Prosus on Monday announced that it is terminating the agreement signed by its subsidiary PayU to acquire Indian online payments gateway BillDesk for $4.7 billion. The decision to terminate the deal comes nearly a month after the CCI approved the deal. Prosus said certain conditions precedent were not fulfilled by the long stop date and the agreement has terminated automatically.

California-based startup Wisk Aero has unveiled its sixth-generation aircraft, an electric air taxi that can accommodate four passengers and fly without a human pilot. It has a cruising speed of 120 knots, a range of 140 kilometres with reserves, and can fly at an altitude of 2,500-4,000 feet above ground. Wisk has sought regulatory approval for commercial air taxi service.

Elon Musk has said that SpaceX's out-of-pocket cost to support Ukraine has been $80 million so far. "Our support for Russia is $0. Obviously, we are pro Ukraine," he added. His tweet came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took a poll asking people which Musk they like more, the one who supports Ukraine or the one who supports Russia.

Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com's billionaire Founder Richard Liu agreed to settle a rape lawsuit less than 48 hours before a trial was set to begin in US. A former college student had accused Liu of raping her after a dinner with wealthy Chinese executives in 2018. She was 21 at the time and had attended the dinner as a volunteer.

Indian online payments gateway BillDesk is preparing to sue PayU-parent Prosus after it terminated a $4.7-billion acquisition deal, Moneycontrol reported. The deal, which was set to be Indian fintech sector's largest acquisition, was terminated on Monday, nearly a month after CCI approved it. PayU's executives in India were reportedly informed of the termination hours before the announcement.

Cryptocurrency exchange WazirX has responded to reports claiming that the startup has laid off 40% of its employees. "Our priority is to be financially stable...To achieve this, we have had to reduce our staff to weather the crypto winter," the company said. Earlier, CoinDesk said WazirX laid off 50-70 employees and told them they would be paid for 45 days.

Three-year-old US-based startup 'Liquid Death', which sells water in beer-style cans, is now valued at $700 million. It raised $70 million in its latest funding round led by Science Ventures, with participation from other investors including music group Swedish House Mafia and comedian Whitney Cummings. Its investors believe it's the fastest growing non-alcoholic beverage of all time.

Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra tweeted, "Over 90% of all startups fail." He explained, "Many fail because of one-off circumstances or because of poor risk management...Yet they had potentially viable models & good tech." He added, "That grey zone is a fertile field for large companies to plough." Recently, Mahindra Logistics acquired logistics startup Rivigo's B2B business for ₹225 crore.

Google India selected 20 startups for the first cohort of its 'Google for Startups Accelerator-India Women Founders'. "This programme is part of a larger effort by Google towards improving representation of women across different sections of India's digitally-trained workforce," Google said. The curriculum has workshops on AI/ML, Cloud, UX, Android, Web, product strategy and growth, Google added.

Electric vehicle startup Euler Motors said it has raised $60 million in a Series C funding round led by GIC Singapore. Blume Ventures, Athera Venture Partners, QRG Holdings, ADB Ventures and Moglix also participated in the round. Euler said the capital will be used to expand its manufacturing and supply chain infrastructure, and accelerate product development.

Info Edge Founder Sanjeev Bikhchandani has said that 40 to 60 venture capital-funded tech startups in India would be sustainably profitable in the next three years. "It isn't all gloom and doom," he added. In April, the investor said that these days, it is desirable for highly educated and qualified people to aspire to take up entrepreneurship.

Billing automation startup Zenskar has raised $3.5 million in a seed funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners. The round also saw participation from Shine Capital, Basecamp Fund and Converge. Zenskar was founded in 2022 by Apurv Bansal and Saurabh Agrawal and it provides a billing software for SaaS companies to handle pricing complexities.

The board of FSN E-Commerce Ventures, Nykaa's parent company, has announced five bonus shares for each share a shareholder holds, the company informed the stock exchanges. Shares of FSN E-Commerce Ventures surged 11% to the day's high price of ₹1,414 on Monday after the 5:1 bonus share issue announcement. Bonus shares are fully paid additional shares issued to existing shareholders.

