Times Applaud

Ruchi Kalra, and her husband became India's first couple to build separate unicorns or billion-dollar startups . They are now angling to debut one of those companies on public markets within a year. OfBusiness, a provider of basic materials ranging from steel to chemicals to small enterprises, might go public in six months to a year, according to Ruchi Kalra, 38, who co-founded the venture with husband Ashish Mohapatra, 41. Ruchi noted that the couple's second venture, digital financing startup Oxyzo, might go public in approximately two years. She said, "The companies are both ready for public markets. And at the proper, opportune time, you will see both companies go public over the next six months to two years." Ruchi and Ashish met while working for McKinsey & Co. before launching OfBusiness with numerous others in 2016. They spun off Oxyzo a year later, which employs technology to crunch data and provide finance to businesses, filling a ...

The Sebi wants technology firms to justify their pricing of stocks for their initial public offerings. The rules were proposed after a meltdown in shares of some of these businesses. In a recent consultation paper, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) urged that new-age technology companies justify their share pricing for initial public offerings to maintain transparency. The new limits came in the aftermath of a stock market catastrophe in some of these companies, destroying billions of dollars in investor equity. A private-sector bank's investment banker predicted, "It's not going to be easy to list new-age enterprises. Whenever there is a disclosure in the draught IPO filings, there must be a backup for the financial information these companies have provided; more critically, auditors must be willing to validate it." These are usually mobile-first firms like Zomato and Ola that leverage technology to challenge traditional businesses. Mor...