India’s bus market is a US$20 billion opportunity, almost twice the size of cabs. The startup was operating about 1,900 buses before the pandemic hit last year. Now the startup is operating 2,500 buses and has signed up several thousand more. As part of the new financing round, the startup said it will use US$10 million of the proceeds to buy back stock options to reward its current and former employees as well as some early angel investors.
South African startup Abela is supporting the informal economy with the same autonomy and security that banks offer to the formal economy via a QR code-enabled system. Launched in August 2020, Abela started as a QR code-enabled payment platform offering users without a bank account the ability to receive tips and payments digitally. Since then, it has broadened its approach to include the entire informal economy.
Licious, a Bangalore-based startup that sells fresh meat and seafood online, said it has raised US$52 million in a new financing round and become the first direct-to-consumer startup to attain the unicorn status in the world’s second-largest internet market. Licious has grown over 500% in the past one year with over 2 million unique customers.
Martech keeps taking larger bites out of marketing budgets: 17.3% last year, 19.9% this year, 23.5% next year, and 30.9% five years from now, according to the latest CMO Survey. This despite barely more than half (56.4%) of current tools being used and nearly half (48.8%) of the survey respondents reporting worse-than-expected results. Oddly enough, marketers rate selecting marketing technologies as the thing they do best.