Forbes India Daily Tech Brief Podcast: Recent Episodes
Forbes India Daily Tech Brief Podcast
Every week day, Forbes India tech briefings will bring you essential tech news from around the world that has a bearing on India—covering everything from big tech to the subcontinent's growing tech startup ecosystem
In this episode, Kamal Karanth, co-founder and CEO of Xpheno, a staffing firm in Bengaluru, explains the modest increase in open IT positions in recent times. Consider that in FY22, the IT sector alone hired some 2,30,000 people, net, according to the industry lobby Nasscom. That fell to 60,000 in FY23 and FY24 was about the same. Not much has changed yet for the IT giants, but non-tech companies rooted in India’s economy, as well as a new wave of global capability centres are hiring, Karanth says.
In this episode, Sumeet Mehta, co-founder and CEO of Leadership Boulevard, more popularly known as Leadschool, offers a quick update on the company’s latest product. Techbook, as they’re calling it, is actually a physical textbook, designed and engineered to comprise scannable pages that link up with an AR solution. This opens up a world of interactive content for students, and, alongside an AI-based reading assistant, makes learning a more personalized experience. Mehta hopes to put Techbooks in the hands of 4-5 million students by 2028.
Sridhar Vembu, co-founder and CEO of Zoho, offers a quick update on the AI investments at India’s biggest software products company. In an interview with Forbes India at the company’s annual user conference on Sep. 25, Vembu spoke about small models Zoho has commercialized, efforts to ensure enterprise customers’ security and privacy in putting such models to use across different functions and customers, and R&D aimed at ensuring reliability of the output from AI models. He also anticipates more energy efficient AI tech will emerge.
AI products and services will likely grow between 40 percent and 55 percent annually, potentially reaching $990 billion by 2027, the consultancy Bain & Company projects in its fifth annual global technology report. In this episode, David Crawford, a partner and chairman of the consultancy’s global technology practice, discusses some of the top takeaways from the report – including whether AI is actually delivering value, and the implications of the high cost of development of advanced AI.
In this episode, Sidu Ponnappa, co-founder and CEO of Realfast, unpacks the hype cycle, challenges and opportunities in ‘agentic AI.’ Realfast, a Singapore and Bengaluru startup, recently out of stealth mode, is initially offering AI assistants to Salesforce implementation services teams. In this quick chat, Ponnappa also talks about the intangible human experience that’s often discounted in conversations about AI, and offers his personal guesstimate on when we might see agents autonomously capable of building their own agents.
The leaders of the Quad nations, Prime Ministers Narendra Modi of India, Anthony Albanese of Australia, and Kishida Fumio of Japan, and US President Joe Biden unveiled the Quad Cancer Moonshot, a collaborative effort in the Indo-Pacific region, in a statement called The Wilmington Declaration, on Sep. 21. This partnership will initially focus on cervical cancer, which the leaders note is a preventable disease that continues to affect many. The leaders also announced greater collaboration in critical technologies.
Is the enterprise opportunity on the rise in the world of augmented reality, or AR? Just this week, Microsoft, maker of HoloLens, has announced a partnership with Anduril, the US deep-tech defence startup founded by Palmer Luckey, the inventor of the Oculus headset, now part of Meta, and Snap has released the latest version of its AR Spectacles. To understand the landscape better, we speak with Milind Manoj, co-founder and CEO of Pupilmesh, a head-mounted display systems deep-tech startup that’s part of MapMyIndia.
How satisfied are enterprise customers with the results of their outsourcing investments when it comes to generative AI? Mrinal Rai, assistant director and principal analyst at ISG, unpacks what the technology sourcing and advisory company’s customers are saying about this. Rai, who leads research for the future of work and enterprise customer experience at ISG, adds that irrespective of current challenges, and less-than-satisfactory results in some specific areas, large businesses plan to keep up their AI investments.
Microsoft has unveiled new AI features in its Copilot product. The features started rolling out this week and Microsoft also announced a large deal with Vodafone Group under which 68,000 or about two-thirds of the British mobile services provider’s employees will get licensed access to the new Copilot. Among the features are Copilot Pages, deeper integration of Copilot within Microsoft’s Office products, and Copilot agents, which will automate a growing number of business processes.
In today’s episode, we bring you an update from Nakul Aggarwal, co-founder and CTO of BrowserStack, a leading SaaS company from India, providing software app and browser testing infrastructure and products. Aggarwal talks about the rationale behind the acquisition of Bird Eats Bug, in Berlin, which BrowserStack announced yesterday. He also talks about evaluating building BrowserStack’s own large language model, as the SaaS company progresses on its journey of transforming from a test infrastructure provider to a testing platform.
Ahead of Nvidia’s fiscal Q2 earnings results, on Aug. 28 (Aug. 29, 2:30 a.m. local time in India) we look at the stunning rise of the $2 trillion chip maker as the tech backbone for the explosion of generative AI over the last two years. Alvin Nguyen, senior analyst at Forrester Research, and Neil Shah, vice president of research at Counterpoint Technology Market Research, explain Nvidia’s dominance and the growing complexities in the broader ecosystem.
Apple, as widely anticipated leading up to its annual Worldwide Developer Conference, announced a partnership with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT to the iPhone, iPad and MacBooks. The tie up evoked strident criticism from Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, in particular around data privacy. In this episode, Jaspreet Bindra, an independent AI and ethics researcher and former chief digital officer of the Mahindra Group, and Dipanjan Chatterjee, VP and principal analyst at Forrester Research unpack the significance of this deal.
Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer Conference, WWDC, kicks off later today, and anticipation is high with respect to the iPhone maker’s AI roadmap, as it is generally considered to lag Android rivals such as Samsung and Google – especially in the era of generative AI. Neil Shah, vice president of research at Counterpoint Technology Market Research, and Navkendar Singh, associate vice president at IDC India, unpack what they are expecting to see today from Apple’s conference.
Access to talent, value and innovation – these are all reasons that multinational companies are either setting up IT and software-driven R&D centres in India or expanding existing facilities. Some, however, are reducing the workforce in such centres and there’s also a set of companies considering exiting their GCCs altogether. To understand what’s going on, I spoke with Stanton Jones, Distinguished Analyst at ISG, a technology research and advisory firm that tracks outsourcing deals around the world, about their recent survey of GCC activity. Here’s what he said.
In this episode, Megha Chawla, senior partner at the multinational consultancy Bain & Company, talks about why India’s tech talent has become a non-negotiable part of the global CEO’s strategy, discussing the prospects for the nation’s tech landscape, as India returns to a coalition government at the centre after a decade. In the age of AI, India’s IT services companies have become important partners to global businesses, she says.
Indian voters have denied a majority to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP. However, as Modi is set to remain in power for a historic third term, leading the coalition NDA, three well-known VC investors unpack what this means for India’s tech and startup ecosystem. Ninad Karpe, founding partner at 100X.VC, in Mumbai, Abhishek Goyal, co-founder of Tracxn and angel investor, in Bengaluru, and Vishesh Rajaram, managing partner at Speciale Invest, argue that India’s economic fundamentals still make it a top destination for global investments.
Agnikul Cosmos, a space launch vehicle startup in Chennai, yesterday successfully tested its first technology demonstrator rocket, Agnibaan, that showed its one-piece 3D-printed engine worked as intended, in a sub-orbital mission. To understand the significance of this success, Forbes India spoke with Narayan Prasad, chief operations officer at Satsearch, a Netherlands headquartered marketplace for the space industry, and co-founder and director of research and operations at Spaceport SARABHAI, a space economy think tank in India.
A year after it first announced the plan, the Reserve Bank of India yesterday launched a Fintech Repository that the regulator hopes will foster innovation by allowing it to stay abreast of the cutting edge of tech in the industry. To get a sense of why fintech entrepreneurs are welcoming this move, Forbes India spoke with Manish Kumar, co-founder and CEO of KredX, a startup specializing in supply chain finance.
The demand for data centres in India is surging, driven by everything from the expansion of the so-called global capability centres to the rise of our digital economy and the laws around localization of data as required under the data protection rules. In this episode, Arjun P Gupta, founder and CEO of Smart Joules, in New Delhi, which provides HVAC management and energy efficiency solutions, offers a quick overview of some of the practical challenges we face in powering India’s data centres with green energy.
Google’s large investment in Flipkart comes as a pleasant surprise even to seasoned investors in India’s digital economy – at a time when late-stage funding is yet to return, and the funding winter continues even as the monsoons will be a welcome relief from record heat waves across the subcontinent.
Abhishek Goyal, co-founder of Tracxn, and an early investor in Flipkart, reckons the deal could be a straightforward bid to win a large account for Google’s cloud business. But as the funding turns the spotlight on India’s e-commerce, there are several noteworthy developments in the sector, he says.
Google is reportedly ready to make its Pixel phones in India, starting with the Pixel 8 to be assembled at a Foxconn International plant in Tamil Nadu. Tarun Pathak, research director at Counterpoint Technology Market Research, and Navkendar Singh, associate vice president at IDC India, unpack the big picture here. Google is starting small, but has the heft to scale in a massive market by sheer numbers that is far from saturated. The long-term play is also about tapping the maturing electronics ecosystem in India over the next decade and beyond.
Why are some of India’s best-known fintech startups, but also others, engaging in what is popularly called a “reverse flip” to move their holding parent entities back to India from countries such as the US, Singapore and so on. It can be a fairly complex, time-consuming process, but these companies – Groww, PineLabs and Razorpay are in the news – feel it’s worth the trouble. In this episode, Keyur Shah, Partner and Leader – Financial Services Tax, EY India, succinctly unpacks this trend.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella offered a glimpse into his plan for how the company will bring AI to everyone – via its Copilot stack on its Azure cloud platform, keynoting the company’s 14th edition of its annual developer conference, Build, on May 21. In this episode, Sidhant Rastogi, president for technology services and platforms at Zinnov, a management consultancy, and Deepika Giri, associate vice president and head of research – big data and AI, at IDC Asia Pacific, unpack the big picture from Nadella’s speech.
A report last week from Tata Consultancy Services on “AI for Business” revealed some of the barriers to achieving the so-called “transformation” that large companies seek, in implementing new tech and processes – especially generative AI in this case. So where does the IT services industry really stand with respect to generative AI as an opportunity for serious growth. Yugal Joshi, a partner at Everest Group, an IT outsourcing consultancy, gives us a glimpse into the nuances involved.
India’s efforts to build core AI technologies is at best at a nascent stage. At the country’s biggest tech industry lobby Nasscom’s annual flagship conference last week, we caught up with Debjani Ghosh, the organisation’s president, for a quick chat on the topic. Ghosh spoke about how India’s tech services companies are approaching the AI opportunity, including lessons from India’s experiment with its digital public infrastructure.
India’s top IT companies might benefit as their biggest customers look to sunset legacy applications that are only being maintained for the critical data they hold, but first a couple of other headlines that caught my attention:
One97 Communications Ltd., which operates the Paytm wallet and payments network, has formed a committee, headed by Meleveetil Damodaran, the former chief of the Securities and Exchange Board of India, the country’s capital markets regulator, to help the company meet compliance requirements.
