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Cynthia E. Chisom is the VP, Ecosystem and Venture Labs at Spark Africa, organisers of the Tech & Startup Ecosystem. She is also the Principal Partner
The Economic Times Startup Awards, honoring Indian entrepreneurs, will take place in Bengaluru. The winners across eight categories were announced, including OfBusiness as Startup of the Year and Jishnu Bhattacharjee of Nexus Venture Partners as Midas Touch winner. The event will also feature a panel discussion on sustainable businesses.
The gaming industry in India is facing tax woes as the GST department issued pre-show cause notices to several cash flow-rich firms in the sector. One of the notices, amounting to an estimated Rs 25,000 crore, was served to fantasy sports company Dream11, making it the largest indirect tax notice in India. This move has sparked legal disputes and challenges from the gaming companies, who argue that the tax demands are retrospective and unfair. The Supreme Court will conduct further hearings on the matter on October 10.
After a slowdown in technology IPOs in 2022, several tech companies including Arm, Instacart, and Klaviyo have returned to raise funds from the public market. However, the valuations of these companies have fallen significantly compared to their peak valuations. Instacart, for example, is aiming for a $10 billion valuation, which is only a quarter of its peak valuation of $39 billion. The sentiment in the market has shifted, and investors are now looking for right-sized offerings rather than inflated valuations.
The April-June earnings posted in the past week by companies such as food and grocery delivery platform Zomato, software-as-a-service major Freshworks, and new-age logistics services provider Delhivery showed that steps towards frugality could lead to favourable results, even in a relatively short time.