk said yes to Prosus

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MNCs, Indian companies will collaborate with rivals by 2025: Report

While fewer than half of the Indian companies surveyed said they would collaborate with competitors, a third (34%) said they plan to increase collaboration by 2025 and 10% respondents said they will decrease it.

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Venture debt firm Trifecta Capital launches $200 million third fund

Launched in 2015 with a Rs 500 crore first fund, Trifecta is one of the first few venture debt funds in India, and counts unicorns such as BigBasket, Infra.Market, Cars24, ShareChat and Vedantu among its portfolio companies.

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T Rowe Price MFs mark up Paytm valuation by 16% ahead of IPO

For the quarter ending March 2021, December 2020 and September 2020, Paytm shares were valued at around $255, recovering from the significant markdown in the June quarter last year.

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Prosus deal adds to our heft and gives us necessary growth capital, says BillDesk cofounder

The Mumbai-based fintech firm, founded in the year 2000 by MN Srinivasu, Ajay Kaushal and Karthik Ganapathy, has been acquired by global technology investor Prosus in a $4.7 billion deal, one of the largest such transactions in the digital economy.

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Wall St boutique PJT Partners joins Indian M&A sweepstakes with PayU-BillDesk deal

The six-year-old firm had roped in former Citi India CEO Pramit Jhaveri as senior advisor to help grow base.

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South Korea bans Google, Apple payment monopolies

The tech giants have faced widespread criticism over their practice of requiring app developers to use in-app purchasing systems, for which the companies receive commissions of up to 30%.

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Facebook, WhatsApp release compliance reports under new IT rules

The US-based social media network proactively acted on 3.5 million posts related to violent and graphic content and 2.6 million posts concerning adult nudity and sexual activity, it said in the report, published in line with the new IT Intermediary Guidelines.

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Prosus to pay $4.7B for BillDesk; Facebook, Xiaomi eye India's loan market

Prosus Ventures is set to buy BillDesk, one of India’s oldest digital payment firms, for a cool $4.7 billion in what will be one of the acquisitions ever in the sector.

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Managing The Manufacturing Workforce

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Nigeria to partner with Bitt Inc to launch 'eNaira' digital currency

The Central Bank announced plans to launch its own digital currency later this year after Nigeria barred banks and financial institutions from dealing in or facilitating transactions in cryptocurrencies in February.

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Consumers spent $40 billion on App Store in H1 2021

According to data acquired by Finbold.com, the spending represents a growth of 22.05% from a similar period in 2020. App Store's H1 2021 spending is almost double compared to $23.4 billion spent by Android consumers.

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Govt examining public comments on draft Consumer Protection (e-commerce) Rules

Ban on fraudulent flash sales and mis-selling, and appointment of chief compliance officer/grievance redressal officer are among key amendments proposed to the Consumer Protection (e-commerce) Rules, 2020, on which the government had sought public comments by July 6.

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Google to invest $1.2 billion in Germany cloud computing programme

The internet giant said it plans to add new cloud computing centres in the Berlin region and in the town of Hanau, close to the DE-CIX data exchange in Frankfurt.

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Patreon buys tech recruiting company to speed up creator economy launches

The company, which was founded in 2013, helped pioneer the growth of the so-called creator economy, enabling videographers, podcasters and other creative people to earn money directly from their audiences.

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Sparks Studio gets $125,000 funding from Y Combinator

The Silicon Valley incubator ​​has invested in Spark Studio as part of their summer program (S21) batch.

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AFL Hyperscale partners with SASMOS HET Technologies for data centre solutions

SASMOS HET has established a fibre optic facility in Bengaluru, and with AFL’s global expertise, will provide ‘Made in India’ products and engineering solutions to help align end-to-end networks that conform to global standards.

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NIIT expects accelerated adoption of immersive learning models

The company reported a 49% increase in revenue growth in the first quarter of this fiscal and expects its corporate business to grow faster than initially anticipated in the coming quarters, he said.

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Russia's Yandex restructures JV ownership with Uber in $1 billion deal

Under the agreement, Yandex will receive Uber's 33.5% indirect interest in Yandex.Eats, Yandex.Lavka and Yandex.Delivery as well as 18.2% interest in Yandex Self-Driving Group (SDG), giving Yandex 100% ownership in all businesses.

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India’s $1 trillion digital loan market is the new battleground for Facebook and Xiaomi

Facebook this month said India would be the first country where it rolls out its small business loan program offering loans via a partner to firms that advertise on its platform. The loans will range from 500,000 rupees ($6,720) to 5 million rupees with interest rates of 17%-20%, potentially without collateral.

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Two-wheeler financing startup OTO Capital raises $6 million from Matrix, others

Founded in 2018, OTO is currently present in Chennai, Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad and Mysore. The company claims it has grown 4x in the past 12 months, while keeping non-performing assets below 1%.

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Prosus buys Billdesk for $4.7 billion

Prosus said Billdesk would complement its own PayU business.

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Amazon writes to Sebi on Future-Reliance; CCI meets sellers for ecomm probe

Amazon, which won a huge victory against Future Retail in the Supreme Court in early August, is doing everything in its power to thwart its takeover by Reliance. It has now written to Sebi, asking the regulator to withdraw the conditional approval.

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H-1B denial rates decline: USCIS data

Legal challenges forced US lawmakers to reverse restrictive immigration policies leading to a sharp decline in visa denial rates for initial employment, or new H-1B visas, to7.1% in the first six months of fiscal 2021 compared to 28.6% in the corresponding period of the last year, according to a study by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP).