On Jan. 31, the Reserve Bank of India, ordered the company’s Paytm Payments Bank unit to cease most of its operations after Feb. 29 for various regulatory violations.
The three-member committee includes Mukund Manohar Chitale, a former president of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), and Ramachandran Rajaraman, a member of the Advisory Board at Central Vigilance Commission.
Meanwhile, India’s parliamentary committee on communications and IT has urged the central government to support the growth of domestic fintech players as alternatives to the duopoly of PhonePe, a unit of Walmart, and Google Pay which accounts for more than 83 percent of India’s digital payments transactions via the unified payments interface, TechCrunch reports.
PhonePe leads, with 46.91 percent of the UPI market share by volume for the period of October to November 2023, the committee notes in its report. Google Pay held a market share of 36.39 percent in the same period.
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India’s IT services companies will likely benefit as their customers take a hard look at outdated software applications in the age of AI. Many of these applications are being maintained only for the data they hold, the consultancy ISG points out in a recent newsletter.
Enterprises have large volumes of critical data locked in legacy applications, ISG’s Stanton Jones, Sunder Sarangan and Alex Bakker, note in the company’s weekly newsletter, Index Insider, with the tagline what’s important in IT.
AI will be a forcing function for businesses to overcome the reasons that have been preventing them from sunsetting or modernizing these applications, which will serve as an important driver for ADM activity this year, they write.
ISG’s most recent Application Development and Maintenance Buyer Behavior Study showed that about one in every ten enterprise applications has been classified as “end of life.”
Most large enterprises have thousands of applications, so in most cases, this means that hundreds of applications are at the end of their life for any one company, they point out.
And, the primary reason companies continue to support these legacy applications is because of the data they hold.
According to ISG, 10 percent of enterprise applications being at end of life translates to more than 150 applications on average per company. Half of all enterprises ISG surveyed continue to support these applications because of the data stored in them.
ISG, which tracks all IT outsourcing contracts worth $5 million or more, expects enterprises to double the number of AI-enabled applications in their portfolios by the end of 2024.
This means that application optimization will be an important attribute of ADM activity in 2024. Companies will rely on their outsourcing providers for the resources required for these legacy transformation programs as well as their ability to combine cost optimization with modernization, according to the consultancy.
Even in regions like the Asia Pacific, where companies currently lag their North American counterparts in GenAI spending, for example, Infosys, India’s second biggest IT services provider, forecasts a bigger increase than in any other region – 140 percent in the next year.
This translates to an estimated $3.4 billion to be invested across Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, India, and Singapore, according to Infosys’s Generative AI Radar APac Report, released two weeks ago.
Google is retiring Bard, with the launch of a more capable chatbot, Gemini Advanced, but first a couple of other headlines.
Reserve Bank of India, the country’s central bank, yesterday, stood by its actions imposing restrictions on Paytm Payments Bank, stating that its order barring the small finance bank from most activities after Feb. 29, including taking any fresh deposits, was issued only after “persistent non-compliance” with rules.
The action taken by the powerful banking regulator “is always proportionate to the gravity of the situation,” the bank’s Governor Shaktikanta Das, said in a media briefing, TechCrunch reports.
Amazon Web Services India has started a space accelerator programme that will offer technical, business, and mentorship help to startups focused on space technology, with support from, T-Hub, and Minfy, an AWS systems integrator partner.
This is AWS’s first accelerator program in India focused on startups in the space sector, and follows the MoU it signed with ISRO and IN-SPACe in September last year, to nurture startups in space-tech, and support innovation in the sector.
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A year after introducing Bard, Google is retiring the name and rebranding its AI products and features under its Gemini brand. It is also launching Ultra 1.0, its most capable large language model yet.
“AI is also now central to two businesses that have grown rapidly in recent years: our Cloud and Workspace services and our popular subscription service Google One, which is just about to cross 100 million subscribers,” Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, writes in a blog post.
“Gemini is evolving to be more than just the models,” Pichai writes. “It supports an entire ecosystem — from the products that billions of people use every day, to the APIs and platforms helping developers and businesses innovate.”
The largest model Ultra 1.0 is the first to outperform human experts on MMLU (massive multitask language understanding), which uses a combination of 57 subjects — including math, physics, history, law, medicine and ethics — to test knowledge and problem-solving abilities.
Gemini is available in 40 languages on the web, and is coming to a new Gemini app on Android and on the Google app on iOS.
The version with Ultra will be called Gemini Advanced, which is more capable at reasoning, following instructions, coding, and creative collaboration.
“In blind evaluations with Google’s third-party raters, Gemini Advanced with Ultra 1.0 is now the most preferred chatbot compared to leading alternatives,” Sissi Hsiao, vice president and general manager for Gemini and Google Assistant, wrote in a blog post.
With the Ultra 1.0 model, Gemini Advanced is more capable at complex tasks like coding, logical reasoning, following nuanced instructions and collaborating on creative projects, Hsiao writes. Gemini Advanced allows you to have longer, more detailed conversations, and it also better understands the context from your previous prompts.
Gemini Advanced can be a personal tutor, help with more advanced coding scenarios, or generate fresh content. Gemini Advanced is available today in more than 150 countries and territories in English, as part of a new Google One AI Premium Plan for about $20 a month, with all the existing features of the Google One, including the 2TB of storage. In addition, AI Premium subscribers will soon be able to use Gemini in Gmail, Docs, Slides, and Sheets. And Google is offering a two-month free trial.
“To mitigate issues like unsafe content or bias, we’ve built safety into our products in accordance with our AI Principles,” Hsiao writes in her post.
You can find more details in Google’s updated Gemini Technical Report.
Gemini and Gemini Advanced are being rolled out on smartphones via a new app on Android. And in the Google app on iOS in the coming weeks.
Layoffs at tech companies have continued into 2024, but first, a couple of other headlines that caught my attention.
Hyundai Motors is planning to list its Indian unit to raise at least $3 billion in what would be the country's biggest IPO, Reuters reported yesterday, citing two people it didn’t name.
Hyundai, the second-biggest automaker in India with a 15 percent market share, is in early talks with several banks for the fund raising, which would value the Korean automaker’s Indian operations at up to $30 billion, which is more than half its market capitalisation of $42 billion in Seoul, according to Reuters.
As Paytm reels under the Reserve Bank of India’s tough stance over the fintech company’s non-compliance issues, some founders of startups in India have written to Governor Shaktikanta Das and finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, urging them to “review” and “reconsider” the regulatory directive asking Paytm’s payments bank unit to shut its main banking services after February 29, Economic Times reported earlier today.
Policybazaar's Yashish Dahiya, Bharat Matrimony’s Murugavel Janakiraman, Makemytrip’s Rajesh Magow and Ritesh Malik of Innov 8 are among the signatories to the letter. They’ve said the punitive measures against Paytm would have a far-reaching impact on India’s fintech ecosystem, according to ET.
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Tech companies have already shed about 32,500 jobs in 2024, according to layoffs.fyi, which tracks job cuts at 5,000 tech companies. Snap, which operates the photo and video sharing app, Snapchat, is the latest internet company to announce job cuts in 2024. The company said in an SEC filing on Feb. 5 it would reduce its headcount by 10 percent worldwide.
Snap expects it will incur charges ranging from $55 million to $75 million, according to its filing, from this latest round of cuts. The company previously laid off 20 percent of its staff and restructured its business lines in August 2022, CNBC notes.
Several other well-known tech companies have reduced their staff strength this year, including Paypal, Microsoft, Zuora, Zoom, and Okta. Indian food delivery unicorn Swiggy, ahead of its IPO plans, recently cut another 400 jobs, TechCrunch reported on Jan. 25.
And India’s top IT services companies entered the year with their collective workforce lower by tens of thousands of employees. Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest IT company, for example, reduced its workforce by close to 11,500 people in the nine months through December 2023.
Infosys, the second biggest, has reduced its workforce by more than 20,500 staff in the same period.
Tech and IT companies around the world recruited aggressively as the world came out of the Covid pandemic. Since then, the combination of the global economic slowdown and the rise of AI and AI-based automation, has changed the world. Now, even as things are beginning to look up in the world’s biggest tech market, the US, hiring will increasingly reflect investments in AI.
Apple’s Vision Pro headsets are now available for sale at stores in the US, but first a couple of other headlines that caught my attention.
A UK minister on a trade mission last year assured Infosys that he would do what he could to help the company grow in the country, where founder NR Narayana Murthy’s son-in-law Rishi Sunak is prime minister, The Mirror reported.
The paper obtained details of the April 2023 visit of Dominic Johnson, a minister in PM Sunak’s cabinet, using Britain’s freedom of information laws. Sunak has faced intense scrutiny over his wife Akshata Murty’s ownership of close to 1 percent of Infosys.
Freshworks, a Chennai-to-Silicon Valley software company, will report its fiscal fourth quarter and full year earnings results tomorrow, according to the investor page on the company’s website. The Nasdaq-listed provider of cloud software for customer engagement and IT services management expects to end the year with revenue of about $595 million, a growth of about 20 percent. Analysts will also be watching Freshworks’s net dollar retention, an important SaaS metric, that the company has projected at 105 percent.
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Apple, on Feb. 2 announced that its Vision Pro AR headsets were available for sale in stores in the US. Apple calls the headset a spatial computer, which works by tracking natural hand gestures and movement of your eyes.
Last year, after Apple unveiled this, I’d spoken with Milind Manoj, an AR expert and founder and CEO of a company called PupilMesh here in Bangalore. I thought a quick recap of the features of the Vision Pro from that conversation might be interesting, so here goes.
The first takeaway was that, like with any other Apple product, there's a lot that’s gone into the design and specs. Especially given that they have a dedicated processor, the R1 chip, that helps to make functions like the display rendering seem like near real time although it's a pass-through headset, is remarkable.
In a pass-through headset, one is not really seeing the world around directly, but through the cameras on the headset, and then being streamed to the display. This is an interesting, and important, question according to Milind, because the user is seeing what the device sees.
Therefore, the question is if you’d be okay with a device controlling what you are actually seeing because you are essentially blocking out one of your senses and relying on cameras – this might be okay or not, depending on what you’re using the device for.
This is the biggest difference versus what are called optical see-through headsets which don’t block off your vision. These kinds of headsets will become increasingly important as the sophistication of AR applications that overlay digital information on top of the real world that we can see and touch and feel increases – think of applications like surgery, for example, where precision is critical and therefore what you’re seeing through the headset has to be accurate.
The original Apple Glass project probably had such ambitions, where one could see through. Apple must surely be continuing to work on that technology, but we don’t know anything about a commercial product.
The second takeaway from my chat with Milind was that unlike other Apple products so far, the Vision Pro still feels a little bit experimental, especially because it has a waist-mounted external battery pack that connects to the headset via a cable.
This is obviously the best trade off that Apple’s engineers could think of with respect to the design and how long people could use the headset at one go, but it does make the Vision Pro a somewhat inelegant gadget in my view – you may be perfectly fine with an outside battery pack.
The headset costs about $3,500 and its success will depend on the applications that developers come up for it. It’s unlikely to be in India any time soon, but Apple will probably show off the headset at its own stores in Mumbai and Delhi – just to pique your curiosity.
