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Delivery Hero has switched to cash-less, non-contact for deliveries in areas it defines as “high risk” for the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to reduce personal contact between couriers and customers during the coronavirus pandemic. But it’s encouraging all customers to make the switch.

“By introducing contactless delivery, we can ensure that our service is safe and convenient for customers, riders and restaurants,” said CEO, Niklas Östberg, in a press release. “We now encourage customers to pay without cash everywhere, and decide when and how they want their order to be delivered. These are options designed to reduce interpersonal contact and make our customer journey even more secure.”

It has also implemented no-contact drop-offs in high risk areas and is asking restaurants to sanitize packages to further shrink the risk of spreading the virus.

While there is no evidence that people have become infected by eating food contaminated with the microscopic agent — SARS-CoV-2 is a respiratory virus; the primary transition route for infection appears to be via close contact with an infected person, when you might be more likely to breathe in tiny droplets that contain the virus, such as those expelled when someone coughs or sneezes — there could be a small risk posed by contaminated food packaging.

If, for example, an infected person, who had coughed into their hand, then touched a package which they gave to an uninfected person — who then touched their face without first washing their hands. Studies suggest the virus that causes COVID-19 can remain infectious for between several hours or days on certain surfaces.

To shrink the risk of such a scenario, Delivery Hero said it’s working closely with restaurant partners to ensure “the highest hygiene standards”.

The risk of infection via contaminated surfaces is reduced by everyone observing good hand hygiene — i.e. washing hands regularly and directly after touching things others may have touched — and by not touching their own face with unclean hands.

“Official health authorities around the world agree that there is a very limited chance of contracting COVID-19 through food,” said Delivery Hero today. “Neither the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), nor the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), have any reports of Coronavirus COVID-19 transmitted via food or food packaging. However, we are working closely with our restaurant partners to ensure that they continue to operate in a secure kitchen environment and carry out food preparation and packaging according to the highest hygiene standards.”

The company is also providing riders in “high risk” zones with hand sanitisers, masks and other safety materials — “where and when it is locally and culturally accepted”.

The Berlin -based takeaway platform operates across 44 markets in Europe, Asia, LatAm and the Middle East, operating under a variety of brand names.

We’ve asked which areas it’s defining as “high risk”.

In recent weeks a number of US and European food delivery startups have turned on a contactless delivery option to shrink the risks around COVID-19 during the epidemic. Delivery Hero said it started taking precautionary measures “as soon as the situation started to evolve in January”.

The company is using its rider app to communicate updates and “instruct on hygiene requirements, especially for pick-up and drop-off”. “By having direct access to new information, our riders can make informed decisions when on the road,” it added.

While many startups face a demand crunch during the epidemic as people dial back some of their regular activities, the opposite looks to be true for food delivery — as large-scale quarantine measures mean many people are eating more meals at home. Food delivery is also being actively being encouraged by some governments, such as the UK, as a convenient lever to keep more citizens locked down at home where they can’t spread the virus or increase their chance of exposure.

Delivery Hero said it’s responded to growing demand by implementing free delivery options in the majority of its markets — “to make online ordering accessible to as many people as possible”, as it puts it.

It said “several” of these options are “focused on when ordering from restaurants nearby” — in what looks like an attempt to streamline demand for restaurants and delivery workers by incentivizing local food orders.

In another support step for restaurants it’s offering more frequent payment cycles for some partners — “according to local need”. “For new restaurants joining our platform, we aim to onboard as fast as possible, in order to support them in maintaining order levels as well as provide more choice for our customers,” it added.

Zooming out, Delivery Hero said it’s closely liaising with local governments — and continuing to follow official health and safety guidelines provided in its different markets. And it gave examples of how some of its different brands are working on relief efforts related to COVID-19 around the world.

