Abhishek Securities

  Online learning startup  Byju’s  said it has raised an undisclosed amount from three new investors BlackRock, Sands Capital and Alkeon Capital. The company is now valued at $11.1 billion, a person familiar with the matter said. The fund-raising is part of the $500 million funding round that it completed earlier this month. The new valuation topped the previous $10.8 billion that the company was valued at when it raised funds from a clutch of investors, including private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, along with existing investors General Atlantic, Owl Ventures and Tiger Global. The rush of investments into the edtech startup comes amid a surge in demand for online teaching after remote learning replaced physical classrooms following the announcement of the nationwide lockdown in end-March. The company, which teaches students through a mobile app, has added more than 25 million students on its platform since the lockdown. The app currently has more than 70 million registered studen

  Oyo Hotels and Homes, Japanese investment conglomerate Softbank’s blue-eyed portfolio firm in India, is one of the several businesses that have been hit hard by the pandemic. The hospitality startup has been beset by a drop in revenues and occupancy levels, grappled with multiple senior level exits and was forced to let go of some properties around the world. And now it faces fresh backlash from numerous hotel owners who are crying foul that it reneged on commitments to the pre-agreed terms after the pandemic. Some have also taken the company to court. In an exclusive interaction with Moneycontrol, Ritesh Agarwal, founder and CEO of Oyo, opens up about the $10-billion company’s troubles and each of the critical issues gnawing at it. Agarwal is optimistic — he thinks the hospitality industry will not take long to recover from the blows of the pandemic. The hospitality sector has been one of the worst affected by the pandemic because global and domestic travel had dropped to a trickle.

  Payments unicorn  Paytm  on Monday brought back the cricket-led cashback scheme it removed from its app last week amid a fracas with  Google . Paytm had earlier claimed that the cashback feature was the reason why Google dropped it from its PlayStore. However, Google said cashbacks do not violate its policies but linking to an external website where users enter paid tournaments to win real money does. “While we remain firm in our stance on the action taken by Google, we have made a few changes to our promotions so that our cricket celebrations with you continue uninterrupted. The essence of ‘Paytm Cricket League’ remains the same—you get surprise cricket player stickers on each transaction and earn cashback on collecting them," Paytm said in a blog post on Monday. On 18 September, Google removed the Paytm and Paytm First Games from its Play Store, citing violation of its guidelines on gambling. The Paytm app was restored after the company complied with the platform’s rules. Payt

  General Atlantic  will invest Rs 3,675 crore in  Reliance Retail  Ventures, which will value  Mukesh Ambani 's retail arm at a pre-money equity value of Rs 4.285 lakh crore. General Atlantic’s money will translate into a 0.84% equity stake in  Reliance  Retail on a fully diluted basis. This is General Atlantic's second investment in a subsidiary of  Reliance Industries   NSE -0.48 % , following a Rs 6,598.38 crore investment in Jio Platforms announced earlier this year. Reliance Retail is on a fund raising spree and has secured around $1.8 billion in the past few weeks from KKR & Co and Silver Lake Partners. Reliance, controlled by Asia's richest man Mukesh Ambani, has approached investors, who collectively pumped more than $20 billion into its Jio Platforms digital business this year, to take stakes in its retail business, which has nearly 12,000 stores and sells everything from groceries and electronics to fashion and shoes. “I am pleased to extend our relat

  The top 10 unicorns in the country make up 78 per cent of the total value of India's unicorns. Paytm alone claims nearly 22 per cent of the total valuation share of these unicorns, with a valuation of $16 billion. Hurun India Unicorn Index 2020 lists the top 10 most valued unicorns in the country in 2020. Here is the list: 1)Paytm ($16 billion) Founded by  Vijay Shekhar Sharma  in 2010, Paytm is valued at $16 billion. The Noida-headquartered digital payments firm ranks 13th in the Hurun Global Unicorn List 2020. In its recent funding round held in November 2019, the company raised $1billion, the highest amount raised by an Indian unicorn in the year. 2)OYO Rooms ($8 billion) Online hotel booking platform OYO Rooms  is currently valued at $8 billion. The startup's founder  Ritesh Agarwal  invested $2 billion in Gurgaon based company in October last year. 2)BYJU's ($8 billion) Byju Raveendran  led ed-tech startup BYJU's has a valuation of $8 billion. The learning platfo

  Abu Dhabi state fund Mubadala Investment Co is in advanced talks to invest up to $1 billion in the retail division of India's Reliance Industries Ltd, two sources told Reuters, as investor interest in the Indian company surges. Reliance Retail is on a fund raising spree and has secured around $1.8 billion in the past few weeks from KKR & Co and Silver Lake Partners. Reliance, controlled by Asia's richest man Mukesh Ambani, has approached investors, who collectively pumped more than $20 billion into its Jio Platforms digital business this year, to take stakes in its retail business, which has nearly 12,000 stores and sells everything from groceries and electronics to fashion and shoes. Mubadala invested around $1.2 billion in Jio Platforms and its executives have held extensive talks in recent weeks with Reliance for investing in its retail venture, several sources familiar with the talks said. While one source said Mubadala "is ready with" $1 billion for Relianc