Countdown to ET Startup Awards; risk of cyberattacks spikes

The country’s most prestigious startup awards are back in person after nearly two years. On Saturday in Bengaluru, The Economic Times Startup Awards 2021 will be presented to the nine winners our jury announced at a virtual event in September.

Also in this letter:
■ Indian firms face increased risk of cyberattacks, experts warn
■ CCI clears Amazon’s plan to take over Cloudtail parent
■ Tiger, A91 participate in Box8’s $30M secondary funding

ETSA 2021: Saturday to bring out the star in ‘Star’tups

Top entrepreneurs, policymakers and investors will come together to celebrate the best of Indian entrepreneurship at the seventh edition of The Economic Times Startup Awards in Bengaluru on March 12.

The country’s most coveted prize for entrepreneurial excellence will be presented to the winners at an in-person event after a hiatus of nearly two years.

Union cabinet ministers Piyush Goyal and Ashwini Vaishnaw, Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and Union minister of state Rajeev Chandrasekhar will be the guests of honour at the gathering, which will follow all necessary safety protocols.

IPO discussion: On Saturday, a group of industry leaders will debate the opportunities thrown up by IPOs and the challenges faced by startups that transition from private to public markets.

The line-up includes Deepinder Goyal, founder and CEO of Zomato, Nithin Kamath, founder and CEO of Zerodha, Zest Money’s Lizzie Chapman, Delhivery cofounder Sahil Barua and Shekhar Kirani, partner at venture capital fund Accel.

The awards: ET had assembled a high-powered jury consisting of top Indian and global business leaders, investors and entrepreneurs, who met virtually on September 24, 2021 to pick the winners.

Zomato was declared Startup of the Year 2021, joining a prestigious list of previous winners, including Zerodha, Delhivery, and Ola.

Other winners included: Sanjeev Bikhchandani, cofounder, Info Edge, who bagged the Midas Touch Award for Best Investor

Kovai, a SaaS-startup based across Coimbatore and London, which won the Bootstrap Champ award
Log9 Materials, which was declared Top Innovator
Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar, cofounders of Ixigo, who won the Comeback Kid award
Lizzie Chapman, cofounder of ZestMoney, who won the Woman Ahead prize

Indian firms face increased risk of cyberattacks, experts warn

Cyberattacks following the Russian invasion of Ukraine could affect critical infrastructure, supply chains, financial services, manufacturing and utilities in India, according to cybersecurity agencies and experts.

Fitch Ratings has said that cyberattacks on businesses and government agencies have increased across the world, and the risk of spillover cyberattacks against non-primary targets has escalated.

Indian enterprises have not been victims of any major targeted cyberattacks yet, but there are concerns that attacks on larger global supply chains could affect Indian businesses, security experts said.

Phishing and supply chain attacks: “Cyberattacks directed elsewhere may find their way to enterprises in India, making supply chain attacks one of the top concerns. Similarly, the way pandemic-themed attacks played out last year, threat actors are likely to exploit the current crisis to launch new types of phishing attacks,” said Gaurav Shukla, partner, Deloitte India.

Cyber war: Last week, Japanese auto major Toyota was forced to shut down 14 factories in Japan after its systems suffered a cyberattack. This followed Japan’s decision to support the US in some of its sanctions against Russian banks. The source of the attacks has not yet been identified.

On Tuesday, South Korean conglomerate Samsung reported a massive data breach.
American tech giant Nvidia also reported an escalation in the number of cyberattacks it has faced since February 23.

CCI clears Amazon’s plan to buy Catamaran’s stake in Cloudtail parent

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has cleared Amazon’s proposal to acquire Catamaran Ventures’ entire 76% stake in Prione Business Services, which houses Cloudtail, one of the largest sellers on Amazon in India. Catamaran Ventures is the investment office of Infosys cofounder NR Narayana Murthy.

CCI said it had approved the transaction in a tweet on Wednesday.

Yes, but: Cloudtail’s future is uncertain as current regulations prohibit any entity running an online marketplace and its group companies from owning equity in any of the sellers on the platform or having control over their inventory.

Top Amazon India executives are expected to hold a meeting on the matter on Thursday, sources told us.

We had reported on December 22 that Amazon had sought CCI’s nod to buy Catamaran’s stake in Prione. If the deal received the CCI’s nod, Prione’s business – offering services like onboarding sellers and making catalogues for them – is expected to continue unchanged, but Cloudtail may have to go through changes in its shareholding to continue as a seller on Amazon India, we wrote at the time. The potential meeting on Thursday may throw more light on the matter.

TWEET OF THE DAY

ETtech Done Deals

Online financial services provider Money View said it has raised $75 million from Tiger Global, Winter Capital, Evolvence India and Accel. Other investors included South Park Commons, Trusted Insight and Dream Incubator. After the latest fundraise, the company is valued at $625 million.

Jiffy.ai, a business-to-business (B2B) automation platform, has raised $53 million in a funding round led by Eight Roads Ventures. The round saw participation from venture firms Iron Pillar, R-Squared, and existing investors Nexus Venture Partners, Reaction Capital and Rebright Partners.

Data collaboration workspace startup Atlan has raised $50 million led by Insight Partners, Salesforce Ventures, and Sequoia Capital India. Several founders in the data space participated in the round, including Fivetran founder Taylor Brown and ThoughtSpot founder Ajeet Singh. The company’s valuation jumped 4.5 times to $450 million after the round.

Tiger, A91 participate in Box8’s $30-million secondary funding

Atlan cofounders Prukalpa Sankar, Varun Banka

Cloud kitchen startup EatClub Brands – formerly known as Box8 — will soon finalise a $30-million secondary round of funding that will see Tiger Global increase its stake, sources told us.

Details: A91 Partners will also participate in the secondary purchase of shares, which will see existing backer IIFL sell part of its stake in the company, the sources said.

IIFL Seed Venture Funds, the venture capital and private equity arm of IIFL Wealth & Asset Management had first backed Box8 in 2016.
IIFL and A91 will also purchase new shares as part of a primary infusion in EatClub Brands.

In December 2021, Eatclub had raised $40 million from New York-based Tiger Global at a valuation of $300 million. The secondary transaction is an extension of that round.

Consolidation in the air: There has been heightened activity in the cloud kitchen space in recent months, with two back-to-back mergers since January. Curefoods, which raised $62 million in January, announced its merger with rival Maverix the same month. Meanwhile, Kitchen Center and Kitchen@ also merged to expand their cloud kitchens across India.