“Our brand HungerStation in Saudi Arabia is partnering with the Saudi Ministry of Health and Saudi Food & Drug Authority to provide hand sanitizers for people in need,” it said. “In the Czech Republic, our brand Damejidlo has also been selected as one of the Red Cross’ official partners, bringing food to senior citizens. As a part of a broader initiative to support their communities, our Latin American brand PedidosYa is giving up to 1,000 free lunches per day to people who are at the forefront of fighting the virus, such as employees in the health sector.”

Another area the company is ramping up to meet demand for food delivery in the time of the coronavirus is grocery store onboarding. Currently, customers across 21 markets in the MENA region, Asia-Pacific and Latin America can order groceries from supermarkets via the company’s local delivery apps, in addition to takeout meals.

“We have seen an increase in demand from our global customer community and to meet the growing need, we have accelerated the onboarding of grocery stores,” Delivery Hero said. “We have also increased delivery through our cloud stores, another way to secure that our customers have access to everyday necessities.”

It’s not clear what — if any — financial provision the company is making to support delivery riders who do not have a contract that includes sick pay.

We’ve asked and will update this report with any response.

“During these turbulent times, our immediate efforts go into securing the wellbeing of all Delivery Hero customers, riders and employees,” the company said. “We are monitoring the development of COVID-19 minute by minute and will implement further measures as necessary. Our thoughts are with everyone who has been affected by the spread of the virus and to all who go the extra mile to keep our communities safe, healthy and fed.”

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MX Player, the on-demand video streaming service owned by India’s conglomerate Times Internet, is expanding to more than half a dozen new international markets including the U.S. and the UK to supply more entertainment content to millions of people trapped in their homes.

The Singapore-headquartered on-demand video streaming service, which raised $111 million in a round led by Tencent last year, said it has expanded to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Bangladesh, and Nepal in addition to the U.S. and the UK.

Like in India, MX Player will offer its catalog at no charge to users in the international markets and monetize through ads, Karan Bedi, chief executive of the service, told TechCrunch in an interview.

The streaming service, which has amassed over 175 million monthly active users, is offering locally relevant content in each market, Bedi said. This is notably different from Disney’s Hotstar expansion into international markets, where it has largely aimed to cater to the Indian diaspora.

MX Player is not currently offering any originally produced titles in any international markets — instead offering movies and shows it has licensed from global and local studios — but the streamer plans to change that in the coming future, said Bedi.

Even as the expansion comes at a time when the world is grappling with containing and fighting the coronavirus outbreak, Bedi said MX Player had been testing the service in several markets for a few months.

“We believe in meeting this rapidly rising demand from discerning entertainment lovers with stories that strike a chord. To that end, we have collaborated with some of the best talent and content partners globally who will help bring us a step closer to becoming the go-to destination for entertainment across the world,” said Nakul Kapur, Business Head for International markets at MX Player, in a statement.

In India, MX Player has also bundled free music streaming (through Gaana, another property owned by Times Internet) and has introduced in-app casual games. Bedi said the company is working on bringing these additional services to international markets.

The streamer is now looking to expand to some nations in Middle East and South Asia, said Bedi.

More to follow…

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Reliance Jio, a three-and-a-half-year-old subsidiary of India’s most valued firm Reliance Industries, may have attracted the attention of an American giant: Facebook.

The social conglomerate is in talks to acquire a 10% stake in Indian telecom operator, the Financial Times reported Tuesday. The size of the deal, the paper said, was in “multi-billion dollars.”

Analysts at Bernstein valued Jio at over $60 billion. Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest man who runs Reliance Industries, has poured over $25 billion in Reliance Jio over the years.

Reliance Jio, which began its commercial operation in the second half of 2016, upended the local telecom market by offering bulk of 4G data and free voice calls for six months.

The telco kickstarted a price war that saw Vodafone and Airtel, the No. 2 and No. 3 telecom operators in India, revise their data plans as well. But they struggled to match the offerings of Jio, which has amassed over 370 million subscribers to become the top telecom operator in the country.

