Google 🤝🏻 Airtel, Ola Dash - Ola's super app prep🌟, Zomato invests💰

Google to invest $1 billion in Airtel, Ola plans aggressive push for Ola Dash, Zomato picks up stakes in 2 startups, Funding Deals & more.

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Jan 31, 2022

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Google to invest up to $1 billion in Bharti Airtel💸

Bharti Airtel said that Google will invest up to $1 billion in it from the Google for India Digitisation Fund. The deal involves Google investing $700 million to acquire 1.28% in Airtel and up to $300 million for potential multi-year deals.

This is the tech giant’s second investment in an Indian telecom service provider (after Reliance Jio) and is part of its $10-billion India digitisation fund.

The partnership, Bharti Airtel said, will focus on enabling affordable access to smartphones, and potentially co-creating India-specific use cases for 5G and other standards. It will also help accelerate the cloud ecosystem for businesses across India.

Google has invested $4.5 billion in Reliance Industries’ Jio Platforms and led an investment of $145 million in InMobi’s Glance, which also owns a short-video platform, Roposo.

The tech behemoth has in the last couple of years doubled down on its investments in Indian companies, focusing on content and commerce.

Ola plans aggressive push for Ola Dash in crowded quick-commerce arena🥔

Ola is planning an aggressive push for its quick commerce service, Ola Dash, by setting up 500 dark stores across 20 cities in the next six months.

The move comes at a time when several platforms—including Swiggy and Zomato—are eyeing a bigger play in this high-growth sector. Others like Zomato-backed BlinkIt (formerly Grofers), Dunzo and Mumbai-based Zepto are also amping up their offerings in the instant delivery category.

Ola To Setup India's Largest Dark Store Network With Ola Dash

Ola Dash currently services nine cities through 200 dark stores, offering more than 2,500 stock-keeping units. It aims to clock more than 500,000 orders per day by the year-end. Dark stores are neighbourhood distribution centres that facilitate quick delivery of products.

Ola’s quick-commerce focus is part of its endeavour to position itself as a super app ahead of a planned initial public offering (IPO).

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Zomato picks up stakes in two more startups💰

Zomato has told Indian stock exchanges that it is investing in digital advertising company Adonmo and food ordering platform UrbanPiper.

Zomato sets up NBFC, acquires minority stakes in UrbanPiper, AdOnMo — Deepinder Goyal, Founder and CEO, Zomato

According to the filing, Zomato is picking up a 19.48% stake in Adonmo Rs 112.20 crore in cash. Adonmo provides targeted digital advertising through outdoor digital screens. Zomato said in its BSE filing that the company would help its food ordering and delivery business leverage new digital avenues for customer acquisition.

Zomato is also picking up a 5% stake in UrbanPiper Technologies for Rs 37.38 crore. UrbanPiper is a business-to-business (B2B) software platform that acts as an intermediary between restaurants and food delivery players. It helps restaurants integrate with multiple services through a single interface.

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