The Venture Intelligence Blog

Coinciding with the widespread global debate on data protection laws and citizens' privacy rights, a report titled " A Free and Fair Digital Economy: Protecting Privacy, Empowering Indians " (" Report ") authored by a Committee of Experts under the chairmanship of Justice B.N. Srikrishna, and the Personal Data Protection Bill of 2018 (" Draft Bill ") were submitted to the Government of India (" GOI ") on 27 July 2018. The Draft Bill is quite comprehensive in its scope and places stringent obligations on businesses. In particular, it provides for measures relating to protecting the personal information of Indian citizens, the role and duties of data fiduciaries and data processors, rights of individuals, and penalties for violation of these data protection measures.  This note does not touch upon the general impact of the data protection under the Draft Bill on cross-border data flow and thereby impact on international trade and e-c...

With the intent of establishing arbitration as the preferred mode of dispute resolution, the Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Act, 2015 (“ Amendment Act ”) was passed by Indian parliament to amend the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (“ the Act ”; the Act, as amended by the Amendment Act, has been referred to as the “ Amended Act ”). The Amendment Act is widely regarded as a positive step by the legislature to remedy the blemishes prevalent in the domestic law of arbitration. Amongst several remarkable changes introduced through the new regime, the legislature has taken steps to streamline the process of seeking interim measures from the courts (under section 9 of the Amended Act) and the arbitral tribunal (under section 17 of the Amended Act). Policy of minimal intervention of courts:  The Amendment Act has sought to rule out unnecessary intervention of courts during arbitral proceedings. In its effort to ensure that interim measures can only be granted if...

Startup investments in India rose to their highest ever figure of $7.5 billion in 2018 (across 476 deals), according to data from Venture Intelligence , a research service focused on private company financials, transactions and their valuations. Led by the $1 Billion investments in Swiggy and Oyo, the investment value more than doubled compared to 500 deals worth $3.5 Billion recorded in 2017. Including the above two deals, there were thirteen $100M+ deals in 2018 accounting for 56% of the deal value .  (Note: Startup investments include Seed to Series G investments by venture capital and private equity funds in companies less than 10 years old. The data hence doesn't include investments like Berkshire Hathway's investment in One97 Communication/Paytm.) The year saw the creation of 8 unicorns, more than any other year. Apart from well known consumer companies like Swiggy, Byjus, 3 B2B companies - Freshdesk, Udaan and Billdesk - also attained Unicorn status. ...