Dream11’s Harsh Jain is IAMAI’s new chairperson; Rishad Premji took 50% salary cut in FY23

Also in this letter:
■ Edtech most popular among college founders
■ Infographic Insight: Big fines in Big Tech
■ New-age firms target profitability

Dream11 founder Harsh Jain elected IAMAI chairperson

Dream11 cofounder and CEO Harsh Jain

Harsh Jain, the founder and chief executive of online gaming platform Dream11, has been elected as the chairperson of the internet body IAMAI. Makemytrip’s Rajesh Magow and Times Internet’s Satyan Gajwani were elected as vice-chairperson and treasurer, respectively.

Catch up quick: ET reported on May 16 that in a bid to have a greater regarding policymaking for the digital sector, Indian startup founders had come together and nominated themselves in large numbers for the IAMAI elections.

Tell me more: The newly elected 24-member governing council for the 2023-2025 tenure does not include any member from Big Tech companies Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.

Council members: The governing council comprises PhonePe’s Sameer Nigam, Infibeam Avenues’ Vishwas Patel, Shaadi.com’s Anupam Mittal, IndMoney’s Ashish Kashyap, Ixigo’s Aloke Bajpai, and Nazara Technologies’ Nitish Mittersain among others.

Big picture: Elections to the internet industry body, which took place earlier this month, happened at a time when Indian startups and internet companies had opposed IAMAI’s stand on certain issues, where they alleged it was taking a pro-Big Tech view.

Several Indian internet entrepreneurs had raised issues with IAMAI’s stance on the digital competition law and even called for a change in the industry body’s leadership.

Also read | Entrepreneurs flag lack of ‘credence’ as IAMAI not representing their interests, favouring Big Tech

Wipro executive chairman Rishad Premji takes 50% salary cut

Wipro executive chairman Rishad Premji’s salary fell by almost 50% in FY23 compared to previous years due to the negative performance of the IT services business, according to company filings reported to the exchanges on Thursday.

Compensation details: In FY23, Premji’s salary stood at $951,353, down 47% from $1,819,022 in FY22, the company reported in its annual report to the exchanges, under international financial reporting standards (IFRS) for American depository shareholders (ADS).

Quote, unquote: “In light of the fact that the incremental consolidated net profits for fiscal year 2023 were negative, the Company determined that no commission was payable for fiscal year 2023 to Mr. Rishad A. Premji,” the report informed shareholders.

Q4 results: The IT major posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 3,074 crore for the fourth quarter of FY23, down 0.4% compared with a profit of Rs 3,087 crore in the year-ago period. Revenue from operations during the said quarter rose 11% year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 23,190 crore.

Delaporte’s salary trimmed: Wipro CEO and MD Thierry Delaporte’s salary contracted 5% in FY23. Within his salary components, variable pay was down 50% while long-term compensation increased by over 100% during the year.

Edtech remains most popular sector among student founders: Study

Edtech is the most popular sector among college founders for the second year in a row, according to a report from investor Campus Fund, entitled State of Student Entrepreneurship in India. The popularity is a tad lower from last year.

Findings: While edtech had a 12.7% share this year (down from 16.3% last year), health tech, with a 10% share, and new-age tech startups (including Web 3.0, crypto and Blockchain technologies) with an 8.5% share, formed the next two popular cohorts, according to the report.

Also read | Cash-rich edtech firms out to poach rivals in funding winter

Expert take: “More and more students are trying to come into the edtech space but the ones who are getting funding are very far and few in between. Till now, we haven’t invested in any edtech yet because everything is like a me-too,” Campus Fund founder and chief executive Richa Bajpai told ET.

Why edtech? Edtech was most popular because it was an area the cohort most closely related to, followed by solving for the healthcare needs of the country, Bajpai told ET.

Edtech winter: While funding has slowed overall for startups, edtech firms have borne the brunt. Edtech startups received $3.1 billion in venture funding in 2022 compared with $5.4 billion in 2021, a drop of over 42%, according to Tracxn.

Well-funded edtech firms — Byju’s Unacademy and Vedantu — together fired at least 6,000 employees last year.

Also read | Layoffs in 2023: Cred, Meesho, Dunzo among Indian startups & tech companies that have cut jobs

Infographic Insight: Recent fines on Big Tech

Big Tech companies worldwide have come under the lens of antitrust regulators, policymakers, and enforcement agencies amid concerns about privacy violations, data protection, abuse of market dominance and geopolitical tit-for-tats.

On Monday, the European Union fined Facebook parent Meta a whopping $1.3 billion for violating privacy norms governing the transatlantic flow of data from the EU to the US.

Read our full explainer on Big Tech fines here

Tweet of the day

Reducing cash burn, achieving profitability key targets for new-age tech firms

Reducing cash burn, narrowing losses, and finding a sustainable path to profitability were the dominant themes as major new-age tech firms announced their fourth quarter (Q4) results this month.

A look at the results of some major firms:

Paytm: The fintech major posted strong revenue growth in its digital payments, merchant subscription, and loan distribution businesses. Its quarterly revenue from operations grew 13% sequentially and nearly 51% from a year earlier to Rs 2,334.5 crore.

Zomato: The food and grocery delivery platform’s consolidated net loss narrowed to Rs 188 crore from Rs 360 crore a year ago, well below the street’s expectations of Rs 356 crore. Consolidated revenues increased 70% year-on-year to Rs 2,056 crore but were slightly below the estimated Rs 2,122 crore.

Nykaa: FSN E-Commerce Ventures, which operates the beauty and fashion platform Nykaa, saw its revenue jump 33% year on year to Rs 1,301 crore. However, its net profit plunged 71.83% to Rs 2.4 crore on rising expenses.

Today’s ETtech Top 5 newsletter was curated by Siddharth Sharma in Bangalore and Gaurab Dasgupta in New Delhi. Graphics and illustrations by Rahul Awasthi.