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Big B 1st Indian star to roll out NFT collection

BeyondLife.club will allow collectors to buy NFT using Indian currency through digital payments and credit cards, complying with local laws, while allowing overseas buyers to transact using virtual currencies such as Bitcoin or Ethereum.

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Ola IPO to hit the street early 2022

Investment banks including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Kotak Mahindra Capital, Citigroup and JP Morgan are understood to be working with the company on filing preliminary documents with the market regulator in the next two months.

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Etail probe: CCI chats with third-party sellers for more info

The move follows a Supreme Court order that cleared the way for CCI to restart its probe against the e-tailers, which had tried to stall the probe in Karnataka High Court (HC) as well as the apex court by challenging the HC order.

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Amazon tells Sebi to withdraw conditional nod to Future-RIL deal

Supreme Court ruled the Singapore International Arbitration Centre order staying the deal was valid in India

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India must rethink on data centres in metros: Microsoft exec

Major global cities like Amsterdam and Singapore are shunning any new data centres because they "suck out" power, and we need to be circumspect about concentrating all the capacities in or around the financial capital, says Microsoft executive.

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Indegene acquires US-based Medical Marketing Economics for $10 million

Indegene raised $200 million from investment firms Carlyle and Brighton Park Capital in February and is looking at more acquisitions in the regulatory, safety, patient-side space. MME is a pricing, reimbursement and market access services provider.

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From tech to education, China's season of regulatory crackdown

Beijing has introduced regulations that bar private, for-profit tutoring companies from raising capital overseas. The rules also say tutoring centres must register as non-profits, may not offer programmes for subjects already taught in public day schools, and ban classes on weekends and holidays.

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Amid criticism, Zomato says recent ads 'well-intentioned'

The comments come at a time when the Gurugram-based company’s ads - starring Bollywood actors Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif – have been called out for being tone-deaf and belittling the concerns of delivery partners.

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Zomato responds to ad controversy; Ola chooses banks for IPO

Ola has chosen three banks — Kotak Investment Banking, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley — to manage its $1-billion IPO. PhonePe has received an insurance broking licence from the industry regulator.

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Wall Street awaits Zoom's next act as pandemic boom cools

Zoom's revenue growth has been decelerating as the economy slowly reopens, users complain of "Zoom-fatigue" and as vaccinated people return to school and offices. The company is now looking to win bigger contracts.

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VC firm Accel launches Atoms programme to back early-stage startups

Accel Atoms fund will invest $250,000 in startups with an uncapped convertible, meaning the venture capital firm will not pick up a stake in the pre-seed round but will do so in subsequent fundraisings.

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D2C sports brand Elevar raises $2.5 million from Kalaari, Dream Capital

Elevar, which makes running shoes and cricket bats, will use the funding for expanding its product portfolio, marketing and hiring.

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View: Google's push into Indian retail banking is a threat to traditional lenders

The same slow, painful decline that gutted the print media after readers and advertisers moved online and publishers lost their sway over them may be waiting in the wings for banking, too.

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China cuts amount of time minors can spend on online games

Online gaming companies will be barred from providing gaming services to them in any form outside those hours and need to ensure they have put real name verification systems in place.

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Shopee tests India e-commerce market dominated by Amazon, Flipkart

Singapore-headquartered Sea Ltd's Shopee has launched a recruitment campaign for sellers to sell on "Shopee India" and is ramping up hiring in the country whose e-commerce industry is dominated by Amazon India and Walmart's Flipkart.

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Ola said to pick Kotak Mahindra Bank, Citigroup for $1 billion IPO

Ola could seek a valuation of more than $8 billion in the IPO and could file its draft red herring prospectus by October, Bloomberg reported. Details of Ola IPO—including size and timeline—could still change as deliberations are ongoing.

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PhonePe receives insurance broking licence from IRDAI

PhonePe can now distribute insurance policies from all companies across categories thereby helping the firm diversify its offerings while also being able to offer recommendations.

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Singapore's Shopee changes the game in Brazil's ecommerce sector

Shopee took just two years to become Brazil's most-downloaded shopping app, winning users to its low-cost marketplace with its game-changing approach to e-commerce: in-app mini-games offering coupons to winning users.

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Australia considering new laws for Apple Pay, Google Pay

Services such as Apple Pay, Google Pay and China's WeChat Pay, which have grown rapidly in recent years, are not currently designated as payment systems by Australia, putting them outside the scope of regulation.

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IT firms are changing the way they hire freshers

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Persistent Systems and Infogain Corp. are staggering their intake of freshers through the year in order to be more responsive to the changing business environment amid a raging pandemic.

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Covid continues to disrupt hiring

Our first three stories today highlight ways in which the pandemic has changed how companies hire, manage and retain employees.

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Investors make a beeline for HR tech companies

Around $200-250 million have been raised by such companies from investors since January, data compiled by ET shows.

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To push EV adoption, Karnataka eyes sops for companies making retrofit kits

Karnataka was ahead of other states when it came up with an electric vehicles and battery storage policy in 2017. The government, however, has not been satisfied with the speed of EV adoption by stakeholders, and it is in this context that the government is examining a policy nudge.

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Scaler Academy acquires online coding platform Coding Elements

The Bengaluru-headquartered company had been in talks with Coding Elements for about a month as it was looking to offer a data science course to its users.

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Researchers, cybersecurity agency urge action by Microsoft cloud database users

Researchers at a cloud security company called Wiz discovered this month they could have gained access to the primary digital keys for most users of the Cosmos DB database system, allowing them to steal, change or delete millions of records.

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