Business in brief: Softbank to slow down Indian start-up investments

Softbank, one of the biggest venture capitalists (VCs) in the world with investments in Ola, Lenskart, Cars24 and Swiggy, among others, now wants to slow down investments, signalling the company’s intent to be more cautious going ahead. 

Impact: The slowdown in investments could lead to shifting goals for several Indian start-ups funded by Softbank. It could lead to a redrawing of goal posts for these start-ups.

Crypto exchanges

It is now becoming clear that the crypto exchanges did not conduct any due diligence or report suspicious transactions to regulatory authorities, which are now probing money laundering cases against these exchanges.

Impact: The Centre might issue fresh guidelines to regulate this industry, which has chartered its own trajectory so far.

New Alto K10

Maruti Suzuki will launch a new version of its popular hatchback Alto K10 on August 18.

Impact: Nearly 40 per cent of the total sales of Maruti Suzuki comes from its low-end cars. The new variant is expected to revive the market for small cars in the country.

Airfare cap

The airfare cap imposed by the Centre will be removed from August 31, kicking in dynamic pricing across all sectors. 

Impact: Certain routes and the time slots will witness higher ticket prices while the ticket prices will be much lower. For example, Bengaluru-Chennai airfare was till recently at around Rs 5,000 per ticket across all time slots throughout the day. Now, only in the morning slots, the air fares will be higher and those in the afternoons will be much lower.