The winter that set in late 2015 on funding appears to have thawed as there is renewed funding galore in Indian startups. In the quarter ending March 2019, Indian startups recorded total funding of $3.42 billion. India’s startup ecosystem is going through a purple patch and the government stability and roadmap to boost economic environment is inspiring more entrepreneurial minds. While this growth in the Indian startup ecosystem is a good omen, the reality is that the top five most-funded startups which make up a mere 3.06% of the total number of startups funded this quarter — contributed 43% to the total $3.42 billion raised in Q1.

Publication : The Economic Times

Date : July 02, 2019

A leading U.S. retail group, whose members include Walmart Inc., is eager to aid antitrust enforcers that are poised to investigate whether Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google are harming competition. The group wrote a letter to the FTC dated Sunday, arguing that the tech platforms create an “information bottleneck” that has the power to skew markets and circumvent the traditional power of price competition. The group also pointed to Amazon’s perceived dominance of e-commerce, where it has nearly 50% of U.S. online sales.

Publication: Bloomberg

Date: July 2, 2019

After a years-long drought, a wave of technology startups — Uber, Lyft, Pinterest and more — are going public, evidence that the sector is thriving. But there’s a shadow hanging over almost all of them. Seventeen of the 22 tech initial public offerings that aimed to raise $100 million or more in the last 18 months mention Amazon.com Inc. or Google — and sometimes both — as a competitor or risk to their business. Many, like cyber security software maker Tenable Holdings Inc., are operationally dependent on Amazon’s cloud.

Publication : Forbes India 

Date : July 2, 2019

IKEA’s new series comprising boxes, baskets, mats, lamps are made from recycled rice straws that prevent farmers from burning crops and polluting the environment. In 2018, IKEA launched the ‘Better Air Now’ initiative with the aim to take action on this global environmental issue. The idea was to turn the leftover rice straws into raw material for prospective products. The results of this initiative are seen in the FÖRÄNDRING collection which feature boxes, baskets, mats, lamps, etc.

Publication: Architectural Digest

Date: July 2, 2019