Used car retailing unicorn Spinny has launched an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) for all its employees. The plan is called 'Spinny Stock Option Plan for All', and will be available to all employees irrespective of role and designation, including blue-collar workers, the company said. In December last year, the Tiger Global-backed startup facilitated an ESOP buyback of $12 million.

Ahead of its plan to launch an initial public offering (IPO), Walmart and Flipkart-owned PhonePe has shifted its domicile from Singapore to India. Over the past year, PhonePe shifted all businesses and subsidiaries of PhonePe Singapore to PhonePe Pvt Ltd (India), along with creating a new employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). PhonePe is aiming to go public by 2023.

Tracxn Technologies, a Bengaluru-based market data startup, has set its price band at ₹75-₹80 apiece for its initial public offering. Tracxn's IPO will be open for subscription from October 10-12 and comprise an offer for sale of 3,86,72,208 equity shares by promoters and shareholders. Tracxn Co-founders Abhishek Goyal and Neha Singh will offload up to 76,62,655 equity shares each.

US-based robotic process automation company Automation Anywhere has secured $200 million in a funding round from Silicon Valley Bank, SVB Capital, and Hercules Capital. The SoftBank-backed company was co-founded by Mihir Shukla, Neeti Mehta Shukla, Ankur Kothari and Rushabh Parmani in 2003. Automation Anywhere had earlier raised $290 million in a funding round led by Salesforce Ventures.

Electric vehicle financing company Mufin Green Finance has secured $5.7 million in a Series A funding round led by Incofin India Progress Fund. In August this year, Mufin Group renamed its subsidiary APM Finvest to Mufin Green Finance Limited. The newly-listed non-banking finance company claims to have financed electric vehicles worth more than $19 million (₹160 crore) across nine states.

While addressing an event organised by NGO Yuva Unstoppable, Biocon Founder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said gender must not come in the way of ambitions. "My parents always told me that just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I cannot dream big," she said. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, who won Padma Bhushan in 2005, has a net worth of $2.8 billion, according to Forbes.

Cross-border neobanking platform Vance has raised $5.8 million in a seed funding round led by Hummingbird Ventures and saw participation from Global Founders Capital, YCombinator and Soma Capital. Angel investors such as Alan Rutledge and Gokul Rajaram also participated. Founded by Stanford dropout Parth Garg in 2022, the company aims to build an all-encompassing banking platform for its users.

Info Edge has invested ₹135.4 crore in edtech startup Coding Ninjas and has increased its stake in the company from 26% to 51%. Coding Ninjas' approximate valuation is now at ₹541 crore. The startup was co-founded by Ankush Singla, Kannu Mittal and Dhawal Parate in 2016. In 2020, it raised ₹37.10 crore from Info Edge in Series A funding round.

Blockchain startup XDC Network has secured $50 million in funding from LDA Capital. XDC Network was co-founded by Atul Khekade and Ritesh Kakkad. Khekade and Kakkad also co-founded TradeFinex in 2017. XDC Network offers services like Metaverses, NFT marketplaces, oracles, decentralised email providers and cloud storage.

Venture Capital firm SphitiCap has launched its maiden early-stage fund with a $500 million corpus which it will invest in companies focusing on sustainability, growth and impact. SphitiCap was founded in 2022 and will invest an average of $10 million in Indian startups from the seed stage to Series A. It was founded by Pallav Kumar Singh and Mayank Mehra.

Union Minister Jitendra Singh took to Twitter to share a video of the first-ever two-day startup expo in Jammu which he inaugurated. Singh said that preference for government jobs is proving to be an impediment to startup culture. During his two-day visit to Jammu, Kathua and Udhampur, he also attended a science exhibition by school students.

The funding coming into Indian startups through private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) reduced from 949 investments worth $45.4 billion in January-September 2021 to 1,016 investments worth $36 billion in the same period this year, Venture Intelligence data showed. The funding slowed a little over 20% by value in the first nine months of 2022.