01/09/2022
Summary
- Prasar Bharati News Services has partnered with cloud computing company Amazon Web Services host and extend its network.
- Nitin Savara, the CFO of meal delivery startup Zomato, has resigned.
- Bike Bazaar has raised $52.8 million in its Series D round of funding through a combination of loan and equity.
PBNS joins hands with Amazon Web Services to scale network
To host and extend its network, Prasar Bharati News Services (PBNS), the digital arm of India’s state broadcaster Prasar Bharati, has partnered with cloud computing company Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Through 240 live radio channels, PBNS provides news and entertainment programming to more than 894 million viewers and listeners worldwide in 190 different countries.
Crypto.com mistakenly issues customer $7.2M
Crypto.com mistakenly gave a customer $7.2 million as opposed to the anticipated $68.
This ‘overly generous’ transfer has now led to an inevitable court saga as the company now wants the money back.
The incident occurred in May 2021 when an Australian woman by the name of Thevamanogari Manivel submitted a refund request to Crypto.com for about $68 and received much more than she had anticipated — a whopping $7.2 million at current exchange rates. This is likely because an employee entered her account number inadvertently into the payment section of a refund form.
Zomato’s Deputy CFO Nitin Savara resigns
Following the company’s first annual general meeting (AGM), which was held on Tuesday, Nitin Savara, the CFO of meal delivery startup Zomato, resigned the following day.
According to a VCCircle article citing two persons with knowledge of the situation, Savara, who joined the company in December of last year, left to follow his entrepreneurial goals.
Savara, a chartered accountant, and attorney, joined Zomato from the multinational consulting firm EY, where he was a partner in charge of M&A tax.
SoftBank’s Rajeev Misra stepping down from his role
Rajeev Misra will be leaving his positions as an executive vice president and corporate officer, according to a statement released on Wednesday (31 August) by global investor SoftBank Group Corp.
Misra who is 60 years old will continue to retain his post as head of SoftBank Investment Advisers, which looks after the first Vision Fund’s existing investments.
According to the statement, Masayoshi Son, the founder of SoftBank, will oversee any new investments made through the second Vision Fund.
DPIIT develops use-interactive dashboard
A user-interactive dashboard has been developed by the Logistics Division of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), which enables authorized user associations to log in and lodge concerns or suggestions for the government to track and resolve in an open manner.
The Ministry of Commerce and Industry announced on Wednesday that DPIIT is about to launch a new initiative to assist industry associations in highlighting service-related issues online.
According to a press release, the new digital project intends to lessen the load of paper correspondence on industrial groups and trade bodies.
Bike Bazaar gets $52.8M in Series D round
Bike Bazaar, an online marketplace for two-wheelers, has raised $52.8 million in its Series D round of funding through a combination of loan and equity.
Of this, $21.4 million (Rs 170 crore) was raised as equity capital from Women’s World Banking Asset Management (WAM), while the remaining $31.4 million was obtained over the previous six months as debt funding from various banks and financial organizations.
The money will be utilized by Bike Bazaar to expand its new used two-wheeler purchasing and selling vertical as well as further penetrate India’s rural towns.
Silence Laboratories gets $1.7M in seed funding
A Singapore-based company that is working on libraries for MPC and Proofs-based Decentralized Security-as-Service (DSaaS), Silence Laboratories has raised $1.7 million in seed funding, according to a press release.
The round was led by Pi Ventures in Silence Laboratories, a web3-focused cybersecurity startup.
Other investors like web3-centric funds such as imToken ventures and prominent angels like Daniel Ari Friedman, Mahin Gupta, CK Vishwakarma, Priyeshu Garg, Ashish Tiwari, and others also participated in the round.
“Account takeover due to a single point of failures of the private keys is on the unparalleled rise and have been affecting enterprises and different sectors of Web3 businesses. Hence, the internet is witnessing a growing push towards distributed authentication protocols and signature schemes and Silence Laboratories is at the forefront of this revolution,” says Jay Prakash, CEO, and Co-Founder at Silence Laboratories.
Reckitt’s CEO Laxman Narasimhan steps down, Nicandro Durante to take over
Reckitt Benckiser Group plc (Reckitt) announced on Thursday that its CEO, Laxman Narasimhan will step down from his position as CEO on September 30, 2022.
Laxman has chosen to return to the United States for personal and family reasons, and he has been approached about a job opportunity that will allow him to do so.
While the Board assesses and chooses the future leadership, Laxman will be succeeded by Nicandro Durante, the current senior independent director, who will assume the position of CEO. The process to find the best long-term candidate to lead Reckitt on its growth and transformation path has been started by the Chairman and the Nomination Committee.
Tortoise gets funding from Swiggy, ZestMoney
Fintech startup Tortoise has received an undisclosed amount of funding from Sriharsha Majety, co-founder and CEO of Swiggy, and Lizzie Chapman co-founder and CEO of ZestMoney.
Earlier this year, the Save Now Buy Later (SNBL) startup had raised around $2.3 million in a seed round of funding from Vertex Ventures, a part of global investment firm Temasek.
“This round is our Mentors Round, where we are raising Angel cheques from category-defining leaders like Lizzie and Sriharsha and expect a few more such visionaries to join in. We are well capitalized from our Seed round, and hence this is less about the investment and more about access to such inspirational leaders,” said Vardhan Koshal, co-founder of Tortoise.
Electrifuel raises Rs 1.8Cr from IAN
Delhi-NCR-based EV technology startup Electrifuel has received Rs 1.8 crore in its seed round from the Indian Angel Network (IAN).
The money will be used by the company to fill a variety of positions with excellent personnel. Electrifuel also intends to make investments in its R&D to advance the company as a whole.
Sumesh Kumar, Sunil Kumar, Abhishek Kumar, and Ujjwal Bhardwaj, a group of engineers, founded Electrifuel in 2017. It enables EV and battery manufacturers to provide products with precise geolocation and cellular connectivity, efficient and quick charging, easy battery swapping, warranty, and service management.
Tezos India Game Launchpad joins hands with IndiGG
Tezos India Game Launchpad (TIGL), a dedicated vertical and platform rolled out by Tezos India to comprehensively enable game developers to launch their games on the Tezos blockchain, has announced entering into a strategic partnership with IndiGG, India’s biggest gaming guild and a sub-DAO of Yield Guild Games.
Through this partnership, Tezos India will be able to benefit from IndiGG’s extensive domain knowledge, which will help them further the uptake of web3 gaming in India.
VaidyaRx launches patient-centric mobile app
A firm in digital health called VaidyaRx has released a health app to streamline the patient-doctor-pharmacy loop.
The firm is eyeing $2.5 million funding from investors and hopes to reach 200,000 users in the following six months. VaidyaRx said that 200 more providers (doctors and pharmacists) will be included in the current network.