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How The COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Startup Investments And  IPOs In 2020

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HOW THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC AFFECTED STARTUP INVESTMENTS AND  IPOs IN 2020


GUEST POST by Vedant Goel

With the ever increasing number of Covid-19 cases in India, the economy is facing major mayhem, thereby resulting in a slowdown.  It is vividly visible how the public markets are volatile, with huge swings every day.  Nonetheless, some startups in a few sectors have also had a good incline in their business prospects. 

Are you one of those using Zoom for daily conferences and meetings?  Or are you playing Pictionary on gaming apps like Houseparty?  You might definitely be watching something on Netflix or Amazon Prime.  If yes, you are already part of  this  trend!

During the same period, the Software as a Service (SaaS) video conferencing company, Zoom, has seen tremendous growth in its market capital by the rate of 77%.  Not only Zoom, but the targets of Gaming apps such as Psych and Houseparty have also seen a spike in their customer base.  The major streaming applications like Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. and online education content providers like Byju’s, and Khan Academy have also reported a considerable boost in users with the total time spent by individuals on their platforms.  This pandemic has profited online entertainment and communication startups.  However, do you know if investing in these startups is a good idea right now?  An expert from Initial Public Offering  Corner, suggests “It is a very crucial time for investors to understand the future of companies listed in the IPOs before making a stock investment.  The current market scenario being turbulent, one needs to assess all the conditions through in depth research and prediction to gain fruitful results (sic.)”  With a team of devoted and passionate stock market enthusiasts who have great expertise in IPO research, IPO Corner is one such platform that assists investors and educates them about the latest IPO Listings.

The startups from the travel industries which provide flight and hotel bookings have seen a major downfall.  The eminent gig-economy travel startups like Uber, Ola, and Airbnb have seen an extensive drop in demand.  Airbnb also had planned to file for an IPO in 2020, which seemingly has been postponed due to the huge impact of Covid-19 on the travel industry.  SoftBank backed insurance aggregator Policy Bazaar and the Indian ride hailing app Ola, which planned to go public in 9 to18 months, may indefinitely defer those plans due to the current turbulent market scenario. 

ALSO READ: How Social Networking App Houseparty Is Entertaining Generations During Quarantine Lockdowns 

As per data compiled by Bloomberg, India’s stock exchanges have stooped down by 25%, and eight companies listed in India raised just $7.3 million, a five year low.  Fundraising has become a serious challenge for many businessmen and startup companies.  Looking for the next round of investment has become arduous for leading startups.  IPO researchers state that “IPO window” (good market conditions for going public) is unpredictable and the investors must wait until the market stability returns.  In India, the recent amendments made to the Companies Act in March 2020, will allow Indian companies to directly list on specific foreign stock exchanges.   This will ensure easier access to diversified pools of capital, better valuations, a broader investor base and in turn, boost India’s brand globally.  This is a splendid opportunity for Indian startups to look forward.

The whole COVID-19 situation has taken a toll on the world and has led to terrible market turbulence.   The volatility of the market caused by the impact of coronavirus has made all startups and enthusiasts go under a wrap, be it in regards to valuation or critical timing. 

Researchers at IPO Corner explain the two major challenges the IPO market is facing and first being high market volatility, which makes it almost impossible to price IPOs in the listings.   Secondly, investors will be held back if the market witnesses weak performance over the next quarter.  The future months might see many mergers and acquisitions if this environment continues. 

ALSO READ: How To Ensure Team Meetings Are Productive During Work From Home Due To Lockdown

Many Indian startups that are profiting from the lockdown are from e-commerce and online retail websites.  As the consumers are stocking up on the essentials, the major grocery retailers like Bigbasket and Grofers are facing a supply crunch and struggling to keep up.  However, they are committed to sticking to honest prices when the market prices are skyrocketing.  The air of uncertainty surrounding the investment market is equally the same in India as in the global world. “In times like this, one must educate oneself on the future market trends and look out to grab the next best opportunity to score wealth.” says an expert from IPO Corner.

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5 Successful Indian Startups Founded By Women

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5 Successful Indian Startups Founded By Women,Startup Stories,5 Women Who Founded India’s Most Popular Startups,Five Successful Indian Startups Founded By Women,5 Indian startups with women founders,Top 5 Women Startup Founders In India,5 Most successful Women Entrepreneurs in India

The workplace has undergone massive changes in the last century.  At the turn of the Industrial Revolution, any workplace was dominated by men while the women were delegated to run the homes.  However, with the advent of the internet and new and exciting technologies, workplaces have undergone a tectonic shift.  Women are no longer comfortable staying at home and are instead opting to lead teams and organisations.  As every year passes, we get closer to true gender equality, women have proven time and again that they are equally capable to get the job done if not better in some instances.  Names like Wolfe Herd (Bumble founder,) Kylie Jenner     (Kylie Cosmetics founder,)  Masaba Gupta (Masaba clothing label founder) are just some of the names who are known for leading world famous brands with their unique style of leadership. 

