Faasos parent may get funding from Coatue, Go-Jek; PharmEasy set to close $100-mn round

Rebel Foods, which owns and operates cloud kitchen company Faasos and other brands, is in talks with New York-based technology hedge fund Coatue Management to lead its Series D funding round. (A cloud kitchen, which offers no dining facility, accepts only online orders.) Indonesia’s ride-hailing and food-delivery app Go-Jek is also expected to join the round. 

The fund is expected to lead the $120 million round, for which it has appointed Bank of America Merrill Lynch as adviser, reported Mint. 

The hedge fund previously invested in food technology major Swiggy in April 2018, which was later valued at $3.3 billion in December after Naspers invested $1 billion.

In March 2019, Faasos' parent raised $15.8 million from previous investors Sequoia, Lightbox Ventures and Evolvence India Fund as part of its Series D round.

Karnataka govt asks Ola to remove Prime Play fee

The Karnataka government has asked ride aggregation service Ola not to charge convenience fee for Prime Play services. 

The Economic Times quotes the state transport authority as saying that in-cab value-added services such as video and music should be free. 

Ola introduced its in-cab entertainment product Ola Play in 2016 at a starting cost of Rs 20, through which consumers can access WiFi and stream music and videos on the cab’s device. 

Earlier this year, the state government had cancelled Ola’s licence for a period of six months in March for violating the law by plying bike-taxis. The company paid a fine of Rs 15 lakh to revoke the ban.

Swiggy Daily for home-style food delivery

After the launch of its subscription services Swiggy Super for free deliveries, the food technology company has launched Swiggy Daily, a subscription service for the delivery of home-style food across cuisines in Gurugram. The app, currently at the pilot stage with 1,000 users, provides three days to month-long subscriptions.

The development reported by Entrackr says that the service is on a separate app. 

Rival Zomato had invested in a similar subscription service, Hyderabad-based TinMen in September 2017, but is yet to scale it in other cities.

Swiggy has been diversifying its business from on-demand food delivery to include delivery of groceries and other essentials.

Amazon to crack non-English market

In its attempt to reach the next 100 million users in India, e-commerce company Amazon will onboard product videos in local languages built with Alexa’s voice assistance, reported Business Standard.

This is in addition to the company’s attempts at on-boarding non-English-speaking customers in the country through a voice and video interface. The company had also launched its Hindi website in September 2018 as part of its push beyond the big cities.

PharmEasy close to raising $100 mn

Online drug delivery company PharmEasy is in final stages of closing its $100 million Series D round of funding. The round, likely to be announced as early as next week, will see participation from a new Korean venture investment. Previous investors are also backing the firm: Fundamentum Advisors, backed by Nandan Nilekani and Sanjeev Aggarwal; Eight Roads Ventures India; F-Prime Capital; Avendus Capital; and San Francisco-based hedge fund Think Investments.

The development was reported by Inc42. Eight Roads Ventures had led Series C round in September 2018. Previous reports had stated that PharmEasy was in talks with SoftBank for its new round, though the current report did not confirm this.