Episode 3 - Home

Q1. X enables anyone to set up an online store. Users can curate their store by selecting products listed by various manufacturers and reach out to customers via social media to sell. Aptly, X's name is a play on the words 'meri shop' ('my shop' in English). Name X.

Q2. The term 'X' pre-dates web/UI design. X was, and is still, used in manufacturing to depict the design of the product without the need for detail, leaving the drawing looking like it's made out of wires. What's X?

Q3. One of the largest trees on the planet, the giant _______ is an endangered species, with fewer than 80,000 trees remaining. This tree also lends its name to a venture capital firm - aptly chosen to signify longevity since this tree lives for 1000s of years. Name the VC firm

Q4. Connect the following. I am looking for a company name or individual name (any one will do)

Q5. This startup's core belief is that any financial service (banking, insurance, credit) should be available on-demand, and at “sachet-ised” amounts. So they are plugging into all financial institutions and making them API accessible. By simply using their API, any company can enable financial services. Keeping aside more technically correct definitions of an 'API', a non-technical way to understand APIs is to think of it as a 'bridge' between two modules of software. So this company decided to name itself using this analogy but in a different language. Name this startup, which was recently acquired by Pine Labs.

Q7. 'X' was launched a few months after Ola and became its biggest competitor. Until Uber's India entry & Ola's VC-driven blitz-growth dented it. It was finally acquired by Ola 4 years later in 2015. Aprameya Radhakrishna, X's co-founder left & started Vokal - a Q&A platform like Quora but in vernacular languages. While Vokal's Quora-like product hasn't taken off very well, they have another product 'Y' which has acheived much more traction. Y, in similar lines to Vokal, is a micro-blogging platform like Twitter but with a focus on vernacular languages & voice input. Identify X & Y.

Q8. Connect the following companies. Looking for a specific company name X + the funda.

Q9. Katrina Kaif entered a joint venture with company X in 2018 to launch & sell the cosmetic brand Kay Beauty. As part of this, she invested ₹2cr in this company. A good decision in hindsight as this would 10x in value when X would IPO 3 years later in 2021. Whether she cashed out at that point or lost half the value since is another matter. Identify company X.

ANSWERS

Network18 / Reliance / Mukesh Ambani (Viacom18, which is a subsidiary that owns only a few of these companies will not be accepted)