As the world celebrates International Women’s Day, we bring to you five women founders who run world famous and successful startups.

1) Upasana Taku-MobiKwik

If you are an Indian and are used to doing online shopping, more often than not at the time of payment, you would be directed to a payment gateway.  One of these gateways would normally be MobiKwik.  The startup is a well known name in the digital payments and digital wallet space.  MobiKwik was founded by Upasana Taku in 2009, who prior to founding MobiKwik used to work with PayPal.  Today Upasana Taku is also in charge of bank partnerships, business operations, and talent acquisition at MobiKwik.

2) Richa Kar-Zivame

An enthusiastic MBA student, Richa Kar, developed an online lingerie shopping platform in the year 2011.  Currently, Zivame is India’s leading online lingerie store with a valuation of more than $ 100 million.  The brilliant idea for her own lingerie business came to light when Richa tracked Victoria’s Secret’s sales, who was one of her clients when she was working at SAP.  She observed the lingerie sales figures reached peaks overseas but, Indian women were not provided with the similar innerwear.  While Richa was studying the Indian lingerie market, she realized the social embarrassment in India surrounding lingerie shopping.  Today Richa Kar could be credited with destigmatising the uneasiness surrounding lingerie shopping in India.

3) Falguna Nayar-Nykaa

After a long stint as an investment banker, Falguni Nayar founded Nykaa.com in the year 2013. An online one stop shop for beauty products from Indian and international brands, Nykaa changed the world of online shopping.  Who would have ever thought buying makeup online would be so easy? Falguni Nayar proved many critics wrong and created a brand new place for people who love experimenting with styles, designs and colors.

ALSO READ: Zivame: Founding Story

4) Sabina Chopra-Yatra.com

Yatra.com is a popular Indian website for making flight and hotel bookings.  Sabina Chopra was instrumental in identifying the potential for travel commerce in India and people moving towards cheaper or easier travel.  By the time, people started looking to make bookings, Sabina made sure Yatra.com was already in place.  Sabina was the former Head of India Operations of eBookers, which is also an online travel company based in Europe.  Along with this, she was also working with Japan Airlines which further adds to her experience in the travel industry.

5) Rashmi Sinha-SlideShare

SlideShare allows people to upload and access their presentations online.  While this feature is presently available everywhere, SlideShare was one of the first players in making this happen.  Rashmi Sinha was one of the founders of the presentation sharing platform SlideShare.  The company became so successful that in 2012, LinkedIn acquired the company for an amount of $100 million.

Let us know in the comments if you know any other wonderful women who have become leaders of their right or have started up and are doing extraordinary things.  We at Startup Stories wish a wonderful Women’s Day to all the women in the world who are changemakers.

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Why Are Ads On Digital Media Failing To Reach The Right Audience?

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Why Are Ads On Digital Media Failing To Reach The Right Audience?,Startup Stories,Digital Advertising,Best Practices from Digital Ads Experts,reasons for digital marketing failure in startups,Reasons Why Marketing Campaigns Fail,Why You Are Failing to Reach Your Target Customers Online,Missing your target audience,The Advertising Industry Has a Problem

If you are a regular user of social media platforms and also a fan of consuming content on the digital medium, then there is a very high likelihood that you have seen ads on pages you are reading or watching something.  There would be times when you have been targeted by an ad which feels like it was wrongly targeted at you.  Imagine if you are a vegetarian by choice and while browsing online, if you are targeted by a food delivery app which shows ads about chicken dishes.  The ad would only serve to spoil the mood of the online user instead of serving its actual purpose which is to push the user to buy a chicken dish.

These wrongly targeted ads might be the side effects of performance marketing or a weak brand marketing.  Performance marketing means advertising programs where advertisers pay only when a specific action occurs. These actions can include a generated lead, a sale, a click, and more.  Inshort, performance marketing is used to create highly targeted ads for a very specific target audience at a low cost.  Performance marketing usually means high volume for a very specific cost.  

