Good morning. Earlybird here, serving up your bowl of bingeable snippets on business, tech, and startups. Stuff to keep pecking at like that ‘one last’ potato chip.

In this edition:

• 🍅 Zomato’s new B2B service

• 😇 BYJU’s name cleared with the ED

• 🔓️ Security slip-up with Twitter Circles

MARKETS

*Stock data as of market close. Source.

• Markets: Indian stock markets closed with significant gainz bro, with the benchmark Sensex rising over 700 points and Nifty closing above 17,250. The rally was fueled by positive global cues, as well as strong buying in banking, finance, and realty stocks.

FOOD & LOGISTICS

Zomato adds B2B logistics in the mix

🍅 Zomato is apparently planning to cook up its own B2B logistics service to supply food, pharmaceuticals, and consumer goods for other e-commerce enterprises in the market. Here’s the breakdown:

• According to reports, the business is already negotiating with several brands and smaller aggregators and has started kicking off a few thousand deliveries.

• The food delivery business is reportedly charging Rs 10-15 per kilometer for the service.

There is a rub. The catch is that Zomato's pricing is not seen by some as competitive enough disrupt existing relationships between these businesses and other fulfillers.

The positives. Sources posit that Zomato’s got some aces up its sleeve and that’s its trained fleet of delivery partners and some great potential to meet timelines effectively.

BUSINESS

BYJU's cleared by ED of FEMA violations… so far

📖 If you’ve been wondering what ever happened to BYJU’s after it got raided by the ED and the curtains closed… well here it is.

Turns out, the edtech giant has been cleared of any violations under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) following searches by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). Here’s how things played out:

Short recap. In the previous episode, the company was under fire for an alleged violation of foreign investment norms and was accused of receiving foreign funds without prior approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Coming up empty. The ED has now stated that it has not found any violations by Byju's and its subsidiaries under the FEMA.

Everything’s fine! BYJU's has been quick to respond to the news, stating that it has always been compliant with all regulations and that the company is committed to upholding the highest standards of corporate governance.

What's Next for Byju's:

The clearance from the ED comes as a big relief for BYJU's, which has been on a fundraising spree over the last few months. The company has raised billions of dollars in funding from marquee investors, including UBS, Blackstone, and Abu Dhabi government's sovereign wealth fund.

INDIA EDITION: WHAT ELSE IS ON THE BIRDWATCH

• 📱 Truecaller rings up 250M user milestone. Swedish caller identification app Truecaller has reached 250 million active users in India, making it one of the country's most popular apps. The company, which has been growing rapidly in the country, recently added a range of new features, including payment and messaging capabilities.

• 💵 PACL refunds just got served. SEBI has announced that over 1.9 lakh PACL Ltd investor have at long last received their money back. For context, PACL was accused of running a Ponzi scheme, which led to the company being shut down in 2019.

• 🚗 Skoda turns to India to make its cars. Czech carmaker Skoda is set to make India an export hub for its vehicles from next year on. With this, the company's Indian subsidiary is set to manufacture and supply cars to overseas markets, including Africa and the Middle East.

FUNDING DEALS

Catch up on the Indian funding flows from the past 24hrs:

• 3one4 Capital, a venture capital firm geared toward early startups, has closed its fourth fund at $200M, which will be used to invest in up-and-coming projects. The fund aims to support Indian startups that are focused on solving complex problems using technology, in batches of pre-seed and Series A rounds.

• Fundly.ai, a healthcare vertical aimed at providing pharma-focused financing, has secured $3M in seed funding in a round led by Accel India, which it will use to work on new product offerings.

WORLD

Headline Explorer

🔓️ Security slip-up with Twitter Circles. Twitter has admitted that a recent security incident allowed private tweets from certain users to be made public. The feature, which allows users to share tweets with a select group of followers, is now stirring up a sticky situation for the company, which has been facing increased scrutiny over its practices in recent months.

🚗 Qualcomm buys Autotalks to boost car safety tech. Qualcomm, a well-known semiconductor company, is the proud new owner of Autotalks, an Israeli fabless chipmaker that develops system-in-a-chip technologies that help with car safety. Reports say Qualcomm is paying a hefty sum between $350M and $400M for the business.H

🏦 HSBC buys out Chinese majority stakeholder. According to the sources, HSBC, which presently holds 49% of HSBC Jintrust Fund Management, has inked an agreement with Shanxi Trust under which the Chinese state-owned corporation would sell its 51% ownership in the joint venture to the bank.

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