Reliance Jio also owns a suite of services including music streaming service JioSaavn, on-demand live television service JioTV, and payments service JioPay.

Earlier this year, Reliance Industries announced JioMart, a joint venture between Reliance Jio and Reliance Retail, the nation’s largest retail chain, to soft-launch an e-commerce business.

Facebook and Reliance Jio did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Amazon said on Tuesday that it is temporarily discontinuing accepting orders for “lower-priority” products in India and prioritizing servicing urgent items such as household staples, health care, and personal safety products as the e-commerce player — along with several of their competitors — grapples with coronavirus outbreak in one of its key overseas markets.

“To serve our customers’ most urgent needs while also ensuring safety of our employees, we are temporarily prioritizing our available fulfilment and logistics capacity to serve products that are currently critical for our customers such as household staples, packaged food, health care, hygiene, personal safety and other high priority products,” the American e-commerce giant said in a statement.

“This also means that we have to temporarily stop taking orders and disable shipments for lower-priority products,” it added. Understandably, the company said it did not have a timeline to share for how long this new measure would last.

The move, which goes into effect today, comes as nearly every Indian state has imposed a lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Several other players including Flipkart, and grocers Grofers and BigBasket are also facing severe disruptions in their services as they struggle to procure items and deliver it to customers.

“Our warehouses in cities like Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Delhi NCR have been forced lockdown and delivery partners from our local stores are being turned back. We are working around the clock to support people who are relying highly on our services and are waiting for the essential supplies at their homes,” said Albinder Dhindsa, co-founder and chief executive of Grofers, in a statement to TechCrunch.

Amazon said it is also reaching out to customers who have already placed an order for a lower priority item and giving them an option to get a full refund.

More to follow…

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Netflix said on Tuesday that it is lowering its traffic on network providers by 25% in India for a period of 30 days, following a similar move in Europe in a bid to reduce the congestion on internet pipelines.

The American giant said that despite lowering the strain it puts on internet service providers, it will “maintain the quality” of its service. Amazon Prime Video said it has also started to lower the data consumption that streaming takes up on its platform, while local services Disney’s Hotstar, Times Internet’s MX Player and Zee5 say they are working to enforce similar measures.

Vijay Venkataramanan, Director of Post-Production at Netflix India, offers clarity on how reducing the traffic would impact the quality of video streams.

“Given the crisis, we’ve developed a way to reduce Netflix’s traffic on telecommunications networks by 25% while also maintaining the quality of our service. So consumers should continue to get the quality that comes with their plan – whether it’s Ultra-High, High or Standard Definition. We believe that this will provide significant relief to congested networks and will be deploying it in India for the next 30 days,” Ken Florance, VP Content Delivery of Netflix, said in a statement to TechCrunch.

Netflix’s announcement follows a local telecom group’s (Cellular Operators Association of India) appeal to on-demand video streaming services to put less burden on internet pipelines that are facing surge in usage as more people stay and work from home in the wake of coronavirus outbreak.

A report by Bank of America, obtained by TechCrunch, said this week that internet service providers in India were witnessing a 10% surge in the volume of daily traffic and data consumption. The firm analyzed traffic at internet exchanges and spoke with internet service providers to reach that conclusion, it said in the report.

More to follow…

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Uber and Ola have suspended all ride options in New Delhi till March 31, days after temporarily discontinuing shared ride options across the country in a bid to slow the coronavirus pandemic.

The firms said the suspension of their services in India’s capital was in compliance with the local state government’s lockdown order that went into effect earlier Monday.

“In compliance with the government guidelines, we are temporarily suspending all Uber services in your city. This means that Uber rides services will not be available until further notice,” Uber told customers in New Delhi. A spokesperson confirmed the move.

Ola, which rivals Uber in India, said it was also restricting ride options in New Delhi, but would offer a “minimal network of vehicles to support essential services.”