Brand marketers on the other hand believe in narrowly defining target audiences but end up spending a lot of money on ad placements.  Gautam Mehra, CEO, Dentsu Programmatic India & CDO, Dentsu International Asia Pacific said, “You’ve defined a persona, you know the emotions you want to elicit, but then you buy a YouTube masthead and CricInfo sponsorships because IPL is up.  If brand advertisers look at audience-based buys more deeply than just placements, you will see more relevant ads (sic.)”  

ALSO READ: How Digital Marketing Is Impacted Due To The COVID-19 Pandemic

Performance marketing is more of a sales function rather than a marketing function and is about meeting the cost of acquisition.  This is a reason why budgets are usually high for performance marketing.  Mehra goes on to add, “the fact is that an engineer can out-beat FMCGs on performance marketing.  Advertisers who have cracked this are spending 10x and are on an ‘always on’ mode (unlike time-bound brand campaigns.)”

There is always the case of supply and demand, with the supply usually exceeding the demand on digital platforms.  Ultimately, it boils down to the choice between no ad versus low relevance ad and it is quite easy to guess that having a low relevance ad is better.  

Arvind R. P., Director – Marketing and Communications at McDonald’s India (West and South,) said “McDonalds’ for instance, has seen its share of spends on digital grow from 20% levels a couple of years back to over 40% at present.  Outcomes of this journey have been encouraging, proven by our media-mix-modelling and other key metrics.  We have seen best results from an optimal mix of Television plus digital (sic.)”  Moreover, Arvind also believes performance marketing only approach could turn out to be more suited to short term, versus a more consistent full funnel effort.  The latter ensures adequate emphasis on building consideration, as well as growing transactions.  Arvind feels digital is a complex medium which needs investment in the right talent who could use the right tools.  Brands which underestimate the need for the investment are often disappointed from the return on investment from the digital medium.

With the constantly changing consumer dynamics marketers are now shifting to unscripted marketing which frankly needs more insights into the consumer mindset.  The lack of marketers to do the proper research is why digital medium is plagued with irrelevant ads.

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From Unicorn To Bankruptcy; Knotel Bears The Brunt Of COVID-19 Pandemic

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Unicorn To Bankruptcy, Knotel Bears Brunt Of COVID-19 Pandemic,COVID-19 Pandemic, Startup Stories, Public Health Emergency, Startup Knotel, American property technology, flexible workspace, unicorn, Bankruptcy, Startup Business Latest News 2021

It is no secret that in the fast paced world of startups, fortunes can change at the snap of fingers.  Sometimes startups tend to scale so quickly that they become unicorns and sometimes the fortunes reverse so quickly that a startup can immediately go bankrupt from being a unicorn.  The latter was the case for an American property technology startup Knotel, who are now bankrupt due to the disruptions by the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Knotel is a property technology company quite similar to WeWork.  Knotel designed, built and ran custom headquarters for companies which It manages the spaces with ‘flexible’ terms.  Knotel does a mix of direct leases and revenue sharing deals.  Knotel marketed its offering as ‘headquarters as a service’ or a flexible office space which could be customized for each tenant while also growing or shrinking as needed. For the revenue-share agreements, Knotel solicits clients, builds out offices, and manages properties, and shares the rent paid to it by the client with the landlord.  This model is the majority revenue generator for Knotel.

In March 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic unleashed its economic destruction on the world, Knotel was valued at $ 1.6 billion.  What is even more interesting is Knotel raised $ 400 million in Series C funding in August 2019 which led to its unicorn status.  However, with the COVId-19 pandemic and its consequent lockdowns and curfews by various governments across the world, startups and businesses shifted to a remote working model.  This in turn led to startups pulling out of Knotel properties to cut down on working costs.  

ALSO READ: Quibi : Startup With A Billion Dollar Launch To Shutting Down All In Six Months

In late March 2020, according to Forbes, Knotel laid off 30% of its workforce and furloughed another 20%, due to the impact of the coronavirus.  It was at this point that Knotel was valued at $ 1.6 billion.  The company had started the year with about 500 employees.  By the third week of March,Knotel had a headcount of 400.  With the cuts, about 200 employees remained with the other 200 having either lost their jobs or on unpaid leave, according to Forbes. 

In 2021, Knotel filed for bankruptcy and agreed to sell its assets to Newmark, one of their investors for a total of $ 70 million dollars.  As work culture is still undergoing changes as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic and with many companies realising that remote work model saves costs and improves work efficiency, the flexible workspace sector would continue to face challenges.  Knotel is just the tip of the iceberg and is a warning call for the flexible working spaces industry.

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