ETtech Morning briefing: Google Cloud India expansion, Kiranas e-commerce & more

1. Google cloud sees increasing adoption in retail and media

What's the news?

Google is seeing increased adoption of its cloud services in the retail and media entertainment segment in India, in the backdrop of competition from market leader Amazon and Microsoft.

Where does Google cloud stand?

Though Google Cloud trails Amazon and Microsoft in the cloud infrastructure market, it has emerged as the leader in cloud AI services. Enterprises and startups use cloud-based AI for tasks such as machine learning and translating text between different languages.

For instance, Google Cloud recently signed ShareChat, one of the largest social media applications that is tailor-made for vernacular users in tier-2 and tier-3 cities in India. ShareChat uses Google ML services to discover what kind of content its 17.5 million monthly active users like.

2. Kirana shops in the thick of e-commerce action

What's the news?

The friendly neighbourhood kirana store is getting increasing attention from e-commerce behemoths such as Amazon India and Myntra for handling the last leg of their deliveries.

Why the interest?

E-commerce companies have over the past year significantly scaled up their use of this channel for last-mile delivery, allowing them to reduce their delivery staff or engage them for more advanced tasks.

Amazon engages its neighbourhood store network for one-third of its deliveries, and Myntra for about two-thirds, according to industry estimates.

3. Mobile wallet in wait mode

What's the news?

The mobile wallet industry is waiting eagerly for the Reserve Bank of India to release interoperability guidelines for the industry, which might take up to a month to be announced, two bankers in the know of the matter said.

What's ahead?

While industry players are looking for reasons for the delay, multiple top executives of wallet companies ET spoke to said that they were hoping interoperability would come sooner and expect it to be a big boost to their business which is supposed to be reeling under the revised KYC norms of the central bank.

4. AYE Finance gets funding from CapitalG

What's the news?

CapitalG, the growth-stage investment arm of Alphabet Inc, the parent company of search giant Google, has led a Rs 147 crore funding round in non-banking financial company (NBFC) AYE Finance, in the process marking its first bet in the Indian financial services sector.

The Series C round of funding, which had Unitus Capital as the financial advisor to the transaction, has seen CapitalG putting in about Rs 81 crore into the Gurgaon-based AYE Finance, with the latter’s existing set of backers, which includes stage and sector-agnostic investment firm SAIF Partners and impact investment firm LGT also participating.

How's the company doing?

Till date, AYE Finance, which claims to have disbursed Rs 700 crore across 60,000 loans since its inception in 2014, has raised close to Rs 250 crore across four rounds. A fourth investor, Accion, however did not participate in the latest round of equity financing.

The NBFC will use the proceeds from the round of funding to further increase its loan book, which stands at about Rs 525 crore, with a significant portion also to be allocated towards building its technology platforms.