In Brief: Govt adds over 1,000 startups in Feb; OYO allots ESOPs to some staffers

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT)  has added over a thousand startups in February 2020, The Inc42 reported. Commerce minister Piyush Goyal in Lok Sabha said that the DPIIT has recognised a total of 29,017 startups till February 26. The government has so far granted income tax exemptions to 264 startups, the report said.

Read: DPIIT notifies 100% FDI in insurance intermediaries

OYO, CarDekho make ESOP allotments to staffers

Amid layoffs at regular intervals, the SoftBank-backed hospitality major has made employee stock option (ESOP) allotments to some of its staffers. Meanwhile, CarDekho parent GirnarSoft also made fresh ESOP allotments to 43 employees, The Inc42 reported. Oyo has made the allotment at an issue price of Rs 3.80 lakh worth Rs 15.22 lakh, whereas GirnarSoft is offering ESOPs worth over Rs 3.5 crore to 43 employees -- the company has allotted 3,565 equity shares, the report said.

Read: OYO appoints former Ola exec Vijay Ghadge to head frontier businesses

OYO plans to fire upto 25,000 people amid coronavirus outbreak: Report

SoftBank-backed OYO is planning to hand pink slips to 5,000-25,000 employees from its global workforce, as its business takes a hit due to the coronavirus outbreak, news agency Bloomberg reported. Although the layoffs are mostly concentrated in China, OYO will conduct similar exercises in the US and India to make the venture profitable, the report said. “In our previous phase, we added a lot of properties to our platform and built the brand and mindshare. Our first focus of 2020 is growth with profitability,”  Ritesh Agarwal, founder and CEO of OYO, told Bloomberg in an interview.

VC firm Silicon Road opens applications for its second accelerator programme

US-based venture capital firm Silicon Road has opened applications for its four-month Indian accelerator programme for retail and food-technology startups. The second cohort of the programme will include seed funding, access to mentors in the food and retail space across the world, infrastructure support and an ecosystem that will help the startup scale to the next level, a statement said. The firm will invest Rs 25 lakh as initial seed amount in eligible startups joining the programme.