Don’t miss five ETtech must-reads from this week

Here’s a list of the most impactful stories we broke this week. Subscribe to our daily newsletters ETtech Morning Dispatch and ETtech Top 5 for agenda-setting coverage on tech and startups you won’t find anywhere else.

1. In ‘reverse flip’, Razorpay parent entity plans to return to India from the US

ETtech

Razorpay founders Harshil Mathur (left) and Shashank Kumar



Fintech major Razorpay is planning to move its holding company from the US to India amidst tightening regulations in the sector. After Walmart-owned PhonePe, Razorpay is the second large fintech unicorn to flip back to India. Other fintech firms like Groww are also exploring flipping back.

Recently Pine Labs CEO Amrish Rau told ETtech that he is evaluating if their product is fit for a global market and then decide the domicile question accordingly. The government has also constituted an expert committee to find out means to attract Indian fintechs to set up shops in India at GIFT IFSC.

ETtech

2. Ecommerce orders dip after Covid-19 uptickAfter a pandemic-fuelled surge in online shopping, the industry is seeing moderate growth over the past few months. The slowdown is more than what the industry had anticipated. Data from Unicommerce, an ecommerce-focused warehouse solutions provider, showed a 16% volume growth in order shipments for the March quarter compared with the same quarter last year. Growth has been hit by low volumes, and discounts, we found out.

ETtech

3. Late-stage tech startups face valuation cutsFunds managed by New York-based investment management firm Neuberger Berman have marked down the valuation of the shares they hold in Pine Labs by 38% and PharmEasy’s parent API Holdings by 21%, according to filings made with the US SEC. On Wednesday, ET reported that funds managed by US investment firm Vanguard had marked down the valuation of Ola by 35% to $4.8 billion. Prior to this, Invesco had slashed Swiggy’s valuation to $5.5 billion, from a peak of over $10 billion, while Blackrock cut Byju’s valuation by half to about $11 billion.

ETtech

4. ONDC vs Zomato-Swiggy in the online food-delivery sectorThe benefits of scale enjoyed by Zomato and Swiggy could outweigh the open protocol and resource pooling offered by the ONDC when it comes to food delivery, brokerage firm Jefferies said in a report. This was after we reported that food items offered by brands such as McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Behrouz Biryani, among others, are at 30-80% discount on ONDC ordering platforms, including Paytm, Magicpin and PhonePe, compared to Swiggy and Zomato.

Also read | ONDC logs slow ecommerce uptake, snags may hit expansion



Also read | Explained: ONDC vs Zomato-Swiggy and what it means for the food-delivery space



Also read | Paytm may forego buyer app commission on ONDC: sources



5. Byju’s raises Rs 2,000 crore in debt funding

ETtech

Byju’s founder Byju Raveendran

Byju’s has closed a Rs 2,000-crore round from Davidson Kempner Capital in a structured credit transaction against the cash flows of its test prep subsidiary Aakash Educational Services. According to the people cited above, the transaction, which closed on Friday, is a three-year loan facility with an equity upside linked to Aakash’s planned public listing in the near future. This comes after its office premises were searched by Directorate of Enforcement (ED) officials.

Also read | BlackRock cuts Byju’s valuation