Dailyhunt acquires Local Play

Bengaluru based news and ebooks mobile app, Dailyhunt has acquired Bengaluru based hyperlocal video content and news content application, Local Play for an undisclosed amount.

Founded in 2018 by Gunjan Kejriwal and Prajwal P, LocalPlay has done significant process and product innovation for on ground news collection and production. LocalPlay had raised a seed round from Orios Venture Partners, Raveen Sastry, Sanjay Ramakrishnan, Dhimant Parekh, N Ravi Shankar and Gopinath G.

Launched in 2009 by Nokia employees Umesh Kulkarni and Chandrashekhar Sohoni, NewsHunt was acquired by Verse in 2012. In August 2015 NewsHunt rebranded itself as DailyHunt. Currently, Dailyhunt has grown into a news and local language content application with over 155 Mn app installs offering 100K news articles in 14 languages licensed from over 800 publication partners every day. The group claims that every month has more than 50 Mn users spend over six billion minutes on the app.

The company has raised more than $122.3 Mn (INR 870 Cr) in series of investments from investors such as Sequoia Capital India, Falcon Edge Capital, Matrix Partners, Omidyar Network, and Darby Overseas Investments. Going forward, Dailyhunt will further scale up and produce 5 Mn pieces of hyperlocal content annually, available exclusively on Dailyhunt.

UrbanClap acquires GoodService

You may soon be able to book services on UrbanClap with a simple chatroom message as the hyperlocal start-up has acquired Delhi based concierge start-up GoodService. It is currently on merging the operations.

As for GoodService, the mobile app has vanished from Apple and Android app stores, while its website redirects to UrbanClap and says that the services are verified by it. The Facebook page of the startup also seems to be out of service, with the post published in early May. The existing users of the app have also not got any response on their service requests since May.

GoodService, used to offer local services such as beauty professionals and cooking classes. The users could order these by initiating a chat with the GoodService app agents, much like contacting a friend for a favor. The company had raised $1.6 Million in funding from Sequoia Capital in June 2015.

The GoodService platform can prove beneficial for UrbanClap, which has been working on an algorithm that asks a series of questions on each category, to make customization of service offerings more accurate. A chat service will allow the company a deeper insight into customer behavior. This is UrbanClap second acquisition within this year, after the mobile based services marketplace acquired after sales service platform HandyHome in an equity swap deal.

PepperTap acquires Jiffstore

The Hyperlocal Delivery service provider PepperTap (Nuvo Logistics Pvt. Ltd) has acquired smaller delivery start-up Jiffstore for an undisclosed amount through cash and stock. Nuvo Logistics, which also runs a reverse logistics business said that it plans to spin off the fast growing Hyperlocal business into a new entity by February-March. Reverse Logistics is the process of handling returns or goods rejected by customers.

Nuvo works with clients such as Snapdeal, Paytm and Shopclues. Nuvo fulfills almost 10,000-12,000 orders a day and is operational across 30 cities. With this move, the company is trying to avoid passing on the valuation of the reverse logistics a profitable entity to the investors who are putting in money specifically for the Hyperlocal business. The reverse logistics business currently makes Rs. 4 Crore annual profit.

PepperTap acquisition of Jiffstore is largely to get the company team and expand its presence in Bengaluru, where Jiffstore has been operating for more than two years. Jiffstore has been operating for more than two years. Jiffstore employs close to 40 people, who are slated to join PepperTap Gurgaon and Bengaluru offices. Jiffstore had last raised an undisclosed amount from Unitus Seed Fund and Times Internet Ltd. in June.

PepperTap earns more than 90% of its revenue from the commissions it earns from shops. The rests comes from the delivery cost. It charges consumers for orders below a minimum delivery benchmark. Recently, it also started marketing activities for packaged consumer goods companies by means of banner advertisements and exclusive launches.

Paytm Acquires Near.in

Mobile wallet and e-commerce company Paytm has bought home service marketplace Near.in for an undisclosed amount. The move is part of its increasing focus on online to offline (O2O) and Hyperlocal commerce. The company expects more than half of its sales to come from the Hyperlocal channel by 2016.

Near.in (run by Thumbspot Inc.), which connects users with local businesses for home services through a marketplace app, was founded in December 2014. It last raised a seed funding of $300,000 by a group of Angel investors. Other than this there are investors from Healthkart, SAP Labs, and Aspiring Minds. Near has a significant network of local service providers in place and a stellar team leading it.

Paytm is India’s largest mobile commerce platform. With its mobile first strategy, Paytm does more than $100 Million transactions of various digital and physical goods every month. Paytm Wallet is India’s dominant mobile Paytm service platform. Based in Delhi-NCR, its investors include Ant Financials (AliPay), SAIF partners, Sapphire Venture and Silicon Valley Bank.

The company also plans to venture into travel with Hotel, air and rail ticket bookings in partnership with online travel companies such as Goibibo and Yatra and budget accommodation marketplaces OYO Rooms and ZO Rooms. The company already sells bus tickets. Apart from tying up with online travel partners, the company will also allow offline travel agents to list on its platform.

Grofers to acquire SpoonJoy

Hyperlocal delivery startup Grofers is in talks to buy Bengaluru based SpoonJoy, as the food ordering app struggles to raise money from new and existing investors. Grofers, run by Locodel Solutions Pvt. Ltd, is expected to sign a acqui-hire deal with SpoonJoy. Operations of SpoonJoy will be shut down once the deal is done.

As investor interest starts to ebb in the crowded food ordering sector, the market is expected to see more such consolidation or strategic investments. Since the start of the year, investors have pumped $150 Million into 20 food ordering startups. The acquisition of SpoonJoy is expected to largely to be a stock deal with some component of cash being involved.

About 40 people from SpoonJoy are expected to join Grofers in the tech and operations departments. SpoonJoy was launched in July 2014 by IIT graduates. The company is backed by Flipkart co-founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal. In May, the company raised $1 Million in a Series A funding from SAIF Partners.

There are early signs of a slowdown and startups in overcrowded sectors will either fail to get higher valuations in their next rounds or not find fresh funds, leading to cost cuts and consolidation over the next one year. However, Food tech companies will not disappear, given the large markets for home deliveries in large cities.

Deals app ‘Little’ acquires Trideal

Deals discovery app ‘Little’ has acquired Chandigarh based curated deals marketplace Trideal for an undisclosed amount. Incubated in Punjab Chitkara University, Trideal offers deals across food and beverage, and entertainment with over 1,000 merchants. Operating in Chandigarh, Mohali and Punjab, Trideal claims it gets 7000 plus unique visitors every month.

Little Internet Pvt. Ltd, which operates Little, raised $50 Million from mobile recharge firm Paytm, SAIF Partners and Tiger Global Management in June 2015. The company provides real-time Hyperlocal deals to customers across services like restaurants, movies, hotels, salons, gyms, and spas. It was founded by Zovi founders Manish Chopra and Satish Mani.

Trideal has a large customer base and significant merchant database in Chandigarh offering excellent deals. The core of Trideal is similar to that of Little, Hyperlocal and irresistible deals to customers and a significant business partner to the merchants. The company claims to have enrolled over 8000 merchants offering 27000 plus deals across 11 cities. By March 2016, the company wants to offer over 50,000 deals and aims to hit a gross merchandise value run rate of $170 Million.