Apple’s focus on India is paying off and the company also captured the top position in revenue in a calendar year for the first time, due to strong demand for both its latest iPhone and older models, according to market research provider Counterpoint. Overall, Samsung maintained its lead with the biggest market share, at 18 percent, in the predominantly Android market, and Vivo took the number two spot with 17 percent share.
Ahead of the union government's budget for the year 2024-25, the well-known expectations remain, such as tax breaks and incentives, but India's tech startups are also hoping the government will sharpen its focus on supporting them to develop more intellectual property within the country, which is crucial for our long-term security. They want more R&D spends, deeper partnerships with public labs, and simpler rules to help them go after global customers.
An important conference is to take place tomorrow in New Delhi on India’s international role with respect to technologies that are considered dual use, meaning for civilian and industrial use, but also for defence and military applications.
India’s Directorate General of Foreign Trade, Department of Commerce in partnership with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and other Government Agencies is organising the National Conference on Strategic Trade Controls (NCSTC), tomorrow at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi, the nation’s capital.
The conference will focus on India's Strategic Trade Control related to SCOMET and export controls system and international best practices on export of dual-use (meaning industrial and military) goods, software and technologies, according to a government statement circulated by the Press Information Bureau yesterday.
SCOMET stands for Special Chemicals, Organisms, Materials, Equipment and Technologies.
Registrations for the conference have been invited by DGFT through its website. International speakers including the Chair of 1540 Committee of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and the Chair of Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), senior government officials including the Commerce Secretary, Member (Customs) of CBIC, Director General of DGFT, and others would be participating.
DGFT expects that more than 500 industry representatives will attend the conference.
The thematic sessions planned during the day-long conference will focus on various aspects of India’s Strategic Trade Control system, including the legal and regulatory framework, the steps taken to streamline the SCOMET policy and licensing processes, the enforcement mechanism and supply chain compliance programs.
India published its first Scomet list as part of its Foreign Trade Development and Regulation Act of 1992. In 2010, the Act was amended to add a new chapter, including a section that deals with controls on exports of specified goods, services and technologies – giving the central government the power to monitor and amend the list of such goods, services and technologies.
Currently the list includes goods, services and tech under nine categories, ranging from nuclear technologies to aviation and aerospace to electronics to chemicals and biotech.
Those of you who caught Samsung’s Unpacked event two days ago would have seen a Google vice president of search coming up on stage to describe a new AI feature on the latest Galaxy phone, developed by Google.
Google calls it circle to search, and that’s exactly what it is. See something you’re browsing that you want to know more about? Well, now just circle it, and you’ll get what the geeks would call multi-modal search results, meaning across text, images and so on.
Android users would be familiar with Google Lens, where you can use the phone camera and search for more information on a picture or how you can hum a song and ask Google what song it is.
Circle to search is the latest in Google’s stable of AI and machine learning based features for end users on their smartphones that are making such interactions ever more human.
“With a simple gesture, you can select what you’re curious about in whatever way comes naturally to you — like circling, highlighting, scribbling or tapping — and get more information right where you are,” Cathy Edwards, a Google VP and GM for Search, writes in a blog post, explaining how easy it is to use this feature.
Edwards first presented this feature at Samsung’s event. An important aspect of this feature is that it allows you to search on whichever app or website you are on, without having to leave it, making it a minimally distracting task so you can continue to go on and finish what you were doing on the app in the first place.
The possibilities are endless. It could be just about searching for more on a new pair of running shoes you saw on some website, for example. Or imagine just circling a dish on a food delivery app and getting more info on how healthy it is for you.
This will be first available on Samsung’s latest Galaxy S24 smartphone that’s just been released, and on Google’s own Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro phones.
Just long press on the home button, and instead of the Google Assistant, you’ll now bring up circle to search. You can then circle, or scribble or highlight or tap … “and just like that, your curiosity is satisfied,” Edwards said in her presentation at Galaxy Unpacked.
“And when you are done you can just swipe away, and you’re right back where you started.”
One last point. For Samsung fans, apart from the latest flagship phone, a more important release is Galaxy AI, Samsung’s own new AI system for its phones aimed at making the devices much more intuitive to use. Among the features Samsung has released are live transcript, and a bunch of AI assistants.
Apple has a new office in India in the heart of Bengaluru, the iPhone maker said in a statement. The country’s tech capital is already home to so many of Apple’s teams, including in software engineering and hardware technologies, operations, customer support, and other functions, according to Apple.
This new workspace, which Apple hopes will be a powerful hub for innovation, creativity, and collaboration, is located at Minsk Square in the center of the city, a stone’s throw from Vidhana Soudha, the state parliament, the high court, central library, Chinnaswamy cricket stadium, and Cubbon Park, one of the largest green parks within Bengaluru.
The proximity to Cubbon Park metro station means public transit is an option for Apple staff and visitors. The new office will house up to 1,200 employees, on 15 floors, and it features dedicated lab space, areas for collaboration and wellness, and Caffe Macs, which comprises Apple’s food-ordering app and service and physical space.
Apple currently has nearly 3,000 employees in India.
The new office’s interior features locally-sourced materials, including stone, wood, and fabric in the walls and flooring, and the office is filled with native plants.
The office will run on 100 percent renewable energy, and aims to achieve the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum rating — the highest level of LEED certification. Apple has been carbon neutral for its corporate operations since 2020, and has run all Apple facilities using 100 percent renewable energy since 2018.
The office is the latest addition to the company’s corporate office footprint in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Gurugram, and represents another important milestone in Apple’s more than 25-year history in India.
Apple is stepping up efforts to boost sales and manufacturing in India, which it sees as a long-term strategic market, as it seeks to reduce its dependence on China. Apple has faced both disruptions to its supply chain due to Chinese Covid related restrictions, and a resurgent competitor in Huawei, which has also released its own semiconductor chip for smartphones.
Meanwhile, Apple has ended Samsung Electronics 12-year run as the world’s largest seller of smartphones by number of units, after achieving a 20 percent market share in 2023, according to data from International Data Corp.
Samsung ended the year with a 19.4 percent share, followed by China’s Xiaomi, Oppo and Transsion, preliminary data from IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker showed.
Apple and Transsion were the only brands in the top five to record growth in shipments last year, when the market declined 3.2 percent to 1.17 billion units and hit a decade low.
VinFast, an electric vehicle manufacturer from Vietnam, plans to invest $2 billion dollars in India, but first a couple of other headlines that caught my attention.
Japanese media and tech giant Sony Corp. is planning to call off the merger of its Indian unit with Zee Entertainment, more than two years after the deal was announced, over a disagreement on who will lead the $10 billion entity, Reuters reports, citing a Bloomberg News report from Monday that’s behind a paywall.
Sony plans to file a termination notice before the extended Jan. 20 deadline to close the merger, while discussions between Sony and Zee were still ongoing.
Wipro's lawsuit against former chief financial officer Jatin Dalal with respect to a non-compete clause in his employment contract was referred to arbitration by the Bengaluru City Civil Court in a hearing on January 3, Moneycontrol reports.
The court's decision, thereby, allows the admission of a counter petition moved by Dalal, who’s joined Wipro’s larger rival Cognizant Technology Solutions, according to Moneycontrol.
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In one thing today, VinFast, an electric vehicle manufacturer from Vietnam, plans to invest up to $2 billion, to set up an EV plant in India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu, the company said in a press release on Jan. 6, coinciding with the state’s global investor summit.
Vinfast, plans to invest $500 million in the first phase of the Project, spanning five years from the commencement date, later this year.
The India expansion will help VinFast to seize growth opportunities in the world’s most populous nation and rapidly expanding EV market, the company said in the release. This initiative forms a crucial part of VinFast’s strategy to establish a strong presence in vital markets and strengthen its supply chain for global expansion, the company said.
The integrated EV manufacturing facility is to be set up in Thoothukudi, in Tamil Nadu. It is envisioned as evolving into a first-class electric vehicle production hub in the region, with an annual capacity of up to 150,000 units. Construction of the plant is anticipated to begin in 2024. The project is expected to generate between 3,000 and 3,500 jobs, according to VinFast.
VinFast also expects to set up a nationwide dealership network in India.
Several multinational electronics and manufacturing companies including Apple’s supplier Pegatron and Korean auto giant Hyundai have committed to large investments in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, but first, a couple of other headlines that caught my attention.
The US Federal Aviation Administration on Saturday ordered the grounding and immediate inspection of about 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft worldwide after a mid-flight emergency late Friday involving a plane operated by Alaska Airlines, NPR reports.
The US aviation regulator announced this order after an Alaska Airlines flight was forced to abruptly land in Portland, Oregon after a door plug blew out in midair, leaving a hole in the aircraft next to two unoccupied seats.
Unicommerce eSolutions Limited, a software provider to ecommerce companies for transaction processing, has filed its Draft Red Herring Prospectus with India’s capital markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board, seeking an IPO.
The proposed listing comprises of an offer for sale aggregating up to about 29.84 million equity shares of face value of Rs. 1. This includes up to 11.46 million shares by Unicommerce’s promoter AceVector Limited (formerly known as Snapdeal Limited), up to about 2.21 million shares by B2 Capital Partners and up to about 16.17 million shares by SB Investment Holdings (UK) Limited.
One thing today
In one thing today, Apple suppliers Tata Electronics and Pegatron, and automaker Hyundai Motors have signed investment pacts worth more than $4.39 billion with the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Reuters reports, citing a statement from the state government at a global investor summit.
Industry analysts estimate India could account for as much as a third of Apple’s iPhone production in the coming years, as the tech giant steps up its efforts to reduce dependence on China. Apple is also looking at India as its next big market, where it has seen quarterly records in sales over the last two years.
Pegatron is setting up a second factory in India, Reuters notes, and the Tata Group, which last year began to assemble iPhones, has also purchased a factory on the outskirts of neighbouring Bengaluru from Wistron, another Apple supplier.
Tata Electronics has committed to investing Rs. 12,080 crore for mobile phone assembly operations, the state government said during the signing of the agreements, according to Reuters.
Taiwan’s Pegatron expects to invest Rs. 1,000 crore to expand production, the government added.
South Korean Auto giant Hyundai Motors plans to invest Rs. 6,180 crore, a part of which will go towards electric vehicle battery and car manufacturing.
Vietnamese EV maker VinFast is setting up its first manufacturing facility in India and expects to invest up to $2 billion in Tamil Nadu, according to Reuters.
The semiconductor giant Qualcomm yesterday, announced what it called a significant expansion in Chennai with a new facility for its design centre, with an investment of about Rs. 177 crore.
The Design Centre is expected to generate jobs for up to 1,600 skilled professionals. It will specialize in wireless connectivity solutions, with a focus on innovations that complement Wi-Fi technologies. It will contribute to Qualcomm's global research and development in 5G cellular technology, Qualcomm said in a press release.
Separately, Tata Power is exploring investments of up to Rs. 70,000 crore in Tamil Nadu over the next several years, including investments in some existing projects, the company’s chief executive officer Praveer Sinha said at a press briefing at the investors meet, Reuters reports.
And JSW Energy has announced plans to invest Rs. 12,000 crore to develop renewable energy projects.
