Technology

Uber eyes B2B logistics push in India through state-backed open commerce network

Uber is entering India’s growing B2B logistics market by extending its partnership with the Indian government-backed nonprofit that aims to break the domination of the e-commerce duo Amazon and Walmart-backed Flipkart and widen digital commerce in the South Asian nation.

On Monday, the ride-hailing giant announced it will soon launch its B2B logistics service through the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) to help businesses on the network access on-demand logistics through Uber’s 1.4 million driver network, without disclosing a specific timeline. The service will initially enable food deliveries for businesses operating on the open network, but is aimed to be expanded to e-commerce, grocery, pharmacy, and even healthcare logistics.

With its new move, Uber will be available as a logistics service provider on ONDC, competing with the likes of Shiprocket (Temasek and PayPal-backed), Shadowfax (TPG, Qualcomm Ventures, and Eight Roads-backed), recent Indian unicorn Porter, and Tiger Global-backed Loadshare.

It will be a white-label service and will operate similarly to Uber Direct, launched in the U.S. in 2020, but will be limited to businesses available on the ONDC network, a person familiar with the plan told TechCrunch.

Uber’s foray into B2B logistics in India follows the company’s expansion in the consumer logistics space by introducing Courier XL in Delhi NCR and Mumbai earlier this month to help users deliver large goods of up to 1,653 pounds from the company’s rider app by choosing three- and four-wheeler goods carriers. The company has also been offering its regular Courier package delivery service on two-wheelers for some time.

Eyeing logistics in general makes sense for Uber as the Indian logistics market is expected to grow 49% to 13.4 trillion Indian rupees ($157 billion) in the financial year 2028 from 9 trillion Indian rupees ($105 billion) in the financial year 2023, per Motilal Oswal. The move will help Uber get another business case in India, after seeing a 41.1% year-over-year increase in its operating revenue in the country to $439 million last year. Its last year’s results also showed collections from rides growing 21.45% YoY of the total operating revenue to $94.27 million.

Nonetheless, Uber is facing growing competition in the Indian ride-hailing market from local players, including emerging ones like Rapido (WestBridge Capital and Nexus Ventures-backed) and Namma Yatri (Google, Blume Ventures, and Antler-invested). Its diversification into new domains, such as logistics, is expected to help the San Francisco-based company maintain India as an important market.

Alongside its B2B logistics play, Uber has rolled out metro ticketing on its rider app powered by ONDC, based on the memorandum of understanding that the company signed with the Indian government-backed nonprofit during CEO Dara Khosrowshahi’s visit to India in February 2024. Delhi Metro tickets are available first through the Uber app, while metro tickets in three more Indian cities will go live later this year.

Launched in 2021, ONDC debuted as India’s initiative to boost digital commerce and allow small retailers to go online and reach more customers easily. The network also expanded to the mobility sector in 2023.

ONDC was initially designed to replicate the success of the Indian government’s Unified Payments Interface, aiming to drive digital commerce adoption. However, it has struggled to gain traction, as its open-network model has yet to win over major industry players. Recent leadership churn has added to its challenges, with even its former managing director and CEO, T. Koshy, stepping down last month. Retail orders on the network also declined by nearly 34% to 4.3 million in April from a peak of 6.5 million in October.

“Uber’s initial enablement of metro ticketing and logistics unlocks new possibilities — from seamless multimodal journeys to unifying a fragmented logistics ecosystem,” said Vibhor Jain, acting CEO and COO at ONDC, in a prepared statement. “This collaboration lays the foundation for future innovations from Uber on the network, enhancing value for users, partners, and the broader mobility and services landscape.”

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Technology

Twenty years strong: a love letter to TechCrunch

TechCrunch is turning 20. I’ve been here half that time. I worked previously at numerous major media properties, including Time Inc, Dow Jones, and Reuters; this has been the best job of my life, which is maybe why the time has gone so fast.

There’s nothing like the culture here. Contrarian, smart, hilarious, and hard-working. Almost everyone at TC wears multiple hats, as anyone who has worked here will tell you. This isn’t just another media company — it’s a place where people are curious about everything, everyone cares a crazy amount about the brand (and each other), and where challenging conventional wisdom isn’t just encouraged but expected.

Over the past decade, I’ve personally had the opportunity to interview some amazing people: Sam Altman, Marc Andreessen, Lina Khan, Conan O’Brien, Al Gore, Finland’s Sanna Marin, along with people making defense tech, building consumer giants, and selling their software companies for billions of dollars. My colleagues have collectively talked with thousands more whose impact on our lives is felt daily. From these conversations, we’ve learned — then explained to our readers — how technology, policy, and human ambition intersect to shape the world.

