Paytm founder's msg to shareholders💵, BGMI removed from app stores📵, Jack Ma to give up control of Ant🐜
Focus is on payments, distribution of BNPL: VSS, BGMI removed from app stores, Jack Ma to give up control of Ant Group, Funding Deals and more.
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Focus is on payments, distribution of lending products: Paytm founder💵
One97 Communications Ltd, which operates under the Paytm brand, will sharpen its focus on payments and distribution of lending products, founder and chief executive Vijay Shekhar Sharma told shareholders.
Paytm’s core business model is to acquire consumers and merchants for payments services, and upselling them financial services, by leveraging distribution, collections, transactional and behavioural insights, he wrote in a letter to shareholders in its first annual report as a listed company.
Sharma added that its focus continued to be on buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) offerings and helping financial partners leverage credit distribution through mobile payments.
He said the company continued to be on track to achieve operating profitability by September 2023. On Thursday, the shares ended 0.28% higher at Rs 715.65 on the BSE.
India’s PUBG replacement BGMI removed from app stores📵
Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), the Indian version of the popular multiplayer game PUBG, was taken down from Google's Play Store and Apple's App Store on Thursday evening.
A Google spokesperson said, "On receipt of the (government) order, following established process, we have notified the affected developer and have blocked access to the app that remained available on the Play Store in India.”
The South Korean gaming major Krafton launched BGMI in India in 2021 after PUBG and other Chinese apps were banned in September 2020.
This game is only available to users in India and is very similar to PUBG in terms of look and gameplay. Within a year of its launch, BGMI had crossed over 100 million users on iPhone and Android.
Hot Shorts⚡
Revenue management solutions provider PriceLabs has raised $30 million from Summit Partners.
Chattybao, a shopping platform built on instant messaging app WhatsApp, has raised over $5 million led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India and Info Edge Ventures.
Nutrition and food supplements platform GetSupp has raised Rs 9.5 crore led by General Catalyst and Better Capital.
Community-led ecommerce startup The Nestery has raised over Rs 6 crore in funding led by Inflection Point Ventures (IPV).
➡️ Check out our LinkedIn space to read more on the funding deals.
Jack Ma to give up control of Ant Group: WSJ report🐜
The Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese billionaire Jack Ma plans to give up control of Ant Group Co. The development comes amid Ant Group’s efforts to distance itself from Alibaba Group after facing intense scrutiny from Chinese regulators.
Ma doesn’t hold an executive role at Ant or a seat on its board but controls 50.52% of its shares through a private entity, where he is a majority shareholder.
According to the Journal, Ma could relinquish control by transferring some of his voting power to other Ant officials, including chief executive Eric Jing, giving them collective control of the company.
Ant said Ma's move was “part of its continuous efforts to enhance corporate governance”. The two companies have also terminated their long-running commercial and data-sharing agreements that once gave Alibaba an edge over competitors.
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