Additionally within the letter:
■ Apple teeters below China stress
■ Microsoft, TikTok layoffs
■ Indian techie’s ‘facet hustle’
TradeCred recordsdata felony criticism in opposition to Bizongo, alleges Rs 69 crore fund misappropriation
TradeCred has filed a criminal complaint against Bizongo, accusing the startup of misappropriating no less than Rs 69 crore. The criticism, submitted to the Mumbai Police’s Financial Offences Wing, names Bizongo’s founders, CEO, and main buyers, together with Accel, B Capital, Chiratae, and IFC.
Go deeper: Regardless of receiving funds from bill consumers by way of a managed escrow mechanism, Bizongo allegedly collected the precise funds from clients straight into its personal financial institution accounts slightly than routing them via designated escrow accounts as contractually required, as per TradeCred’s criticism.
- This, the TradeCred claims, constitutes a double restoration — the place Bizongo benefitted from each upfront bill financing and the ultimate fee from clients.
Context: Bizongo has already come below fireplace for weak monetary controls, which triggered senior exits and a pivot away from provide chain financing. The newest dispute highlights rising issues about governance in India’s booming personal credit score and bill discounting area.
Responding to allegations: Bizongo stated that it has been repaying its dues to TradeCred and has diminished the excellent principal from Rs 250 crore to Rs 66 crore now. The corporate stated it has already offered a settlement plan to TradeCred.
The large image: The case shines a lightweight on how fast-paced development and opaque enterprise fashions in startup-led finance can go away retail buyers dangerously uncovered. TradeCred’s transfer may set off oversight of platforms providing invoice-based funding merchandise.
Meesho recordsdata confidential prospectus for its IPO
Ecommerce unicorn Meesho has confidentially filed its draft red herring prospectus with Sebi for a Rs 4,250 crore ($500 million) IPO.
Driving the information: Backed by SoftBank and Prosus, Meesho lately moved its domicile from the US to India. The corporate reported revenue of Rs 7,615 crore for FY24, a 33% year-on-year improve, whereas slashing its adjusted loss by 97% to Rs 53 crore.
Inform me extra: Meesho joins a rising queue of Indian tech corporations gearing as much as go public, together with Groww, Pine Labs, and Urban Company. In FY25, the corporate processed 1.8 billion orders, demonstrating robust person adoption regardless of going through valuation markdowns.
Zoom in: If all goes to plan, Meesho may develop into the primary horizontal ecommerce platform to checklist on Indian exchanges. The IPO might be intently watched as a barometer for public investor curiosity within the scaled shopper companies, forward of Flipkart’s much-anticipated itemizing subsequent 12 months.
Additionally Learn: Startups aim to raise over Rs 18,000 crore via IPOs in major D-Street push
Foxconn recollects Chinese language employees from India, disrupting Apple’s iPhone 17 plans
President Donald Trump’s threat to slap tariffs on Apple merchandise manufactured exterior the US has jolted the tech large’s international provide chain. China, sensing a possibility, is moving fast to stymie Apple’s India plans.
Driving the information: Foxconn, Apple’s largest provider, has quietly withdrawn lots of of Chinese language engineers and technicians from its Indian vegetation. Over 300 Chinese language staff have exited Foxconn’s iPhone meeting services in India prior to now two months, in accordance with Bloomberg. However Beijing isn’t stopping there.
Additionally it is curbing expertise transfers and tightening controls on tools exports to India and Southeast Asia, Apple’s key hubs exterior China. The purpose is obvious: defend China’s long-term leverage if contemporary commerce partitions go up within the West.
India depends on each a talented workforce and high-end tech from China. To date, the affect has been restricted, nevertheless it may worsen. New Delhi is betting on Apple to develop into a pillar of its manufacturing ambitions.
Additionally Learn: Foxconn sends 97% of India iPhone exports to US as Apple tackles Trump’s tariffs
Apple’s bind: The corporate is gearing as much as make the iPhone 17. India already accounts for 20% of worldwide iPhone output and hoped to scale additional. With Trump focusing on Southeast Asia with larger tariffs, India appeared finest positioned to select up the slack.
India’s dilemma: However Vietnam, one other key Apple outpost, has moved quicker, striking a deal with Washington that permits duty-free American imports and caps tariffs on Vietnamese items at 20%, far beneath Trump’s proposed 46%. India, in the meantime, continues to be ready for its interim commerce settlement forward of the July 9 deadline.
Additionally Learn: Trump to Apple: “Don’t expand production in India”
Tech layoffs: Microsoft, TikTok lead newest spherical of job cuts
The second half of the 12 months has begun very like the primary, with more layoffs in the tech sector. Microsoft and TikTok are the most recent to trim headcount as Massive Tech continues to tighten belts.
Axing once more: Microsoft is letting go of another 4% of its workforce, or round 9,000 workers, only a month after cutting 6,000 roles. Bloomberg reviews that King, its Barcelona-based gaming unit behind Sweet Crush, is shedding 200 staffers.
Over at TikTok, job cuts are expected at its ecommerce vertical, TikTok Store. The corporate stated it’s present process “organisational and personnel adjustments”, geared toward boosting effectivity.
- Google, Meta, and Amazon introduced lots of of redundancies within the first half of the 12 months as a part of broader cost-cutting efforts.
Effectivity sport: Microsoft says it needs to flatten its organisational construction, scale back administration layers, and sharpen its “agility.” It’s additionally funnelling huge cash into synthetic intelligence (AI), which suggests shifting individuals and capital, and dropping jobs.
TikTok additionally acknowledged that the transfer follows “cautious evaluation of tips on how to create extra environment friendly working fashions for the staff’s long-term development.”
Silicon Valley fumes as Indian techie Soham Parekh works a number of founders
Soham Parekh
Whereas most engineers juggle one demanding job, Indian techie Soham Parekh managed to work with several startups without delay—many backed by Y Combinator—with out telling a soul.
The lengthy con: A graduate of the College of Mumbai and Georgia Institute of Expertise within the US, Parekh had the credentials and the appeal. He aced interviews, delivered work on time, and raised no flags. However his loyalty was break up throughout startups.
The alert: Suhail Doshi, founding father of Playground AI, Mixpanel and Mighty, blew the whistle on X. “There’s a man named Soham Parekh (in India) who works at 3-4 startups on the similar time. He’s been preying on YC firms and extra. Beware.”
Avalanche: Doshi’s submit lit a fireplace. Founders piled in, saying they’d interviewed and even briefly employed Parekh. One employer messaged Doshi saying he’d simply fired him after studying the thread.
Soham-gate: Parekh, caught within the storm, reached out to Doshi for recommendation. His message: “Have I fully sabotaged my profession?”
The moonlighting debate: Moonlighting, or working for a number of employers concurrently, had break up India Inc. some years in the past, again within the days of Covid and distant work. Wipro had sacked 300 employees members who had been discovered working for competitors. On the flipside, erstwhile Tech Mahindra CEO CP Gurnani had stated he had no objection to workers taking over secondary jobs.
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