e-commerce
Snapdeal names Harish Sivaramakrishnan as VP – design
MUMBAI: Snapdeal has appointed Harish Sivaramakrishnan as vice president-design. In his new role, Sivaramakrishnan will spearhead the design teams across the company’s portfolio of products and build a design studio across the Delhi and Bangalore offices.
This is an expansion of his current role at Freecharge, where he is currently heading the UX, Design and the front end engineering teams. Sivaramakrishnan will now play a key role in product design as Snapdeal turns its focus to building a technology platform with intuitive web and mobile interface.
Prior to Snapdeal, Sivaramakrishnan was with FreeCharge where he joined as head of design & UI engineering in 2013. Previously, he has also worked at Myntra as user experience architect.
Prior to joining Myntra, he spent a decade in Adobe in Bangalore and San Francisco working on a diverse set of products in engineering, product and design capacities.
Sivaramakrishnan said, “Snapdeal’s growth in the technology space has been unprecedented and it gives me great pleasure to be a part of this young and energetic team. Over the years I have been extremely passionate about building great consumer experiences in the Indian e-commerce space. I was fortunate to have gotten the opportunity to bootstrap the FreeCharge Design team and now look forward to building a uniform design sensibility across Snapdeal’s entire digital commerce ecosystem.”
Snapdeal chief product officer Anand Chandrasekaran added, “Great design is as much form as it is function. At Snapdeal, we strive to deliver the best buyer and seller experiences and are thrilled to make design an integral part of our approach to product development. In India design is yet to get its due recognition. We are extremely excited to have Harish onboard and wish him a great journey ahead with the Snapdeal family. Our consumers and sellers will be the beneficiaries of our endless debates as we endeavor to get to pixel perfection.”
e-commerce
American Express to acquire AI startup Hyper to boost automation
Deal targets expense management as AI reshapes corporate spending tools.
MUMBAI: From receipts to robots, the expense sheet is getting a brain upgrade as American Express moves to bring artificial intelligence into the heart of corporate spending. The company has announced plans to acquire Hyper, a relatively young but fast-rising startup founded in 2022 that builds AI-powered agents capable of organising expenses, generating reports, verifying compliance with budgets and policies, and nudging users with timely reminders. The deal, expected to close in the second quarter of 2026, underscores a growing shift among financial institutions to automate traditionally manual, time-heavy workflows.
Hyper counts Sam Altman among its backers, adding a layer of Silicon Valley credibility to the acquisition. While financial details remain undisclosed, the strategic intent is clear: deepen automation capabilities and sharpen American Express’s position in the competitive corporate spending ecosystem.
The two companies are not strangers. They previously collaborated in 2024 on a co-branded credit card product, suggesting that the acquisition is less a cold buy and more an extension of an existing relationship. With this move, American Express is effectively bringing that capability in-house, aiming to embed AI directly into its commercial services stack.
Chief executive Stephen Squeri had already signalled the direction of travel in a recent shareholder letter, describing AI as a “structural shift” in how businesses operate. The Hyper acquisition appears to be a direct response to that shift, particularly in expense management, where processes such as approvals, compliance checks and reporting remain ripe for automation.
Alongside the acquisition, the company is also expanding its product suite. A recently launched business credit card offers cashback and benefits at an annual fee of $295, with another card expected later this year moves that complement its broader push into commercial services.
Taken together, the strategy points to a future where managing expenses may require fewer spreadsheets and more algorithms. For American Express, the bet is simple, if businesses are rethinking how work gets done, the tools that power that work need to evolve just as quickly.