Discord has rolled out a bunch of improvements to its mobile app on both Android and iOS, but first:
Byju Raveendran is contemplating using his 10-12 percent direct shareholding in the test-prep chain Aakash to raise about Rs. 600 crore to shore up his beleaguered ed-tech venture, Think & Learn, The Arc reported yesterday, citing sources it didn’t name. Thing & Learn, which operates the loss making BYJU’S online education platform, is under government scrutiny for a host of lapses.
ZestMoney, a buy now pay later fintech startup in Bengaluru, is shutting down, and has informed its 150 remaining employees that it’s done, according to multiple media reports. The company was founded in 2015 and provided loans to those without credit cards or any other formal financing options.
One thing today:
In one thing today, Discord, which is where you’ll find many of the Gen Z, apart from Instagram, has overhauled its mobile app to work more like, well, a mobile app
“When we launched the Discord mobile app in 2015, our focus was on building great products for people who play games on PC, with mobile serving as a companion app for when you were away from your keyboard,” Francesco Polizzi, group product manager at Discord, says in a blog post on Dec. 5, announcing the new updates.
“Now, with more users spending time using Discord on the go, we’re excited to roll out a faster, more reliable app than before, designed specifically for mobile,” Francesco says.
The updated app, on both Android and iOS, brings faster app loading, better navigation, improved media sharing and voice and video experience, and an updated night mode.
Discord has previously implemented features such as the global DM search on the app. After yesterday’s update, which is available in India also, app-open time is reduced by 43 percent on iOS and 55 percent on Android, and users can access more messages when offline, according to the company.
Free users can now upload files of up to 25MB in size.
Discord, which started as an online hangout for PC gamers has evolved into a wider platform where one can find groups of users with varied interests. Today the company says it has 150 million users around the world.
You can find the full list of improvements and updates on Discord’s website. Or you can use the link to the blog post in our show notes.
One area where Discord has faced criticism is with respect to how it dragged its feet on protecting youngsters, according to multiple media reports. The company implemented some limited parental controls since only July this year, when it added an opt-in feature called family center.
This feature requires the consent of your child to set up the family center on both the teen’s app and on the parents’ smartphones. Once done it will provide some high-level information to parents on the teen’s Discord activity.
I would highly recommend reading a post titled A Parent’s Guide to Discord by the Social Media Victims Law Center in the US. The center warns that Discord requires users to be 13 years of age but does not ask for any documentation for proof of age. Like many other internet platforms, Discord can also be used by youngsters to access pornography and even drugs.
And if you are parents to young teens, especially, this might be a good time to find out if they use Discord, talk about it, and agree on using the Family Center feature.
IN-SPACe has announced a new seed fund to support startups working the areas of urban development and disaster management using space tech, but first:
Spotify fired 1,500 staff, cutting its workforce by 17 percent, a measure that CEO Daniel Ek said was needed to face the challenges ahead. This is the company’s third round of layoffs this year, TechCrunch noted.
“I recognize this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions. To be blunt, many smart, talented and hard-working people will be departing us,” Ek said in a company blogpost.
Venture capital funding for India’s startups sank to the second-lowest level in almost seven years, Moneycontrol reported last week, citing data from Venture Intelligence.
Indian startups recorded $223 million in funding from 35 deals in November, a fall of about 66 percent from $655 million in 52 deals in the previous month. The last time funding was lower than this was in January 2017 at $207 million in 43 deals, according to Moneycontrol.
One thing today
IN-SPACe, or the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre, the nodal agency of India’s Department of Space responsible for commercialization of space tech in private industry, or among Non-Government Entities, has announced a Seed Fund for startups in the areas of Urban Development and Disaster Management by using space technology.
The scheme, launched in collaboration with the National Remote Sensing Centre, ISRO will help NGEs that use space technology for societal benefits to “graduate to the next level,” IN-SPACe said in a press release yesterday.
Selected start-ups will receive seed funding for transforming an original idea into a prototype using space technology, ISRO facility support including Earth Observation data for validation of the concept, mentorship support, and access to data algorithms as transfer of technology from the Department of Space.
“The role of the space sector is crucial to the overall development of the national economy … this scheme is designed to support Indian space startups that aim to develop innovative space products and services that can improve the quality of life for communities in India and around the world,” Pawan Goenka, chairman of IN-SPACe said in the press release.
Under this fund, selected startups can get up to Rs. 1 crore in funding, in addition to mentorship support, training and networking opportunities.
For urban development, there are several opportunities for startups in areas including urban planning, monitoring and infrastructure management, telecommunication, navigation, broadband connectivity, water resources management, energy efficiency, climate and weather monitoring, disaster risk reduction, public health, and healthcare, In-space noted in the press release.
Similarly, disaster management offers opportunities for startups specializing in the domains including Geographical Information Systems (GIS), early warning and monitoring systems, insurance and risk assessment, communication and navigation systems, climate change monitoring, search and rescue operations, space-borne sensors, and instruments.
Cyclone Michaung pounding Tamil Nadu currently is another reminder that such technology solutions are urgently needed as the effects of climate change worsened in 2023.
The funding scheme details can be downloaded from IN-SPACe’s website, inspace.gov.in and the last date to apply for funding under this scheme is Dec. 20.
Even when Freshworks was a much smaller startup, Girish Mathrubootham just beginning his foray into the US market, one thing reporters like me would always hear about was Girish’s ability to surround himself with exceptional colleagues and soak up everything he could learn from them.
As many of you know, he likes to call them people who’ve “been there done that,” whether it’s someone who’s helped take a software company in US to its IPO or someone who’s already seen what a global technology business looks like with $20 billion in revenue.
The appointment of Mika Yamamoto as the company’s new chief customer and marketing officer looks like another win for Girish in that tradition that he’s established.
Mika, who will be responsible for leading the company’s global marketing and customer experience teams, comes to Freshworks from F5, also a Nasdaq-listed company, where she most recently served as the Executive Vice President and the Chief Marketing and Customer Engagement Officer, according to Freshworks’s press release from Nov. 28.
At F5 she led the company’s data, marketing, digital transformation, and customer experience efforts for products, segments, channels, and geographies. Mika joined the executive team at Freshworks on Nov. 20 and reports to Girish, founder and CEO, and President Dennis Woodside.
“Mika’s combined CMO and CXO roles have given her a unique perspective that has ultimately led to innovative, measurable changes for employees, customers, and prospects,” Woodside said in the press release.
“She has a long-standing track record of leading global and diverse customer experience teams and delivering exceptional go-to-market results at large public technology companies with multi-domain businesses serving customers big and small,” he added.
Before F5, Mika was president at a company called Marketo, which was acquired by Adobe, and then she was a senior VP at Adobe for a bit.
She has previously served as Chief Digital Marketing Officer and CMO of SMB at SAP, and held senior leadership roles, working approximately six year each at Amazon, in the books business, Microsoft, in the Windows and Stores businesses, research at Gartner, and as a manager at Accenture where she started her career in 1994.
Mika has a BCom (Honours) degree in Economics and Marketing from Queen’s University in Canada, according to her LinkedIn profile. The Freshworks press release says she holds a B.A. in Commerce, with a focus on Economics and Marketing.
“My whole career has been spent on transforming go-to-market approaches and customer experiences within global companies to steepen the growth curve,” she says in the press release. I truly believe that bringing the end-to-end customer experience with marketing and customer success teams together at Freshworks will help accelerate growth while keeping our customers at the heart of all we do.”
She also serves on the boards of BlackLine, another Nasdaq-listed cloud software company that specializes in finance and accounting, where she chairs the compensation committee; and the Rainier Valley Food Bank and the United Way of King County.
Yamamoto, by the way, is a well-known Japanese surname. In fact, another Mika Yamamoto was an award-winning Japanese photo and video journalist who died in the line of duty while she was covering the conflict in Syria in 2012.
Perhaps the most well-known Yamamoto was Isoroku Yamamoto, the Japanese admiral, who is widely believed to have been opposed to war, but when he was overruled, ended up as the decision-maker behind the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, which united the Americans in the decision to enter the second world war.
The name Yamamoto, in Japanese, means one who lives in the mountains or one who dwells at the foot of a mountain.
The first trans-Atlantic flight using 100 percent sustainable aviation fuel was made between London and New York yesterday by Britain’s Virgin Atlantic, bringing the industry another small step closer to sustainable aviation.
Test flight VIR100, which did not carry paying passengers, took off from London’s Heathrow Airport at 11:49 am UK time (6:49 am ET and 5:19 pm in India) and landed at New York’s JFK airport at 2:05 pm ET, CNBC reported, citing Flightradar24.
The flight, which the airline named Flight100, demonstrated that sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) was a safe drop-in replacement for the current fossil-fuel based jet fuel, compatible with today’s engines, airframes and fuel infrastructure, Virgin Atlantic said in a press release yesterday.
Shai Weiss, CEO of Virgin Atlantic said in the press release, “Flight100 proves that Sustainable Aviation Fuel can be used as a safe, drop-in replacement for fossil-derived jet fuel.
SAF is made from non-fossil-derived fuels, including biofuels derived from plant or animal waste, municipal waste and agricultural residues. That it can be a drop-in alternative means that it can be used with the existing commercial aircraft without any costly modifications to their engines and so on.
Virgin’s Flight100 was made by a Boeing 787 widebody aircraft, flying on Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engines, according to the press release.
Simon Burr, Group Director of Engineering, Technology & Safety, at Rolls-Royce said: “Rolls-Royce has recently completed compatibility testing of 100 percent SAF on all our in-production civil aero engine types and this is further proof that there are no engine technology barriers to the use of 100 percent SAF.”
SAF also produces emissions, but overall emissions from it are considered to be lower than emissions from fossil fuels.
In 2021, a group of 60 companies from the airline, transport and cargo industries promised to ensure that 10 percent of all the jet fuel they used was SAF. And last year, the aviation industry set itself the target of reaching net zero status by 2050.
SAF is made from waste products, and delivers CO2 lifecycle emissions savings of up to 70 percent, whilst performing like the traditional jet fuel it replaces, according to Virgin’s press release.
Today, SAF represents less than 0.1 percent of global jet fuel volumes and fuel standards allow for only 50 percent SAF blend in commercial jet engines.
CNBC notes that other airlines have used SAF on commercial flights, although generally on shorter journeys and in up-to-50 percent blends with regular fuel, which was previously the regulatory limit. Tuesday’s Virgin Atlantic flight was approved by the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority earlier this month.
The SAF used on Flight100 is a dual blend comprising 88 percent hydro-processed esters and fatty acids (HEFA), supplied by AirBP and 12 percent synthetic aromatic kerosene, supplied by Virent, a subsidiary of Marathon Petroleum Corporation.
The HEFA is made from waste fats while the SAK is made from plant sugars, with the remainder of plant proteins, oil and fibres continuing into the food chain. The kerosene is needed in 100 percent SAF blends to give the fuel the required aromatics for engine function
In 2022 aviation accounted for 2 percent of global energy-related CO2 emissions, having grown faster in recent decades than rail, road or shipping, the International Energy Agency notes in its assessment of the industry.
As international travel demand recovered following the Covid-19 pandemic, aviation emissions in 2022 reached almost 800 million tonnes of CO2, about 80 percent of the pre-pandemic level.
