May 19, 2020
Auckland’s economy is worth more than $100bn a year – Stats NZ
2 min
New Zealand’s major economic centre, Auckland, has passed the $100bn mark for the first time, according to new figures released by Stats NZ.
Between March 2016 and 2017, the city’s economy was worth NZ$101.4bn, an increase of 6.3% on the previous year’s $95.3bn.
The increase was driven by strong rises in the rental, hiring, and real estate services; construction; and finance and insurance services industries.
See also:
- Auckland Airport submits plans for longer second runway to handle bigger aircraft
- Auckland housing market shows signs of cooling – study
- Read the March edition of ANZ Business Chief magazine
Despite the record-breaking figure, the 2017 increase is actually smaller than last year’s, when Auckland’s regional economy rose 7.8%.
New Zealand’s GDP is heavily dependent on Auckland, which accounts for 37.5% of the nation’s income.
Over the past five years the city’s GDP has risen by 34.6%, with GDP per person hitting $61,924.
All 15 regional economies in New Zealand recorded increases in nominal GDP for the year ended March 2017. The Bay of Plenty’s economy rose by 9.0%, followed by Northland and Waikato (both 8.2%), Southland (7.9%), and Otago (7.1%). The national average was 6.2%.
Stats NZ National Accounts Senior Manager Gary Dunnet said: “Agriculture played a significant role in many regions, reflecting the large rise in the milk price payable to dairy farmers in 2017.”
Jun 8, 2021
Timeline: India takes unicorn leap with six in five days
2 min
We chart an historic week in India’s startup tech industry, where from April 5-9 the country achieved six unicorns
We chart an historic week in India’s tech industry, where in just five days, between 5-9 April 2021, the country achieved six new unicorns, bringing India’s total to 10 in 2021 to date, an immense unicorn leap from just seven in 2020 and six in 2019.
April 5: Meesho
India’s first social commerce unicorn, Meesho raised US$300m from SoftBank, Facebook and Shunwei Capital, giving the Bangalore-based startup a US$2.1bn valuation, a threefold jump from its previous funding round in 2019. Founded in 2015 by two IIT-Delhi graduates, Meesho connects producers and resellers, helping small businesses sell through social media. It has 45m customers and has enabled 13m entrepreneurs to start their online businesses with no investment.
April 6: CRED
Founded just over two years ago, Bangalore-based credit card repayment app CRED raised US$215m from Falcon Edge Capital and Coatue, nearly trebling its valuation to US$2.2bn from its January US$80m round. Allowing customers to pay off their credit card debt while earning CRED coins which they cash in for rewards, CRED has grown rapidly during COVID-19, doubling its customer base to nearly 6 million in a year.
April 7: API Holdings / Groww
The first epharmacy startup to gain unicorn status, PharmEasy (API Holdings), which has digitised 60,000 brick and mortar pharmacies and 400 doctors across India, raised US$350m in a round led by Prosus Ventures. Founded by four former Flipkart employees as a way of making investing simple, investment platform Groww became India’s second-youngest fintech unicorn, raising US$83m in Series D funding led by Tiger Global, quadrupling its previous round in September.
April 8: ShareChat
New Delhi-grown social media startup ShareChat, founded in 2016 by Mohalla Tech raised US$502m from Lightspeed Ventures, Tiger Global, Twitter and Snap taking its raised total over six rounds to US$766m and pushing its valuation to US$2.1bn. The funding will be used to grow its user base and short video platform Moj, which launched in 2020 following TikTok’s ban in India. The regional language startup claims 280m users.
April 9: Gupshup
AI-led conversational message startup joined the unicorn club after raising US$100m from Tiger Global giving it a ten-fold valuation of US$1.4bn. The smart messaging platform, which has seen accelerated growth during the pandemic, was founded in Bangalore in 2005 by serial entrepreneur Beerud Sheth, whose online freelancing platform Elance is now listed. Gupshup’s API enables 100,000+ businesses to build messaging and conversation experiences across 30+ communication channels.
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