The GST cost on food delivery fees; Building with no code

Hello,

Is it Lafufu, Lapoopoo, or Labubu? Either way, the sale of the Pop Mart toy and its knockoffs has skyrocketed.

Last month, Chinese toymaker Pop Mart reported an astonishing near 400% increase in profits for the first half of the year. Despite warnings from multiple countries not to buy counterfeit toys, sales of knockoff “Lafufu” dolls have surged, inspiring a flood of memes, funny clips, and unboxing vlogs.

Speaking of protecting IPs, Apple has been accused by authors in a US lawsuit of illegally using their copyrighted books to train its AI systems, part of an expanding legal fight over protections for intellectual property in the AI era.

Further, AI startup Anthropic revealed in a California court filing that it will pay $1.5 billion to settle a class action from a group of authors who accused the company of using their books to train its AI chatbot Claude without permission.

ICYMI: OpenAI’s India bets.

Meanwhile, the Sam Altman-led company is reorganising its Model Behaviour team, consisting of about 14 researchers who design how the company’s AI models interact with people, which will now be part of the larger Post Training team, which focuses on improving the company’s AI models after pre-training.

It’s the world of AI, and we are just living in it.

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• The GST cost on food delivery fees
• Building with no code
• Winning India’s cloud market

Here’s your trivia for today: Which animal has the world’s largest eyes?

Foodtech

The GST cost on food delivery fees

India’s food delivery giants Swiggy and Zomato are staring at higher tax bills after the government brought delivery fees under the ambit of the GST. The decision, taken at the 56th GST Council meeting, places the onus squarely on the platforms to collect and remit the tax on behalf of their gig workers. 

Until now, delivery fees sat in a grey zone. Platforms argued that since delivery partners were independent contractors and typically unregistered under GST, their earnings weren’t taxable. 

Key takeaways:

• The Council has now invoked Section 9(5) of the CGST Act, treating Swiggy and Zomato as deemed suppliers of delivery services. This makes them responsible for charging 18% GST on every delivery fee and paying it to the exchequer.
• The move underscores how regulators view food delivery differently from other forms of ecommerce. For quick-commerce and online retail players, delivery is treated as ancillary to the supply of goods. Food delivery, however, is considered the core service of platforms like Swiggy and Zomato.
• For Swiggy and Zomato, the shift squeezes margins and complicates cash flows. These platforms will need to rework billing systems, collect tax on every order, and manage compliance.

Startup

Building with no code

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Muzammil Patel, Co-founder and CEO of Acies Consulting, is leading the Mumbai-based startup’s push to make enterprise digitisation faster, cheaper, and more accessible with its no-code platform, Revolutio.

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In the enterprise world, there is a wide gap between consulting advice and actual implementation. The process of building enterprise-grade applications through traditional coding is slow, expensive, and fragmented, leading to rising costs and systems that don’t work well together. Acies Consulting, a Mumbai-based startup founded in 2017 by Muzammil Patel and nine other co-founders, set out to close this gap. 

Offerings:

• In 2019, Acies started building its flagship product, Revolutio, a no-code platform that today forms the backbone of all its offerings. The platform allows applications to be built without writing code, reducing costs and time while maintaining enterprise-grade standards.
• The startup’s TechWorks division offers 27 applications in risk, compliance, treasury, and finance. Its new product, Streamline, is a digital ERP designed to bridge the gap between giants like SAP and entry-level tools like Zoho.
• It works with over 75 clients, including LIC, ICICI Bank, and HDFC Bank, and has 100+ live sites across India, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Middle East. Patel notes that about 65% of the startup’s revenue still comes from financial services.

Startup

Winning India’s cloud market

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Manoj Dhanda, Founder and CEO of Utho Cloud, is betting on sovereignty, cost savings, and local support to reshape India’s cloud market.

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For years, Indian enterprises have relied on global cloud giants like AWS and Azure, but high costs, compliance hurdles, and data sovereignty concerns have made them less than ideal. Utho Cloud is filling this gap with a homegrown alternative and claims to cut costs by over half, offers direct human support, and keeps data within India’s borders. 

“People often think that moving away from AWS or Azure is impossible,” says Manoj Dhanda, Founder and CEO of Utho Cloud. “But with the right architecture, customers shifted, saving up to 70% and gaining the confidence of hosting with an Indian company.”

News & updates

• Income: Shein’s UK arm has been accused of transferring the “vast bulk of income” to its Singaporean parent to cut its British tax bill. The company, which had been considering a £50 billion float on the London Stock Exchange but is expected to list in Hong Kong, paid just £9.6 million in corporation tax despite taking £2 billion in sales last year.
• Risk: Common Sense Media, a kids’ safety-focused non-profit offering ratings and reviews of media and technology, said that Gemini’s “Under 13” and “Teen Experience” tiers appeared to be the adult versions of Gemini under the hood, with only some additional safety features added on top. It believes that for AI products to truly be safer for kids, they should be built with child safety in mind from the ground up.
• Funding: More than half of deeptech founders say they are confident of raising their next funding round, even though a similar share worry that capital is hard to access, as per a survey by TDK Ventures and Kae Capital. A little over five in ten respondents (53%) reported that funding is difficult to access. 

Which animal has the world’s largest eyes?

Answer: Colossal Squid.

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