Earlier this year, the Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of sciences, published a report assessing a variety of alternative fuels, including biofuels, and found that availability and accessibility are big problems, Mongobay, a US-based non-profit conservation and environmental science news platform, notes in a July report.
India’s EV landscape is changing, with startups emerging across the value chain – from all-electric cabs to e-bikes and innovative purchase options. But first, some headlines:
Facebook and Instagram’s parent company Meta Platforms knowingly employed methods that lured children on to these platforms, The New York Times reported on Nov. 25, citing un-redacted court documents from a federal lawsuit in the US, filed last month by California, Colorado and 31 other states in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
Apple contract manufacturer Foxconn Technology will invest more than $1.5 billion in an Indian construction project to fulfill “operational needs,” CNBC reports, citing company filings in Taiwan yesterday.
Tata Consultancy Services has launched its AWS generative AI practice, with an extensive catalog of use-cases for the technology, the company said in a press release yesterday.
One thing today
India’s consumer EV landscape is changing. Startups are emerging offering new products like e-bikes and slow-speed scooters that don’t require users to obtain a driving licence, and new purchase options are also being innovated to reduce the upfront cost of these vehicles to make them more competitive with their petrol burning counterparts.
Yulu Bikes, for example, has started directly selling a consumer version of its low-speed moped Miracle, which it calls Yulu Wynn and which is being manufactured by Bajaj Auto. With a top speed of only 25kmph, one doesn’t need a license to use this scooter on Indian roads.
Yulu Wynn costs about Rs. 55,000 to buy, and then you will also have to sign up for one of Yulu’s subscription plans to use the scooter. The purchase price doesn’t include the battery or the software, which are included in the subscription plans, and you get access to the company’s Yuma battery swapping network.
This is similar to how Ather Energy or Tata Nexon users pay to use premium features on those vehicles, Amit Gupta, Yulu’s co-founder and CEO told me recently. And you can find that detailed conversation on Forbes India’s website.
Kunal Khattar, a prolific VC investor in the EV space, points out that if we find ways to take out the cost of the battery, then that’s practically half the cost of the electric vehicle. So models more like Yulu’s will surely emerge, where a bank might finance the battery and the consumer gets an affordable subscription plan.
Yesterday, TechCrunch reported that EMotorad Ventures, an electric bicycle maker in Pune, has raised $20 million in a Series B round. EMotorad’s electric bicycle models feature self-diagnostics, removable batteries, dual disc brakes, portable chargers, and retractable aluminum frames.
TechCrunch reports that the company offers a 48-hour resolution of customer complaints. Founded in 2020 by Kunal Gupta, Rajib Gangopadhyay, Aditya Oza and Sumedh Battewar, EMotorad today exports its e-bikes to more than 18 countries through white labeling and selling its own brand in the US, Europe, Australia, Japan, and some Middle Eastern markets.
Of its 14 e-bike models, seven or eight are available in India and the rest are sold overseas, priced between $600 to $1,200 in the US, according to TechCrunch.
Emotorad has raised more than $22.5 million in total funding, from investors including Singapore’s Panthera Growth Partners, Alteria Capital, xto10x Technologies, and Green Frontier Capital.
Economic Times reported yesterday that Gensol will make electric “reverse trikes,” which have two wheels in the front and one in the back, starting February, citing co-founder Anmol Singh Jaggi, who is also the managing director of Gensol, a solar engineering procurement and construction company.
Jaggi expects to soon start production at a factory in Chakan, India’s biggest auto manufacturing hub, with capacity to turn out 30,000 vehicles. So cheaper Blusmart rides may be on offer next year.
US space agency NASA’s Administrator Bill Nelson is in India today to meet top government and ISRO officials, as both countries look to deepen their space exploration and scientific research partnership.
The visit by Nelson, a former US senator, “fulfills a commitment through the US and India initiative on critical and emerging technology spearheaded by President Joe Biden,” Nasa said in a press release on Nov. 24.
Nelson was appointed as the 14th Nasa administrator in May 2021. During this visit to India, he is expected visit several locations, including the Bengaluru-based facilities where the NISAR spacecraft, a joint Earth-observing mission between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), is undergoing testing and integration for launch in 2024.
NISAR is short for NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar. It is the first satellite mission between NASA and ISRO. It is an Earth-observing instrument, the first in the Earth System Observatory, which was announced by NASA last year.
The observatory will be put in space via five satellite missions, including Nisar, which is set for launch next year. The observatory will measure Earth’s changing ecosystems, dynamic surfaces, and ice masses providing information about biomass, natural hazards, sea level rise, and groundwater, key information to guide efforts related to climate change, hazard mitigation, agriculture, and so on.
Senator Nelson is also expected to meet students to discuss STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education and how they can participate in the Artemis program, Nasa’s initiative to return humans to the Moon and make it a launchpad for missions to Mars.
The Nasa chief is also expected to travel to UAE during this trip to participate in the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference.
Over the last few years, India has opened up its space efforts to private industry and startups and established the institutional infrastructure and policies to foster this ecosystem. The Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) is tasked with expanding the commercialization of India’s space tech capabilities.
In April, the government also released India’s space policy, to promote a comprehensive approach to the space economy opportunity ahead.
The government’s estimate projects India’s space market to be worth $40 billion in 2030. This could go as high as $100 billion, the consultancy Arthur D. Little says, if investments and efforts in certain focus areas are stepped up.
Meanwhile, OneWeb India, the local subsidiary of low-earth orbit operator Eutelsat OneWeb, said last week, it had become the first company to receive India’s go ahead to launch its commercial satellite broadband services. Bharti Airtel owns about 21 percent of UK-based OneWeb, which was recently merged with Europe’s Eutelsat.
Other multinational companies including billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which operates the Starlink satellite broadband business, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s project Kuiper, which are all putting large low earth orbit satellite constellations in space are also expected to offer to their services in India.
And JioSpaceFiber, part of the Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, is also in the race to offer its own satellite based internet services in the country soon.
On the startups front, Indian space tech startups have gone from raising only $35 million in funding between 2010 and 2019, to $28 million in 2020 to $96 million in 2021 and $112 million in 2022, according to Tracxn, a private markets intelligence provider.
This year the sector has attracted $62 million in funding as of August, according to Tracxn. Indian space startups are developing a range of technologies and products, including hyperspectral imaging, 3D-printed rocket engines, satellite propulsion systems and sustainable less toxic rocket fuels.
NVIDIA, which has a near monopoly on computer chips for AI applications, reported its fiscal third-quarter numbers yesterday that beat street expectations.
The semiconductor company’s Q3 revenues of $18.12 billion is a 206 percent year-on-year jump, reflecting the extent to which big tech companies are ramping up AI investments. Sales to the data centre segment, which accounted for 80 percent of the company’s Q3 revenues, was even more impressive, rising 279 percent.
Sales rose 34 percent sequentially over Q2, and data centre sales, 41 percent. NVIDIA expects this scorching growth to continue. Q4 revenues are expected to touch $20 billion, plus or minus 2 percent, representing a 231 percent increase year on year.
“Our strong growth reflects the broad industry platform transition from general-purpose to accelerated computing and generative AI,” Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA, said in the company’s Q3 earnings press release.
“Large language model startups, consumer internet companies and global cloud service providers were the first movers, and the next waves are starting to build,” Huang said.
Nations and regional communications services providers are investing in AI clouds to meet local demand, enterprise software companies are adding AI co-pilots and assistants to their platforms, and enterprises are creating custom AI to automate the world’s largest industries, he said.
“NVIDIA GPUs, CPUs, networking, AI foundry services and NVIDIA AI Enterprise software are all growth engines in full throttle. The era of generative AI is taking off,” he said.
Meanwhile, at the very company that made generative AI mainstream with its ChatGPT bot, we await the final word on whether Sam Altman will return to the company he co-founded, or make his rift with the it permanent.
Altman was abruptly fired from the company on Nov. 17 and two days later, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced Altman was joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research unit.
Microsoft, expecting to welcome any of the 770 OpenAI researchers who leave to join it, is said to be readying workspaces at its LinkedIn office, complete with Macbook laptops, Axios reported earlier today. About 95 percent of OpenAI staff have threatened to leave and follow Altman if the board of OpenAI doesn’t resign, making way for his return.
What’s happened “highlights the growing rift between the proponents of a more measured rollout of the technology, that emphasizes safety guardrails above commercialization and monetization of solutions. This could have deep-reaching implications for the market,” Beatriz Valle, Senior Technology Analyst at the UK based consultancy GlobalData, said in an email yesterday.
The events also shine a light on the legal structure of OpenAI, which was founded in 2015 as a non-profit company and adopted a new structure in 2019, following Microsoft’s involvement, Valle writes.
The company’s founding charter still allowed the four-person board to fire Altman.
OpenAI is controlled by its non-profit board, which has no fiduciary obligations towards stakeholders or investors, she points out.
“This was a very immature board with members who had never built companies, never moved from ideology to commercialization, nor had any pragmatic board experience,” Ray Wang, principal analyst at Constellation Research in San Francisco, writes in a blog post.
The board's big worries included ownership of training data, impact of untested models and detection of unwanted bias, Wang writes.
OpenAI's biggest challenge is making the economics work, and Altman’s move to accelerate commercialization was the right thing, he says.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella moved swiftly to recruit OpenAI’s co-founder Sam Altman after his shocking ouster as CEO last week from the company responsible for the ChatGPT bot which has made AI a household term. Microsoft also hired Greg Brockman, who resigned as president of OpenAI after Altman’s ouster.
Wall Street cheered, and Microsoft shares rose on the Nasdaq stock exchange, ending more than 2 percent higher yesterday.
“We remain committed to our partnership with OpenAI and have confidence in our product roadmap, our ability to continue to innovate with everything we announced at Microsoft Ignite, and in continuing to support our customers and partners,” Nadella wrote in a post on X.
“We look forward to getting to know Emmett Shear and OpenAI's new leadership team and working with them. And we’re extremely excited to share the news that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, together with colleagues, will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team. We look forward to moving quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their success.”
Emmett Shear is co-founder of Twitch, the games streaming service that Amazon acquired, and interim CEO of OpenAI.
And then, a letter signed by more than 95 percent of the employees at OpenAI called for the resignation of the company's board and Altman’s return, Wired reports.
The employees threatened to quit and join Microsoft if their demands were not met. Among the signatories to the letter are company board member Ilya Sutskever as well as Mira Murati, who briefly served as interim CEO after the departure of Altman.
The letter, addressed to OpenAI’s board of directors, says: “Your conduct has made it clear you did not have the competence to oversee OpenAI,” ABC News reports, citing a copy of the letter.
“We, the undersigned, may choose to resign from OpenAI and join the newly announced Microsoft subsidiary run by Sam Altman and Greg Brockman,” the letter reads.
Altman was pushed out after a review found he was “not consistently candid in his communications” with the board of directors, which had lost confidence in his ability to lead the company, OpenAI said in a statement on Friday, according to an Associated Press report carried by PBS.
Emmet Shear said yesterday in a post on X that he would hire an independent investigator to look into what led up to Altman’s ouster and write a report within 30 days, according to Associated Press.