“Ola will continue to encourage citizens to limit travel only for essential emergency needs as per the Government’s directive. We will enable a minimal network of vehicles to support essential services in cities, wherever applicable, as part of this national effort to reduce the contagion of COVID-19,” an Ola spokesperson said.

TechCrunch understands that Ola is offering very few cabs only to support healthcare workers and others who need to work from outside their homes to support public services.

At the time of writing, no cabs or two-wheeler options were available on Ola in New Delhi. According to estimates, more than 150,000 Uber and Ola cabs roam around the National Capital Region (which includes adjacent cities Gurgaon and Noida).

New Delhi has ordered a city-wide lockdown till the end of the month. “No public transportation, including operation of private buses, taxis, autorickshaws, and e-rickshaws shall be permitted,” it said.

Several other states have also announced similar curbs that went into effect earlier Monday, hours after the nation exercised a voluntary lockdown at the request of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The curbs will prohibit all but essential services from operating. Inter-city and long-distance trains and other public networks have also been halted.

The restrictions come as the number of coronavirus-affected patients surged to 350 over the weekend in India, with seven deaths. Until last week, health authorities maintained that India, a nation of 1.3 billion people, was still at stage two of the outbreak, but a handful of cases in small towns across the country have emerged since.

Governments across the world have moved to enforce restrictions on travel and public gatherings to prevent the spread of the infectious disease. Earlier this month, Uber and Lyft suspended some of their rides in the U.S.

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India is turning to WhatsApp, the most popular app in the country, to create awareness about coronavirus pandemic.

Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister, said on Saturday that citizens in the country can text a WhatsApp bot — called MyGov Corona Helpdesk — to get instant authoritative answers to their coronavirus queries such as the symptoms of the viral disease and how they could seek help.

An individual is required to text +919013151515 (or click on this shortcut link) to connect with the bot.

The bot was built by Mumbai-based firm Haptik Technologies, which local telecom giant Reliance Jio acquired last year, and the information is being provided by the nation’s Ministry of Health.

More to follow…

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Ride-hailing giant Ola said on Friday evening that it is temporarily suspending pool rides on its platform, called Ola Share, in India in a bid to slow the coronavirus pandemic by encouraging social distancing.

The Indian firm, which operates in several countries including Australia, New Zealand, and the UK, offers Ola Share only in India. “In our efforts to curb the spread of COVID- 19, we are temporarily suspending the ‘Ola Share’ category until further notice,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

“The health and safety of our driver-partners and customers are of utmost importance and we have taken several steps in this regard to ensure the highest levels of hygiene are maintained in the vehicles on the platform. The temporary suspension of Ola Share services is an attempt to encourage social distancing for all cases of essential travel for citizens.”

Other ride options including Micro, Mini, Prime, Rental, and Outstation would remain operational. “Our Partner Care teams and Safety Response teams are available 24×7 for any concerns that may arise for driver-partners and customers respectively. We encourage everyone to proactively report any instance that may be symptomatic for us to help action and guide appropriately,” the firm said.

A source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch that the suspension would remain in place until New Delhi deems social gathering safe again.

The move comes days after Uber and Lyft moved to enforce similar restrictions in the U.S.

But Uber, which rivals Ola in India, has yet to suspend Uber Pool in the country. Shared rides, also known as pooled rides, are some of the most popular ride options in India.

On Thursday, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged the nation’s 1.3 billion citizens to stay at home as much as possible for the next few days to prevent any “explosion” of coronavirus cases.

“For the last few days we have seen that people think we are safe from coronavirus. This is not right. It’s not okay to get complacent,” he said in a nation-wide televised appearance.

About 223 individuals have tested positive for COVID-19 so far.

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Disney said on Friday that it is postponing the launch of its eponymous streaming service in India, one of the largest entertainment markets, after the biggest local attraction, cricket tournament Indian Premier League (IPL), was rescheduled due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The company, which is launching the streaming service through its local streamer Hotstar, did not immediately have a new launch date to share, but said the rollout was only being “briefly paused.”

