Ola Electric Mobility Pvt., the Indian startup that has pledged to build the world’s largest electric scooter factory, distributed a handful of brightly coloured bikes earlier this month, complete with drummers and a saxophonist to commemorate the occasion. Founder Bhavish Aggarwal came to thank the 100 customers who brought family and friends. But, aside from the colourful proceedings, Ola isn’t living up to its lofty ambitions. According to people familiar with the company’s operations who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public, mass production of its e-scooters…

Indian startups clocked $9.5 billion, or approximately Rs 70,600 crore, in 2021, adding to the industry’s achievements in what was a watershed year for the ecosystem. Exits, whether partial or complete, by existing investors of startups via initial public offerings (IPOs), mergers and acquisitions (M&As), and secondary share sales increased nearly eightfold this year through December 10 from $1.2 billion, or about Rs 8,900 crore, in 2020, according to data from Venture Intelligence, which tracks startup deals data. Except for the Walmart-Flipkart deal in 2018, this is the highest number…

Didi Global, China’s largest ride-hailing company, has seen its losses increase after Beijing ordered online stores not to sell the company’s app. The company reported an operating loss of $6.3 billion (£4.7 billion) for the first nine months of the year, as revenues in China fell by 5% in the third quarter. The Chinese crackdown came just days after Didi debuted on the New York Stock Exchange at the end of June. It announced this month that it will relocate its share listing from the United States to Hong Kong….

Vay, a German mobility startup, announced on Tuesday that it had raised US$95 million from investors including Kinnevik, Coatue, and Eurazeo in preparation for the launch of its first car-rental service in Hamburg next year. A customer could use a mobile app to reserve an electric car, which would be delivered to the pick-up location by a driver who would steer the vehicle remotely. The customer can then drive it normally, while the remote operator switches to steering a different vehicle. While many companies are testing driverless cars with expensive…

Pristyn Care, a healthtech startup, has raised $96 million in Series E funding at a valuation of $1.four billion, making it a cutting-edge unicorn. This round was led by Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global, Winter Capital, Epiq Capital, Hummingbird Ventures, and Trifecta Capital, in addition to angel investors Kunal Shah, Deepinder Goyal, Abhiraj Singh Bhal, and Varun Alagh. It will use the capital to enhance its services by implementing cutting-edge surgical technologies, expanding into new disorder categories, strengthening and modernising associate-health centre infrastructure, educating its surgeons, and similarly growing its product…

Khatabook, a leading fintech startup, announced on Thursday that it intends to double its employee base in the coming year. The company stated that in 2022, it will continue to strengthen its talent pool by accelerating hiring across engineering, design, product, and data teams. “We are hiring for building and scaling a quality tech platform for India`s MSME. So far, the tech teams have done exceptionally well in successfully deploying Offline support, Compute analytics on large data on the user device, Clean Architecture, advanced AI-enabled risk models, and more,” Gaurav…

The Tamil Nadu government has appointed Thiru Sivarajah Ramanathan as the Chief Executive Officer of TANSIM, also known as Startup TN, marking the mission’s first professional appointment. TANSIM (Tamil Nadu Startup and Innovation Mission) works to transform the state into an innovation-driven economy. TANSIM’s mission is to be a driving force for startups and to create a strong, viable, and vibrant start-up ecosystem that creates jobs and economic growth. “In order to have a dedicated and experienced professional at the helm of affairs in TANSIM, the Government of Tamil Nadu…