Indian Navy released online link for the posts of Sailor (AA & SSR) - Feb 2020 Batch. Candidates may apply online from 28-06-2019 to 10-07-2019.
Wednesday, June 26, 2019
Indian Navy Sailor Recruitment 2019 – Apply Online for AA/ SSR Feb 2020 Batch
Indian Navy released online link for the posts of Sailor (AA & SSR) - Feb 2020 Batch. Candidates may apply online from 28-06-2019 to 10-07-2019.
Warburg Pincus announces new $4.25 billion fund for China and Southeast Asia
Warburg Pincus, the private equity fund with over $60 billion under management, is doubling down on Asia after it announced a $4.25 billion fund dedicated to China and Southeast Asia.
The firm has been present in China for 25 years, and it has invested over $11 billion in a portfolio of over 120 startups that includes the likes of Alibaba’s Ant Financial and listed companies NIO (a Tesla rival), ZTO Express (a courier firm)among others. The new fund will work in tandem with the firm’s $14.8 billion global growth fund which was finalized at the end of last year.
What’s particularly interesting about the new fund is that it has expanded to include Southeast Asia, where internet adoption is rapidly expanding among 600 million consumers, for the first time. It is the successor to Warburg Pincus’ previous $2.2 billion ‘China’ fund and, with the addition of Southeast Asia, it’ll aim to build on initial investments in the region that have included Go-Jek in Indonesia (although it is going regional) and Vietnamese digital payment startup Momo from its Singapore office.
Indeed, the firm’s head of Southeast Asia — Jeff Perlman — said in a statement that Southeast Asia is “exhibiting many of the strong investment themes and trends which have driven our China business over the last 25 years.”
While there is plenty of uncertainty around China, and more widely Asia, due to the ongoing trade battle with the U.S. — which has ensnared Huawei and other tech firms — Warburg Pincus said it had received strong demand for LPs whilst out raising this new fund.
Though it declined to provide details of its backers — and you’d wager that few, if any, are U.S-based — it said it surpassed its initial target of $3.5 billion for the China-Southeast Asia fund. That’s despite evidence suggesting that China’s investment space is experiencing a slowdown in total funding raised despite more deals.
In terms of target investments, the firm said it intends to focus on areas including consumer and services, healthcare, real estate, financial services and TMT — technology, media and telecommunications.
Warburg Pincus is already one of the largest investors in Southeast Asia in terms of potential check size, although it has been fairly selective on deals at this point. The fund’s move to include the region alongside will be a boon for companies looking for growth-stage deals that are hard to find in the current venture capital ecosystem.
More broadly, it is also a major endorsement for Southeast Asia as a startup destination. The region has long been seen as having immense growth potential, but it often sits in the shadows of more mature regions like India and China.
Warburg isn’t alone in grouping Southeast Asia with another region. Sequoia’s India fund reaches into Southeast Asia — alongside its recently-launched accelerate program — as does the most recent fund from Vertex Ventures.
On the other side, a number of Chinese funds are increasingly doing deals in the region and setting up shop in Singapore. Those include GGV which has backed startups like fintech company Thunes, Ant Financial-backed fund BAce Capital and ATM Capital, which helps Chinese companies expand into and localize in Southeast Asia.
Meanwhile, other funds are also stepping up to address the gap in later stage capital. B Capital, a firm led by former Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, recently made a first close of over $400 million for a fund that’s targeted at Southeast Asia and other regions. Asia Partners is a maiden venture spearheaded by Nick Nash, the former president of Sea, that aims to tap into the post-Series B gap using a PE style approach that may be much like that of Warburg Pincus.
Pinduoduo cements position as China’s second-largest ecommerce player
Alibaba and JD.com have been in a war over the Chinese e-commerce space for a decade or so, but a third player called Pinduoduo has managed to shake up the duopoly in recent times. The startup, which was founded in 2015 by an ex-Googler and went public on the Nasdaq last July, has further flexed muscles during the recent “6/18” shopping spree.
According to data provider QuestMobile, Pinduoduo’s daily active users have outnumbered JD’s for at least the past 12 months, and it came out of the mid-year sales festival — first popularized by JD as a counterpart to archrival Alibaba’s “11/11” shopping day — with 135 million DAUs.