“We recently announced that Disney+ would launch in India through the Hotstar service in conjunction with the beginning of the Indian Premier League cricket season,” said Uday Shankar, President of The Walt Disney Company APAC and Chairman of Star & Disney India, in a statement.

“Given the delay of the season, we have made the decision to briefly pause the roll-out of Disney+ and will announce a new revised premiere date for the service soon,” he added.

Disney said last month that it would roll out Disney+ in India on March 29. But the company started to test the service with a small group of users earlier this month. The company also cancelled a press briefing on Disney+’s India plans citing concerns over the disease.

The IPL cricket tournament, which sees more than 60 games played over a period of seven to eight weeks, is by far the biggest attraction on Hotstar. The tournament is so popular in India that it has helped Hotstar set several streaming records. Last year, the service said more than 25 million viewers simultaneously watched a game.

The on-demand service had amassed over 300 million monthly active users and 100 million daily active users during the tail end of the IPL season last year. Sources familiar with the matter have told TechCrunch that after the IPL season Hotstar’s user base plummets below 60 million.

The commencement of the thirteenth season of the tournament, which was originally supposed to kickstart on March 29, has been postponed to April 15.

India could prove crucial for the five-month-old streaming service, which has so far launched in about a dozen markets and had racked up more than 28 million subscribers as of early February. More than three dozen streaming services, including Disney’s global rivals — Netflix, Amazon, and Apple — operate in India and offer parts of their services at discounted prices.

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Dozens of startups have stepped up in India in recent quarters to improve banking experience for millions of users and businesses in the country. As a result, tens of thousands of people who could not get a loan or a credit card from a bank can now secure both from fintech startups.

But this push to bring financial inclusion to everyone still has many areas to cover. Blue-collar workers, for instance, are still facing challenges in availing some basic banking services.

Kosh, a Y Combinator-backed startup (W20), is beginning to tackle this challenge. It groups three or as many as ten blue-collar workers and gives them a loan.

“When a user logs into our Android app, they are able to apply for a loan. But before they do that, they need to add some of their colleagues and friends who are also looking for a loan,” explained Aayush Goel, co-founder of Kosh, in an interview with TechCrunch.

This way of banding together people allows Kosh to charge a lower rate of interest on the loan, said Goel.

“We have borrowed this from the world of microfinance. Essentially, we have a joint liability model. Let us say there were three people who were looking for a loan. We band them together and instead of giving each of them a separate loan, we give the group one loan” he said.

Aayush Goel (pictured above), and Sahil Bansal co-founded Kosh in March last year

In each group, at least one member is credit-worthy in the traditional sense, he explained. The startup also uses alternative data such as information gleaned from text messages to determine a person’s eligibility.

Such an arrangement has traditionally seen fewer people default (or fall behind paying their debt) because of social pressure from their colleagues and friends, as all of them are liable.

Kosh started to disburse loans in December. It currently offers loans up to twice the salary of an individual and over a tenure of up to 10 months, said Goel. The startup has disbursed close to 150 loans worth $35,000. It works with a Noida-based non-banking financial company to fund these loans.

The startup said it plans to broaden its neobanking offering this year by creating bank accounts for its customers. “There is a general lack of discipline in how these people spend their money. Having access to a bank account that works for them could prove very useful,” said Goel.

In recent years, a handful of startups such as Bangalore-based Open and NiYO Solutions have developed neobanks or alternative banks to serve businesses and individuals. In January, two former Google Pay executives announced their own neobank startup that aims to serve millennials.

GIGI Benefits, another Y Combinator-backed startup (W20), offers insurance and savings — perks that only full-time employees typically have — to gig-economy workers and freelancers.

“We help each worker set aside part of a paycheque to cover their costs of insurance, short-term expenses, and plan for their retirement,” said Sowmya Rao, founder and chief executive of GIGI Benefits, in a post.