Page 21 - Startups

BS Startup: Robotics company Ati Motors disrupting logistics sector

The company's advanced autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) combine artificial intelligence, computer vision, and state-of-the-art hardware to perform complex tasks in dynamic environments

India to become growth engine for world, will be $5 trn economy soon: PM

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said India will become the growth engine for the world in the coming years, and the ease of doing business has improved with "mission-mode" reforms being undertaken by his government. Speaking at the BRICS Business Forum Leaders' Dialogue here, Modi also said India soon will become a USD 5 trillion economy. He told the gathering that India has the world's third-largest startup ecosystem and there are over 100 unicorns in the country. Modi is on a visit to South Africa, which is hosting the first in-person summit of BRICS comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, since 2019.

Corporate governance issue wake-up call for startups: Shantanu Deshpande

Corporate governance should be seen as a collective and unit responsibility of all stakeholders involved in a startup, Shantanu Deshpande, founder of Bombay Shaving Company has said. He added that any lapses or deviations are a wake-up call for the ecosystem and are "deeply saddening". On funding winter, Deshpande told PTI that good companies will continue to attract capital, although they may not get a "bullish valuation" at this stage as scrutiny increases and investors turn more careful with their bets. Deshpande, who is also CEO of homegrown personal care brand Bombay Shaving Company, belongs to a growing tribe of outspoken founders scaling up new-age companies in India. Asked about the cases of corporate governance lapses in the Indian startup landscape, he said 'bad form' in companies is also a unit, collective issue and not about doing postmortems on singular data points. Corporate governance issues are "critical to fix", and the onus cannot be on the founders alone. "It is

Number of registered Startups in TN tripled in two years: CM Stalin

The number of registered Startups in Tamil Nadu tripled in two years after the DMK captured power, owing to the numerous initiatives to bolster their growth, Chief Minister M K Stalin said on Saturday. As of March 2021, there were 2,300 registered Startups in the state. Due to the consistent efforts taken after coming to power, their number almost tripled over two years, rising to 6,800, he said. "Tamil Nadu should become a leading state in the country in every field including Startups. The government has launched several programmes to support the Startup ecosystem," the Chief Minister said addressing the "Tamil Nadu Startup Thiruvizha 2023" at the CODISSIA trade fair complex, Coimbatore, virtually from here. The two-day mega event is being held under the aegis of StartupTN, the state nodal agency for startup and innovation. About 450 exhibition stalls have been set up at the venue and the event is expected to attract over 10,000 visitors. Speaking about the government's role in ..

Par panel for easing criteria for recognised startups to avail tax benefits

A parliamentary panel on Thursday recommended relaxation in criteria for eligible startups to claim benefits under income tax law as only one per cent of recognised entrepreneurs have availed the benefit. The department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce has expressed concern about the low utilisation of section 80-IAC of the Income Tax Act, 1961, which entitles eligible startups to avail the tax benefit. It was implemented in 2017. Despite the existence of 98,119 recognised startups, only 10,165 of them, accounting for just 10.4 per cent, have applied for income tax exemption under this Act. Furthermore, the inter-ministerial board has granted the Certificate of Eligibility to only 1,173 applicants as on March 31, 2023. "This means that even after six years of the implementation of Section 80-IAC of the Income Tax Act, 1961, only 1 per cent of recognised startups have received the Certificate of Eligibility," the committee said in its report. The committee ...

Gaming unicorn MPL lays off 350 employees, revisits office infra costs

The move comes at a time when the GST Council has recommended imposing a 28 per cent tax on full deposit value, with no distinction made between games of skill and chance

Skilling start-up Disprz gets $30 mn in Series-C funding from Lumos, others

Established in 2015, Disprz's client base includes firms like ICICI Bank, Amazon, Indian Oil, Bajaj Allianz, Ather Energy, HDFC Life, and Starbucks, among others

As startups lay off staff to cut costs, employees head out for job hunt

Employees not just from edtech but also from commerce and digital media startups are looking out for new jobs amidst massive layoffs

Blackstone alum doubles down on Drone startups after 600% IdeaForge return

BotLab was established in 2016 at the technology business incubator unit at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi

Roastea eyes Rs 100 cr in topline, to install 5,000 vending machines

Beverage startup, Roastea is eying Rs 100 crore turnover and 5,000 vending machines network by 2024-25. "The company's tea and coffee vending machine business will be one of the key drivers of growth, and it aims to roll out over 1,500 such machines this year, aggregating to 2,500 machines," a company statement said Roastea aims to have around 5,000 vending machines installed across corporates and open 40 cafes over the next two years (by 2024-25), it added. Profitable since inception, Roastea aims to reach Rs 100 crore turnover by FY25, it stated. Focused on corporates, IoT (Internet of Things) enabled modern vending machines are manufactured at Roastea's own contracted factory. They offer fresh milk-based beverages with a unique selection of filter coffee and Indian masala chai and can serve over 20 beverages simultaneously. Roastea's co-founder Anurag Bhamidipaty said, "Vending machine business of Roastea is performing exceptionally well and serves as the primary growth driver

AWS, Accel announce ML Elevate 2023 to support generative AI startups

Cloud service provider Amazon Web Services (AWS) and venture capital firm Accel have announced ML Elevate 2023, a six-week accelerator programme aimed to empower startups building generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Generative AI applications have captivated developers and enthusiasts alike with their ability to comprehend and generate realistic conversations, stories, images, videos, and music across diverse domains, according to a statement. ML Elevate aims to support generative AI startups by providing them access to AI models and tools, business and technical mentorship, curated resources, the AWS Activate programme, and up to USD 200,000 in AWS Credits. Other benefits include peer support from a community of leading AI and ML (Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning) startup founders and the opportunity to scale production-ready generative AI applications on Amazon SageMaker JumpStart. Generative AI startups that have already developed a Minimum Viable .

Zypp Electric allocates Rs 1.5 crore for buyback, first in EV industry

Zypp Electric said the allocation has been made to 15 employees who have been in the company for over a year

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 ...