We’ve done this from our homes, from coffee shops, from offices, but also across the world, to the many places TechCrunch has taken us, from Lisbon, London, Berlin, Barcelona, Paris, and Davos to (nearly) the opposite end of the globe: Lagos, Nairobi, Hong Kong, and Hangzhou.

Across these cities, we’ve sat down with founders who became superstars and superstars who became prison inmates. We’ve watched boring technologies take over the world and celebrated technologies that devolved into dumpster fires.

We’ve seen entire industries born, mature, and sometimes wither. We’ve watched two-person startups become trillion-dollar companies and told you about business innovations that flipped industries upside down — from subscription models to the gig economy to, more recently, AI roll-ups. We’ve reported on breakthroughs that changed everything. We’ve also covered “breakthroughs” that amounted to bupkis.

And we’re still here. In recent weeks alone, TC has sat down with the prime minister of Greece and the mayor of San Francisco; we’ve also covered big stories involving the most prominent VCs, startup founders, and big tech outfits in the industry. I’d stack our transportation, startup, cybersecurity, and AI coverage against anyone’s.

These are tough times in media; it’s among the growing number of industries in flux. But to everyone who’s gleefully written about the supposed demise of TC, plot twist — we’re still here! Twenty years in, we’re still breaking the stories that matter, still holding power accountable, still finding the next big thing before it’s obvious to everyone else. We’re doing it for a growing audience, too.

Michael Arrington, thank you for creating this brand that became so much more than any of us could have imagined. Thanks to every parent company that’s supported us and helped us keep doing what we love, including, today, Regent. TC’s ownership has changed over the years, but our mission to find the signal in the noise and tell stories that matter remains the same.

Here’s to the perspective that twenty years gives you, and to twenty more years of asking hard questions, helping readers see around corners, and working with people who make even the roughest days worth it.

To everyone who’s been part of this story — writers, editors, sources, readers, attendees, speakers, critics, and cheerleaders — thank you for making TechCrunch what it is, a place for people who want to understand what’s coming next, who firmly believe that tech can make the world better — and who trust us to call out when it doesn’t. We appreciate you. Cheers!

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Technology

Meta AI gains video editing capabilities

Meta said Wednesday that it is adding video editing capabilities to Meta AI that let users edit short videos using preset AI prompts to change costumes, locations, and styles. With these new features, the company is taking on rivals like Google that have been steadily adding generative AI video tools to their apps, as well as other AI-powered editing platforms like Captions.

The company is rolling out the editing tools to the Meta AI app, Meta.ai website, and its Capcut competitor, Edits, in the U.S. It says that the features were inspired by its Movie Gen AI models, but it’s not clear if the company is using those models to power the editing tools.

For now, users will have to deal with 50 presets to edit a 10-second video. Meta said that it gathered feedback from creators to make these presets so that they can be easily included in the Edits app.

ezgif 27dbf937d8be70 — Image Credits: Meta AI

The presets can apply a “vintage comic book style” to a video, change the lighting in a clip to a rainy day, or swap out a subject’s clothing to a space cadet suit, to give a few examples. You can share edited videos directly to Facebook and Instagram from the Edits and Meta AI app.

Meta said it plans to add more customization options later this year.

“We built this […] so that everyone can experiment creatively and make fun, interesting videos to share with their friends, family, and followers,” the company said in a blog post. “Whether you’re reimagining a favorite family memory or finding new ways to entertain your audience, our video editing [tools] can help.”

Meta AI already has image generation features across platforms. It seems with this video editing feature, Meta wants more creators to use its own tools rather than third-party apps.

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Technology

Vijay Pande, founding partner of a16z bio and health strategy, steps down

Vijay Pande, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz who founded the firm’s a16z Bio + Health strategy, announced that he is stepping down from his role.

Since its founding in 2014, a16z Bio + Health has raised four funds of nearly $3 billion each, including a $1.5 billion fund that closed in 2022. However, it’s now seeking a much smaller $750 million fifth fund, The Wall Street Journal reported. In January, a16z Bio + Health announced that it will manage a $500 million biotech fund funded by pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly.

a16z Bio + Health backs digital health startups and companies at the intersection of AI, computation, and biology.

Pande’s investments include Devoted Health, an individualized medical plan provider; Function Health, a personalized lab testing startup; and Freenome, a company aiming to detect cancer through blood draws. Before joining Andreessen Horowitz, Pande was a professor of chemistry, structural biology, and computer science at Stanford University.

The remaining partners on the a16z Bio + Health team are Jorge Conde, Julie Yoo, and Vineeta Agarwala.