He wrote that the reason behind the board removing Altman was not a “specific disagreement on safety.” This could be a reference to the debates around OpenAI’s mission to safely build AI that is “generally smarter than humans,” AP reports.
With billions of dollars in investments from Microsoft and other investors, OpenAI has moved to commercialise its AI technology, chiefly through ChatGPT, which can generate essays and poems and other human-like text.
OpenAI’s board includes Ilya Sutskever, Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, tech entrepreneur Tasha McCauley and Helen Toner of the Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technology, AP notes.
Casey Newton, whose tech newsletter Platformer is widely followed, pointed out in his latest letter today that Toner has the power under the company’s charter to halt OpenAI’s efforts to build an artificial general intelligence.
As to what is being seen as something of a coup for Nadella, he didn’t really have a choice, according to one analyst. “If Microsoft lost Altman he could have gone to Amazon, Google, Apple, or a host of other tech companies craving to get the face of AI globally in their doors,” Daniel Ives, an analyst with Wedbush Securities, said in a research note, according to AP.
For example, Marc Benioff, founder and CEO of Salesforce.com posted on X that “Salesforce will match any OpenAI researcher who has tendered their resignation full cash & equity” including unrealised open trade equity to immediately join his company’s AI team.
Diwali crackers are about to add to the already dangerously polluted air in the national capital region. So how would it be if you could fly over the smog for an important meeting, in a tenth of the time it would take to go from Gurugram to Connaught Place, say, and pay about the same as what an Uber ride would cost.
InterGlobe Enterprises, the company that operates India’s top airline Indigo, and Archer Aviation Inc., a Silicon Valley company that’s close to commercialising its electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, said yesterday they have partnered to launch and operate an all-electric air taxi service in India.
Rahul Bhatia, Group Managing Director of InterGlobe, and Nikhil Goel, Chief Commercial Officer of Archer, signed an MOU to form a proposed partnership to do this, according to a press release yesterday. Based on Archer’s all-electric aircraft, called Midnight, they aim to bring a low-noise electric air taxi service that is cost-competitive with ground transportation, according to the press release.
The two companies aim to work with select in-country business partners to operate Archer’s aircraft, finance and build vertiport infrastructure, and train pilots and other personnel needed for these operations. The partnership also plans to finance the purchase of up to 200 of Archer’s Midnight aircraft for the India operations.
Midnight is a piloted, four-passenger electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft designed for quick back-to-back flights with as little as 10 minutes of charging in between flights, according to the company’s website. Archer is working to get certification for Midnight’s commercial readiness by late 2024 and start operations in 2025.
In India, which would the second international market for the company after the UAE, the goal is for a passenger on an InterGlobe-Archer flight to be able to fly the 27-km Delhi trip from Connaught Place to Gurugram, typically taking 60 to 90 minutes by car, in approximately 7 minutes.
InterGlobe Archer will also explore other use cases for the electric aircraft in India, including cargo, logistics, medical and emergency services, as well as private company and charter services.
“India is one of, if not the largest opportunity for eVTOL aircraft utilization in the world, as it is home to the world’s largest population, and its largest cities face some of the greatest congestion challenges in the world,” Adam Goldstein, Founder and CEO of Archer said in the press release.
Founded in 2018, Archer is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and has about $461 million in cash reserves currently. Its investors include automotive giant Stellantis, ARK Investment Management, United Airlines and Boeing.
InterGlobe and Archer expect to start with operations in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru first, Nikhil Goel, Archer’s chief commercial officer said in the press release.
Meanwhile, India’s hope for a made-in-India eVTOL is pinned to the success of the e200, being developed by ePlane Company in Chennai. The e200, in comparison with Midnight, is expected to be one of the world’s most compact two-seater planes – carrying one pilot and one passenger – and capable of vertical take-off and landing in an area not much bigger than what it takes to park a mid-sized sedan.
The plane is designed to be light enough, at around 600 kg, and have a range of 200 km per charge, and also be able to land on the average urban concrete rooftop.
ePlane’s founder and CEO, Professor Satya Chakravarthy, envisions hundreds of these air taxis flying over our cities. This involves achieving the safety levels of airplanes and cost economics of cars. And he thinks ePlane will get there. The company is also in talks with potential strategic investors, including some large automakers, to raise more money.
“Where we are today is we have shown flight tests of a subscale prototype, which we are now going to commercialise for cargo applications,” Satya said.
Razorpay, a leading fintech name in India, providing a payments platform and banking-as-a-service software to some 10 million businesses, in the country, yesterday elevated Rahul Kothari to the position of chief operating officer for India and Malaysia.
Kothari was previously chief business officer at the company. He will report to founder and CEO Harshil Mathur, the Bengaluru company said in a press release yesterday.
This appointment sharpens Razorpay’s focus on the Southeast Asia region, where it’s looking to expand. The company also aims to implement a deeper integrated strategy to step up growth by improving customer experience across its different lines of business and products.
In January, I wrote that Razorpay was at an inflexion point. About a month before that Shashank Kumar, the other founder, and Murali Brahmadesam had spoken about sustaining the culture of engineering at the company as it became bigger.
Brahmadesam came in from AWS, earlier last year, and he’d taken on the CTO’s role from Kumar, who was looking to free himself up from day-to-day engineering to focus on products strategy.
The company has about 1,000 engineers among its 3,500 staff, or “Razors” as they’re called internally, including several senior engineering leaders. Kumar had talked about how over the next five years, Razorpay would seek “tremendous scale.”
And imports such as Brahmadesam will be playing a critical role on the engineering front.
Razorpay is stepping up its expansion into a broader financial services platform, from its flagship payments business—it accounts for most of its revenues and is making money on a standalone basis—to facilitating loans, and banking software.
The company is expected to go deeper into the emerging hot area of ‘banking as a service,’ which accounting giant Deloitte defines as provisioning of banking products and services through third-party distributors.
This opens up the possibility that a large number of new niche finance startups can partner large, established banks and financial services companies, and help each other tap a significantly larger market than they could individually. Razorpay could emerge as a facilitator of this growth, and benefit from it.
To throw the story forward, while Razorpay has made a name for itself in India, “We want to see how we can create a global engineering brand while we are working out of Bengaluru and India,” Kumar had told me a year ago.
Organizational changes such Kothari’s appointment are important incremental steps in that direction on the business front. Kothari has a degree in chemical engineering from IIT Kanpur, and an MBA from Indian School of Business.
Over the last 20 years or so, he’s worked in the US, Europe and Australia. Currently based in Pune, he’s into his fifth year with Razorpay. Previously, Kothari played a critical role in making the payments business profitable at PayU, according to Razorpay’s press release.
He's also worked at security software company Symantec, BPO company WNS, and Boston Consulting Group.
Next year, Razorpay will be 10 years old. Technically, it was started in 2013 in Jaipur, but Mathur and Kumar, alumni of IIT Roorkee, moved base to Bengaluru quickly, and the company is widely considered to be founded in 2014. They were one of the first Indian startup founders to be part Y Combinator.
Investors including Lone Pine Capital, Alkeon Capital, TCV, GIC, Tiger Global, Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India), Ribbit Capital, Matrix Partners, and Salesforce Ventures have invested a total of $741.5 million in the company in six rounds of funding.
In December 2021, the company was privately valued at $7.5 billion, making it one of India’s most valued startups. The company reported close to Rs. 1,500 crore in FY22 revenues, a 75 percent growth over the previous fiscal, and it was profitable on a standalone basis, for the flagship payments business.
Bumble yesterday announced that Lidiane Jones, who currently serves as chief executive at Slack, will succeed founder and current CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd, on Jan. 2. Wolfe Herd will become Executive Chair at that time, the company said in a press release yesterday.
Nasdaq listed Bumble, which will report its fiscal third-quarter earnings later today, is expected to cross a billion dollars in revenue this year.
“Early in my career, I was the target of online abuse and harassment. I lived in a perpetual state of anxiety; the internet felt like the Wild West, dangerous and toxic. I knew there had to be a better way: A kinder, more respectful internet,” Herd wrote in an exclusive blog for Forbes India in March this year.
With that as the founding principle, Herd started Bumble in 2014, with a four-member team and a two-bedroom apartment, my colleague Naini Thaker wrote in her awesome piece on Bumble’s India plans in July.
Before Bumble, Wolfe Herd was a co-founder of Tinder, which she sued for sexual harassment, according to Forbes magazine.
Bumble went public in February 2021, raising $2.15 billion in a listing that saw the company’s stock soar to $76, versus the listing price of $43, before closing at $70.31. That made Wolfe Herd, who was 31 at the time, the world’s youngest self-made woman billionaire, worth $1.5 billion. She owns about a fifth of the company, according to Forbes.
Since then, the stock has plummeted well below the listing price and currently trades at around $13.
Under Wolfe Herd’s leadership, Bumble has built itself brand recognition as a dating app that is serious about women’s safety online, according to the company’s press release yesterday.
Jones, who will take on the CEO’s role, has a B.S. in computer science from University of Michigan. She’s had a stellar record, which started as an intern at Apple in 2002, according to her LinkedIn profile.
She then spent close to 13 years at Microsoft, where she was Group Product Manager for Azure Machine Learning when she left for Sonos, the high-end speaker maker. She was there for close to four years, including through the company’s IPO, and was VP of software product management when she left for Slack.
Last year, she was named to replace Slack co-founder and CEO Stewart Butterfield, who left Salesforce in January this year. Salesforce acquired Slack in a $27.7 billion deal in 2021.
Ray Wang, founder and principal analyst at Constellation Research, told TechCrunch that Jones’s move to Bumble makes a lot of sense, and would be a better fit for her skillset.
It’s not about moving from enterprise software to a dating app product, but rather that “Slack is no longer a growth play, but an integration play for Salesforce, and Lidiane’s talents are better at Bumble for turnaround and growth,” Wang told TechCrunch.
When she was named CEO of Slack, Fortune Magazine, after an interview with her, described Jones as a rare Brazil-born, Latin American tech CEO. She’s also a mother, according to Bumble’s press release yesterday.
“As a woman who has spent her career in technology, it’s a gift to lean on my experience to lead a company dedicated to women and encouraging equality, integrity and kindness, all deeply personal and inspiring to me,” Jones said in the press release.
Apple, last week, reported another quarter of revenue decline, on a year-on-year basis, but also one where the decrease was significantly narrower than nine months ago, amid heightened global uncertainties.
The three months to Sep. 30, which is Apple’s fiscal fourth quarter, was also the iPhone maker’s best quarter in India, ever.
“We achieved an all-time revenue record in India,” CEO Tim Cook told analysts and investors in a conference on Thursday last week. Apple shipped a record 2.5 million iPhones to India in the three months ended Sep. 30, according to an estimate from Hong Kong based market researcher, Counterpoint Technology Market Research, last week.
After more than a decade of hits and misses, that’s the best quarter Apple has seen in India, ever. Counterpoint and other well-known market researchers such as IDC estimate that Apple could end calendar year 2023 with sales of 8-9 million iPhones in India, which would represent a growth of between 19.4 percent and 34.3 percent versus the 6.7 million units sold here in 2022.