JD, in comparison, ended with 88 million DAUs and Alibaba’s Taobao retained its top spot at 299 million. That result further solidified Pinduoduo’s position as China’s second-biggest ecommerce company by number of users.
The boom of Pinduoduo is in part attributable to ties with its investor Tencent — also a backer of JD — which enables it to sell via WeChat’s lite app and tap the giant’s vast social network. Alibaba, on the other hand, has for years been prevented from selling through WeChat.
In terms of sales, Pinduoduo still remains some miles behind JD, which focuses on large-ticket items like home appliances and targets China’s urban, deep-pocketed shoppers. Pinduoduo took a more rural tack and has built a reputation for hawking ultra-cheap goods at small-city consumers.
In 2018, Pinduoduo racked up 471.6 billion yuan ($68.6 billion) in gross merchandise volume, a somewhat problematic term for gauging sales as it totals the value of orders placed, regardless of whether they are actually sold, delivered or returned. (Alibaba stopped revealing GMV a few years ago.) JD’s GMV was almost four times that of Pinduoduo at 1.68 trillion yuan ($243.9 billion) last year.
One has to keep in mind that JD is a 21-year-old firm born out of the PC era, whereas Pinduoduo has been up and running on mobile for less than four years. The startup’s continued growth is undeniable. In a March report, investment bank UBS’s Evidence Lab predicted that Pinduoduo could overtake JD in GMV as early as 2021.
But Pinduoduo’s story is not all roses. Currently trading at $20.54, its stock has plunged about 35 percent since a March high. The online marketplace has also been chided for selling counterfeits and subpar goods, an endemic problem that’s long plagued Chinese e-commerce. This year Pinduoduo was put on the U.S. government’s “notorious” blacklist alongside rival Alibaba for selling fakes, while the company claims it’s actively working to root out problematic listings.
Taster raises another $8 million for its native food delivery brands
If you’re an Instagram user, chances are you’ve encountered a ton of ads for companies trying to sell products directly to consumers, using social networks as storefronts paired with online stores. French startup Taster is doing the same thing with restaurants built specifically for food delivery startups.
The startup raised an $8 million funding round from Battery Ventures, with existing investors Heartcore Capital, LocalGlobe, GFC and Marc Ménasé investing again.
Taster is creating native brands for Deliveroo, UberEats or Glovo in Europe. The company has launched three different brands — Mission Saigon, O Ke Kai and Out-Fry. These restaurants don’t have any tables, they’re basically kitchens for food delivery. They even have multiple addresses in the same city.
So far, the startup has delivered 400,000 meals in Paris, London and Madrid. And Taster now tries to predict trends to order just the right amount of food for a specific day. There are 115 full-time employees working for the company, including 100 people in the kitchens.
With today’s funding round, the company plans to launch three new brands and open more kitchens. In order to scale more rapidly, the company doesn’t handle real estate itself. Taster now relies on third-party companies, such as Travis Kalanick’s CloudKitchens.
By focusing as much as possible on creating brands and cooking food, Taster can quickly scale and compete aggressively with more traditional restaurants.
The company doesn’t have to manage deliveries, which is an advantage over full-stack startups like Frichti. And unlike traditional restaurants, Taster doesn’t have to rent expensive locations and hire waiters.
ETtech Top 5: WhatsApp Pay launch, E-commerce policy audit & more
A closer look at today's biggest tech and startup news and why they matter. https://ift.tt/31OyjPM https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
IndiaMart IPO subscribed 36 times
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Govt considers switch to a homegrown chat app
India is considering developing and using a chat application similar to WhatsApp and other homegrown secure communication networks, at least for government agencies. https://ift.tt/2ZKsLnA https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
The E-Commerce Disaster that never was
An Amazon spokesperson told ET the FDI policy change “disrupted our marketplace for a while, because we took the time to audit and ensure compliance.” https://ift.tt/2FA11dY https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
TechM eyes big deals from Banking, Communication firms
The BFSI vertical contributes over a third of revenue for the software industry. For Tech Mahindra, communications is the biggest vertical. https://ift.tt/2KF6Meh https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the company could have acted more quickly to flag a doctored Nancy Pelosi video but defended its decision to leave it up (Queenie Wong/CNET)
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Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook is trying a new approach to limit the distribution of deepfakes, argues that the definition is too broad and needs to be scoped (Alexis C. Madrigal/The Atlantic)
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