Page 21 - Startups

Together Fund announces new fund worth $150 mn; to focus on AI startups

Together Fund was founded by Girish Mathrubootham, (co-founder, Freshworks), Manav Garg, (founder, Eka Software) and Shubham Gupta, who used to lead SaaS deals at Matrix Partners India

Governance should be front & centre for startups: Tata 1mg co-founder

Startups need to live up to higher standards of corporate governance, and failure of a business is not as big an issue as ethics and morality-related concerns, Tata 1mg co-founder Prashant Tandon said on Wednesday. He advised startups not to get swayed by short-term temptations, saying long-term enterprises cannot be built through shortcuts. "Businesses not working is not a problem, governance-related and ethics morality-related issues are not acceptable," he told PTI on the sidelines of the IAMAI Digital Health Summit. Tandon said that governance needs to be "front and center" for startups and that when governance is strong, capital flows better. He hoped that the startup ecosystem lives up to higher standards. Addressing the recent governance and financial lapses faced by startups such as Byju's, he said, "As an ecosystem we are waking up to a lot of issues around governance controls". He acknowledged that the late-stage startup ecosystem has become more challenging. "With th

How Ankit Agrawal is building InsuranceDekho as fastest growing insurtech

InsuranceDekho was started in 2017 with a vision of democratising the Indian insurance sector by simplifying the insurance buying, selling, and claim process

Bank of India launches three dedicated centres for startups under DPIIT

Bank of India on Monday launched three dedicated centres for startups and plans to have 12 such centres with a Rs 500 crore loan book by the first year of operations. The three centres are located in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi. They are intended to facilitate the government's goal of promoting innovation and entrepreneurship, and comes under the initiative of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). Under DPIIT's initiative, more than 93,000 startups have been registered and are technically eligible for loans of Rs 1-10 crore. The bank has already sanctioned almost Rs 12 crore to seven startups which are in the tech, restaurant and manufacturing space, its Managing Director Rajneesh Karnatak told PTI. Further, Karnatak said the bank has already identified nine more cities with large pool of startup clusters and over the next 12 months, it will have 12 such dedicated centres. The bank hopes to fund at least 200 such companies and have around Rs 500 cror

'How bad is the job market?': Applicants spooked, experts optimistic

A start-up receiving 3,000 job applications in 48 hours reflects how substantial the churn is

Saarthi.ai fires employees in batches, withholds salaries; cites 'pressure'

Bengaluru-based AI tech support startup Saarthi.ai has fired some employees buckling under "investor pressure" to become profitable, and has allegedly withheld salaries of several employees since March 2023. While an employee took to a social media platform to claim that withholding of salaries has affected a substantial chunk of staff, the numbers could not be independently verified. Responding to queries, Founder and CEO Vishwa Nath Jha said the company has "let go" of employees in batches owing to "investor pressure" to become profitable, but declined to divulge the number of employees affected by the move. "Our team has been restructured in light of technological advancement and many team members were let go in batches as a result. We had to automate low level professional cognitive skills of our staff due to investor pressure to become profitable," he told PTI. Addressing concerns of withholding salaries, he said that the full and final settlement for early batches of the ...

Shark Tank Season 1: Which shark honoured most number of deals? Check here

In total, out of a total of 65 deal commitments, only 40% (28) deals were honoured by seven sharks

Startups have obligation to take India's flag to other countries: Paytm CEO

Startups have an obligation to take the Indian flag to other countries, founder and CEO of Paytm Vijay Shekhar Sharma said on Tuesday. "Right now we have reached the stage in the startup ecosystem where the mature companies should start to think that which countries we can export to, if we could export for our IT services," Sharma said at an event by the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Sharing his optimism about the rising global presence of Indian startups, Sharma said that he aspires for an anti-trust regulation by America and other nations on an Indian company. "I really wish in my lifetime that America is thinking of sanctioning us...multiple countries, and then you go for negotiations - don't do it!," he said. He also spoke on value creation for startups, the divide between traditional industries and startups and the next phase of generative technology and AI. Announcing that AI-first offerings will be in the forefront of operations, Sharma termed AI as the "biggest ...

VC firm CoinFund raises $158 mn to back early-stage crypto startups

The New York-based firm had initially aimed for $125 million, but received more interest than expected, said Chief Executive Officer Jake Brukhman

Dukaan lays off 90% staff for AI bot: It's absolutely necessary, says CEO

E-commerce startup Dukaan has replaced 90 per cent of its customer support team with an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, founder and CEO Suumit Shah informed on Tuesday. Attributing the decision to prioritising profitability, he said customer support costs reduced by 85 per cent while resolution time went down from over two hours to three minutes. "We had to lay off 90 per cent of our support team because of this AI chatbot. Tough? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely," Shah tweeted. Several Twitter users criticised the tweet, deeming it insensitive. "Given the state of economy, startups are prioritising "profitability" over striving to become "unicorns", and so are we," Shah added. He explained in detail about Lina, the AI assistant which he claimed, replaces generic and delayed responses, as well as limited availability of resources and poor communication. After 12 tweets, Shah said that the company is hiring for multiple roles. When asked by a Twitter user about the assistance prov

Indian start-ups money for little: Here's a look at ecosystem's finances

Funding raised by start-ups in H1 2023 was $5.4 billion, down 71.5 per cent compared to $19 billion raised in H1 2022

Byju's crisis prompts top India VC firm Blume Ventures to shift strategy

Perceived corporate governance lapses are sending shockwaves through the South Asian nation's fledgling startup economy

Tamil Nadu's Atsuya secures spot in Google's Startup Accelerator Program

Under the program, tech companies using artificial intelligence/ machine learning (AI/ML) get access to Google's resources, programs, people, products and technology

PharmEasy to raise Rs 2,400 cr, Manipal Group likely to invest Rs 1,000 cr

The fundraising will be done via a rights issue where the stock will be sold at a 90 per cent discount at Rs 5 per share

Digital consulting firm KaarTech raises $30 mn in funding from A91 Partners

Chennai-based B2B company says it will use money to expand business in international markets

IBM throws weight behind Japanese chip startup it sees as crucial

Rapidus, a venture backed by some of Japan's biggest electronics firms, is turning IBM's 2-nanometer chip design into production-ready silicon and aims to fabricate such chips

Startups Intellectual Property Rights Protection to promote innovation: MoS

Jitendra Singh said, there is a huge round of encouragement and promotion both for StartUps in terms of being innovative and entrepreneurs, the press release said

Lot of global investor interest in India right now: Arkam Ventures MD

We expect more foreign limited partners to put money into India, says Bala Srinivasa, MD, Arkam Ventures

Why can fintech sector ecosystem in India survive funding winter

The fintech space has witnessed a 60 per cent year-to-date slump in funding

Meta announces a fund for Indian startups building XR apps

Up to five Indian developers 18 years or more, and startups will receive a financial grant, along with dedicated mentoring and guidance from the Meta Reality Labs experts