The company also saw September quarter records in several countries, including Brazil, Canada, France, Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the UAE and Vietnam, Cook added.
It was a significant quarter for Apple, for it switched to the type-C USB port from its proprietary lightning connection. The company also rolled out its latest generation of iPhones, new software across products, and reported significant progress on its journey towards making its products planet friendly.
Overall, in addition to the all-time record in India, “iPhone, revenue came in ahead of our expectations, setting a September quarter record,” Cook said. iPhone sales also set quarterly records in many markets, including China Mainland, Latin America, the Middle East, South Asia, he said.
That, and the sustained strong performance of services, were what helped revenues in a quarter that saw a significant drop in the sale of Mac computers and iPads as well, while Apple continues to lead the tablet market. “In services, we set an all-time revenue record with double-digit growth and ahead of our expectations,” Cook said.
iPhone revenue was $43.8 billion, up 3 percent from the same quarter a year earlier. Overall, Apple posted quarterly revenue of $89.5 billion, down 1 percent year over year, and quarterly earnings per diluted share of $1.46, up 13 percent year over year. The sales decline has narrowed from the 5 percent fall in the company’s fiscal first quarter.
Apple senior VP and CFO Luca Maestri added that the company’s total installed base of active devices, reached an all-time high across all products and all geographic segments.
While Apple doesn’t call out region-specific numbers, Cook responded to a question by an analyst on the call by saying iPhone sales in India “grew very strong double digits,” in the three months ended Sep. 30.
He provided some additional qualitative commentary: “It’s an incredibly exciting market for us and a major focus of ours. We have low share in a large market and so it would seem that there’s a lot of headroom there.”
The two physical retail stores in India have continued to better than expected. “It’s still early going but they are off to a good start,” he said.
In today’s episode we take a quick look at news of US President Joe Biden’s executive order to regulate AI, but first one other headline that’s caught everyone’s attention at home.
Headlines
Several politicians from various opposition parties in India have been sent notifications by Apple that they were being targeted by “state-sponsored attackers,” according to multiple media reports.
Among those who may have been targeted are members of parliament including TMC's Mahua Moitra, Shiv Sena (UBT's) Priyanka Chaturvedi, Congress's Pawan Khera and Shashi Tharoor, AAP's Raghav Chadha, and CPIM's Sitaram Yechury, Moneycontrol reports, citing the politicians as saying they have received notifications from Apple stating that their devices were being targeted by state-sponsored attackers.
One thing today
US President Joe Biden yesterday issued an executive order outlining new regulations and safety requirements for artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, as the pace at which such technologies are advancing has alarmed governments around the world about the potential for their misuse.
The order, which runs into some 20,000 words, introduces a safety measure by defining a threshold based on computing power for AI models. AI models trained with a computing power of 10^26 floating-point operations, or flops, will be subject to these new rules.
This threshold surpasses the current capabilities of AI models, including GPT-4, but is expected to apply to next-generation models from prominent AI companies such as OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and others, Casey Newton, a prominent technology writer who attended the Whitehouse conference at which President Biden announced the new rules yesterday, notes in his newsletter, Platformer.
Companies developing models that meet this criterion must conduct safety tests and share the results with the government before releasing their AI models to the public. This mandate builds on voluntary commitments by 15 major tech companies earlier this year, Newton writes in his letter.
The sweeping executive order addresses various potential harms related to AI technologies and their applications ranging from telecom and wireless networks to energy and cybersecurity. It assigns the US Commerce Department the task of establishing standards for digital watermarks and other authenticity verification methods to combat deepfake content.
It mandates AI developers to assess their models' potential for aiding in the development of bioweapons, and orders agencies to conduct risk assessments related to AI's role in chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons.
Newton references an analysis of the executive order by computer scientists Arvind Narayanan, Sayash Kapoor and Rishi Bommasani to point out that despite these significant steps, the executive order leaves some important issues unaddressed.
Notably, it lacks specific requirements for transparency in AI development, such as pre-training data, fine-tuning data, the labour involved in annotation, model evaluation, usage, and downstream impacts.
Experts like them argue that transparency is essential for ensuring accountability and preventing potential biases and unintended consequences in AI applications.
The order hasn’t also addressed the current debate surrounding open-source AI development versus proprietary tech. The choice between open-source models, as advocated by Meta and Stability AI, and closed models, like those pursued by OpenAI and Google, has become a contentious issue, Newton writes.
Prominent scientists, such as Stanford University Professor Andrew Ng, who previously founded Google Brain, have criticised the large tech companies for seeking industry regulation as a way of stifling open-source competition. They argue that while regulation is necessary, open-source AI research fosters innovation and democratizes technology.
In today’s episode I bring you the gist of Qualcomm’s latest State of Sound report, but first a few headlines.
Headlines
India’s department of telecommunications has used facial recognition to disconnect more than 6.4 million illegal phone connections over the last six months, Moneycontrol reports. It detects when a photograph has been used multiple times to procure SIM cards and flags instances where an individual has acquired more than the nine SIM cards allowed per Aaadhaar number under Indian telecom rules, according to Moneycontrol.
Apple yesterday announced the next iteration of its computer processors, the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max, chips featuring technologies that the company says deliver dramatically increased performance and make new capabilities possible on the Mac computers.
These are the first personal computer chips built using the 3-nanometer process technology, Apple says. The iPhone maker also released new Macbook Pro laptops with these chips and finally, offered a refresh of the iMac all-in-one desktop computer, which up until now was only available with the M1 chip.
One thing today
In one thing today, for those of you who particularly care about a good audio experience – from music to podcasts to the audio that actually makes video look good – I stumbled upon an opportunity to bring you the gist of an interesting report from Qualcomm.
The smartphone chip giant recently released its latest State of Sound report, and here’s a summary.
One finding is that consumers want to use the same device across all use cases, from listening to music, or gaming, while commuting, and for work. As premium devices expand in capabilities and features, this year’s responses suggest that consumers will be willing to spend more on one device which is optimized for multiple purposes, Qualcomm notes in its report.
The 2023 study, conducted in July, surveyed 7,000 smartphone users, covering the US, UK, Germany, China, India and Japan, and South Korea included for the first time. The report examines the factors that influence audio device purchases and interest in present and future usage scenarios, among consumers in the age group of 18 years to 64 years.
The focus of this year’s research is on how consumer use of wireless audio devices is evolving to include more complex use cases, from traditional uses like music, voice calls and watching video to the use of devices in the workplace, for gaming and hearing enhancement.
Earbuds and headphones are now considered crucial for activities such as working, commuting, gaming, and exercising, according to the report. Globally, the demand for true wireless earbuds and headphones is growing, with listeners using devices more often daily, and for longer periods of time.
Therefore, comfort in the ear has become the top purchase driver for the first time, according to this report. The typical length of time that people are wearing true wireless earbuds is increasing, across multiple use cases, which is making comfort much more important.
Consumers are also looking for increased device range, particularly around the home. And, there is also increasing demand for more premium sound experiences. For example, 73 percent of the respondents said they make sure that sound quality on their devices gets better with every new purchase, up from 67 percent in 2022.
Demand for good quality audio in music is at an all-time high, with 69 percent of consumers listing lossless audio quality as a likely purchase driver. This shift is paired with a growing interest in premium audio features such as spatial audio, clear voice calls and lower audio latency.
In today’s episode H1B visa rules will soon change significantly, but first a few other headlines caught my attention.
Isro, announced last week the successful test of “In-flight Abort Demonstration of Crew Escape System (CES)” at Mach number 1.2 with the space agency’s newly developed Test Vehicle, followed by Crew Module separation & safe recovery. This is in an important milestone in India’s Gaganyaan human space flight effort.
VC firms are doubling down on AI and deep tech. TechCrunch reports today that these are the prevailing themes in the latest early-stage cohort from Peak XV Partners, formerly Sequoia Capital India, the largest India and Southeast Asia-focused VC fund.
One thing today
Big changes are coming to H1B visa rules, that could have significant impact for India’s $245 billion IT services industry.
In a move aimed at enhancing the H-1B specialty occupation worker program, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in conjunction with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on Oct. 20, according to a press release on the department’s website.
The proposed rule intends to streamline eligibility requirements, boost program efficiency, provide more benefits and flexibility for both employers and workers, and reinforce integrity measures.
The H-1B program is pivotal for US employers, allowing them to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations, a classification that mandates highly specialized knowledge and a bachelor's degree or higher in a specific field, the press release notes.
It has also been used extensively by India’s IT services providers such as Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services to send software engineers and others to work on client sites.
“DHS continues to develop and implement regulations that increase efficiency and improve processes for employers and workers navigating the immigration system,” US Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro N. Mayorkas said in the press release.
One of the central changes proposed in the rule is the alteration of the H-1B registration selection process to reduce the potential for misuse and fraud. Currently, the odds of an individual being selected in the lottery system increase with the number of registrations submitted on their behalf.
The new proposal, however, would change this by ensuring that each unique individual is entered into the selection process only once, regardless of the number of registrations submitted for them. This modification aims to enhance the chances of a legitimate registration being selected while minimizing the advantage of submitting multiple registrations for the same beneficiary.
Important provisions of the proposed rule include the following:
Streamlining Eligibility Requirements: The criteria for specialty occupation positions would be revised to reduce confusion and clarify that a position may encompass a range of degrees as long as there is a direct connection between the required degree field(s) and the position's duties.
Improving Program Efficiency: The rule would codify that adjudicators should generally defer to a prior determination when no underlying facts have changed in a new filing.
Providing Greater Benefits and Flexibilities: Certain exemptions to the H-1B cap would be expanded for non-profit entities, governmental research organizations, and beneficiaries not directly employed by qualifying organizations. Additionally, students on an F-1 visa seeking to change their status to H-1B would receive extended flexibilities. The rule would also introduce new eligibility requirements for rising entrepreneurs.
Strengthening Integrity Measures: The rule would prohibit related entities from submitting multiple registrations for the same beneficiary, thus reducing misuse and fraud in the registration process. USCIS' authority to conduct site visits would be codified, and non-compliance with site visits could result in the denial or revocation of a petition.
In today’s episode, I ask if we are headed for a talent crisis in core engineering streams, but first a couple of headlines.
Headlines
Agnikul Cosmos, has raised $26.7 million in Series-B funding from investors including Celesta Capital, Rocketship.vc, Artha Venture Fund and Artha Select Fund, the Chennai startup said in a press release on Oct. 17.
IBM yesterday announced the signing of three memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with three entities engaged with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to advance and accelerate innovation in AI, semiconductor and quantum technology for India, the company said in a press release.
One thing today
It’s that time of the year when the last of the admissions in India’s massive engineering education market get nailed down. And once again, despite the ongoing slowdown in the IT services sector, computer science remains the hottest area.
Reports from states known for their engineering schools, such as Maharashtra and Karnataka show that traditional streams such as civil and mechanical engineering are running a large number of vacancies. Over the next decade, will this translate to a talent crisis in India, just when the country’s manufacturing and infrastructure efforts need to shift to high gear.
In Karnataka, at least 10 engineering streams that have had little or no demand for the last few years may be removed from the pool of seats available for students to choose from, Deccan Herald reports today.
