TechThisWeek: Post-Covid sentiments among Indian startups; Bitcoin’s flash in the pan

Earlier this week, online used cars marketplace Cars24 joined the Indian unicorn club with a $200 million fundraise, while online test preparation startup Unacademy’s valuation surged to $2 billion as it welcomed Tiger Global Management to its capitalization table.

Kashyap Chanchani, managing partner at Mumbai-based investment bank RainMaker Group, joined TechCircle reporters to dissect changing sentiments in the startup ecosystem amid headlines of a possible vaccine for the Coronavirus, which wreaked havoc on businesses this year.

Additionally, Rahul Pagidipati, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange startup ZebPay, unpacked Bitcoin valuations, even as he termed the recent roller coaster pricing of the cryptocurrency as rate fluctuations in the short term. Last week, the cryptocurrency peaked at Rs 14.4 lakh per Bitcoin, and has been falling since. Friday’s high, at the time of publishing, stood at Rs 13.6 lakh.

Also in the podcast:

• National Payments Corporation of India, a player that currently dominates the country’s retail payment networks, completed a share sale of 4.3% to raise Rs 81.6 crore.
• The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade is set to seek stakeholder consultation on the reworked draft of the ecommerce policy by the end of the year.
• In a third installment of Chinese app bans, the government outlawed 43 apps, including on-demand delivery app Lalamove and ecommerce company Alibaba Group’s retail app AliExpress. 
• Faqir Chand Kohli, aged 96 and widely regarded as the father of India’s information technology industry, passed away on Thursday.