In alignment with the ongoing trend of low demand for certain streams, the Karnataka state government’s department of higher education is planning to write to the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to discontinue such streams, the paper reports.
These subjects include Aeronautics, Polymer Technology, Environmental Engineering, Construction Technology, Ceramics, and Textiles Engineering.
Deccan Herald reports that 60 colleges in the state have not enrolled more than three students in some courses, with some colleges even seeing only one admission in core streams like Civil Engineering, according to data from the Department of Technical Education.
M C Sudhakar, the state’s minister for higher education, has said that the government is collecting college-wise details about low admissions and streams that had no admissions. And this will be communicated to the AICTE, according to the paper.
The AICTE has extended the deadline for admission to engineering colleges to October 30. And the Karnataka government is in collecting details from private engineering colleges, the paper reports.
Computer Science remains the most popular branch of engineering in Maharashtra with preference for allied new-age technology courses such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Machine Learning and Cyber Security, The Indian Express reported on Sep. 11, citing data from the Maharashtra Common Entrance Test (CET) Cell.
Some 1,17,000 students already having confirmed their preferences, the paper reports. Of the close to 50,000 seats in computer science and the allied new-age courses, nearly 45,000 have already been filled, the paper reports.
Traditional core engineering branches such as mechanical and civil engineering are running 50 percent vacancies this year, according to the Express.
And allied courses of civil engineering such as Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil and Infrastructural Engineering, Civil Engineering and Planning also recorded very low admissions. Out of a combined intake of 341 seats, only 104 seats have been filled so far.
Consider this. Next year, it will be the 10th anniversary of the launch of the ‘Make in India’ campaign.
And as India looks to step up its efforts in areas ranging from electric vehicle battery cells to ships, planes and space rockets, not to mention bridges, ports and smart cities, perhaps it’s time to figure out how to build the talent pool in the core engineering streams that we’ll need in the coming years.
There’s been a surge in children’s sexual abuse and exploitation online since the Covid pandemic, experts agree, and lawmakers around the world are trying to grapple with this threat with new policies and rules. Online businesses should be pushed to design their products and services to be age appropriate, Google proposes, but opposes stringent use of ID based verification on the grounds that such a practice can also deny useful access to all users in a digital world, and lead to more data collection on all users.
In today’s episode find out why TCS sacked 16 employees, but first a few headlines.
Headlines
After losing the IPL streaming rights, which has contributed its loss of some 20 million subscribers, Disney Hotstar set a new world record for concurrent viewers on Saturday when 35 million people logged on to the digital platform to watch the India-Pakistan cricket match in the ICC World Cup.
Apple may announce new iPads tomorrow, 9to5Mac reported over the weekend. The iPad Air, iPad mini and the base model iPad are expected to be refreshed with incremental improvements to their specifications, according to 9to5Mac.
One thing today
Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest IT services company, has concluded an internal investigation into complaints of jobs-for-bribes with respect to hiring contract workers, the company told the stock exchanges in a statement yesterday. TCS has sacked 16 employees and moved three others, based on the findings of the probe, the company said in its statement.
Many of you will remember an investigative piece by Mint Newspaper from June that brought to light a jobs-for-bribes investigation within Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest IT services company.
And you’ll remember that a week later, at the company’s annual general meeting of shareholders, Tata Group Chairman N Chandrasekaran confirmed that an investigation was on, based on two whistle blower complaints that had been received in February this year – one pertaining to India and the other in the US.
We learned that this was about certain company executives favouring certain firms that supplied ‘business associates’ in return for bribes, which at that point had not been quantified.
We’d also learnt that the staff involved were from a team called the resource allocation group or the resource management group – dealing with some 1,000 staffing firms that provided business associates in 55 markets.
Yesterday, the company reported that its investigation found 19 employees to be involved. Of those 16 employees have been separated from the company for code of conduct violations, and three have been removed from the Resource Management function. TCS hasn’t provided details about the involvement of the three who remain with the company but have been moved to different roles.
And six vendor entities, their owners and affiliates have been debarred from doing any business with TCS. The company is putting in place additional governance measures including regular rotation of personnel holding key roles in the Resource Management function; better analytics on supplier management; periodic declarations by vendors on compliance to the Tata Code of Conduct and a know-your-supplier process to cover additional declarations, and audits of the company’s vendor management process.
In its statement to the stock exchanges yesterday, TCS said again that there’s been no fraud by or against the company and there is no financial impact, reiterating its first statement on the issue, after the Mint newspaper article on June 23.
According to TCS, what happened was a breach of the company’s code of conduct by certain employees and vendors supplying contractors. No key managerial person of the company has been found to be involved.
It’s been something of a bumpy ride for TCS this year. First, Rajesh Gopinathan, Chandrasekaran’s protégé, abruptly resigned from the post of CEO in March, and then this investigation became public.
TCS will be looking to put this chapter firmly behind it. K Krithivasan, who replaced Gopinathan as CEO, is a company veteran of 30 plus years. Previously he led TCS’s biggest business unit – banking, financial services and insurance.
He may now get a chance to look ahead and focus on growth at a time when the crisis in the Middle East has made the outlook for the sector even more uncertain amid a global economic slowdown, while concerns about a US recession seem to be easing.
In today’s episode I take a quick look at how applications development and maintenance, which is about two-thirds of India’s IT sector revenues, is changing, but first a few headlines.
Beyond Next Ventures, a Japanese fund focused on early-stage deep tech startups in Asia, is targeting up to ¥25 billion (about $168 million) for BNV Fund 3, its third fund, TechCrunch reports. And yesterday, BNV said it completed a first close of ¥10 billion ($68 million), which it will invest in ventures in areas including robotics and biotech, according to TechCrunch.
Here in India, SaaS startup SuperOps.ai, which provides software tools for managed services providers to simplify their IT management and workflow process, has raised $12.4 million in Series B funding led by Addition and March Capital, the Chennai company said in a press release, with participation from existing investor, Matrix Partners India.
One thing today
Tata Consultancy Services kicks off of Q2 results for India’s IT sector today. Infosys reports its earnings tomorrow.
So, instead of the usual curtain raiser on their outlook, I wanted to draw your attention to a trend in the industry, touched off by the rise of generative AI, that is already looking like the beginning of the end of the applications development and maintenance model – or at least ADM as we know it today, which accounts for two-thirds of the $245 billion sector’s revenues.
First, customers are taking various software services back in-house, according to Bernard Charles, CEO and soon-to-be Chairman of Dassault Systemes. Last week, during his latest India visit, I got a chance to speak with Bernard, a 40-year veteran of the French 3D software giant, with India’s biggest conglomerates as customers, and deep partnerships within India’s IT sector.
India’s IT services industry has a very strong engineering R&D segment, but companies like Tesla, for example, want to “control the destiny of their end products themselves,” he said, when it comes to the mix of software, electronics and hardware.
And this is happening in biotech and pharmaceuticals, smart manufacturing, mechatronics systems and so on – areas that are relevant to Dassault, but also important vertical practices for India’s IT sector.
So, on the flip side, are companies like Infosys taking on more full-product level work, I asked. Yes and no, Bernard says, because there’s another dimension to this, which is to help them to transform themselves, so they can provide a lot more consultancy than before and play a bigger role.
“So, I think there will be a new adjustment,” he says. “A lot of this industry has been sustained with the massive development of code to integrate legacy systems. And they have made their money on that. But I think the future, when it comes to our platform, is low code, no code, used natively to produce your own code, not with programmers but with a generative AI.”
And this is inevitable. “It's happening. And this is what I call low code no code, to generate code with robots as opposed to programming them manually,” Bernard says.
A couple of days ago, I got a chance to meet Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho, India’s largest software products company, and he has similar views in relation a related area – software developer productivity, which he sees as very large opportunity for his company.
He says it’s a really big deal and is investing heavily into R&D in this area. “I believe that productivity in software development itself can be easily tenfold, maybe 20-30-fold in the long term,” he told me.
Generative AI use cases are emerging at light speed, Stanton Jones and Olga Kupriyanova wrote in a newsletter recently, at ISG, a consultancy that tracks outsourcing contracts around the world. “This will have an outsized impact on the biggest service line within the sector – applications development and maintenance,” they say.
What do customers want from their SaaS vendors? Sridhar Vembu, founder and CEO of Zoho Corp., weighs in on this question, speaking with Forbes India at the company’s annual Zoholics conference on Oct. 9 in Bengaluru. Zoho remains steadfastly bootstrapped, but for the VC funded ventures, Vembu speaks about how a new funding cycle will eventually return and hopes that this time there will be more focus on important tech R&D and not just the “crowded train” that SaaS has become.
In today’s episode, Acumen, last week, announced the first Indian cohort of sustainability and renewable energy focused startups it will train, with support from Apple, but first a few headlines.
SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son said he believes an artificial general intelligence (AGI) that surpasses human intelligence in most areas, will arrive within 10 years, Reuters reports.
Google yesterday released its Pixel 8 phones with a camera feature that uses an on-device algorithm to create a blended image to combine the best visuals from a series of shots – like getting the best look of everyone in a picture, for example.
The new phones will get seven years of software updates, according to Google.
One thing today
Now some of you might remember, earlier this year, Apple made a small announcement about partnering Acumen, a New York headquartered non-profit impact venture capital fund, to support social enterprises in India to improve livelihoods through clean energy innovation.
Apple hasn’t disclosed any financial details, but what we do know is that it is supporting the Energy for Livelihoods Accelerator that Acumen operates. And Acumen, last week, announced the first Indian cohort of startups it will train at this accelerator.
Through this accelerator, Acumen’s experts lead a 12-week programme designed to help social entrepreneurs scale and refine their businesses to more efficiently and effectively help the poor that they were trying to reach, while also sharpening the focus of their efforts towards protecting the environment.
Sustainable energy has the potential, over time, to more than double incomes by saving time, improving yields, and enhancing resilience, according to Acumen.
Electricity access among the poorest 20 percent of households increased from 53 percent to 86 percent in the five-year period between the fourth and fifth rounds of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), the Economic Times reported in January this year. The fifth round of the survey concluded in 2021. And in 19 states and union territories, this proportion was more than 95 percent.
That said, we still have millions of poor in India without access to reliable and affordable energy.
The 15 entrepreneurs in the first cohort are working to change that in agriculture, e-mobility, and hydropower, trying to provide the enabling technologies to improve livelihoods through better use of energy.
“This cohort represents a diverse mix of innovators working at the intersection of sustainable energy and poverty reduction,” Mahesh Yagnaraman, Acumen’s India Director. “We are excited to support them in partnership with Apple to develop their business models with the ultimate aim of scaling their impact.”
Acumen will also use the accelerator programme to learn directly from the entrepreneurs to refine its own work, Yagnaraman says.
Let me give you three examples. In a category called business facilitators, Nimisha Tiwari, at LinkITBlueCollar, is building a mobile-first tech-enabled platform providing Electric Vehicle (EV) skills and guaranteed jobs for low-income communities of women and youth.
In the agriculture and allied Sector category, Vanya Environmental Services, is helping small farmers to use satellite data, remote sensing and blockchain, to check carbon levels in their soil, farm sustainably, trap carbon, and generate income from selling carbon credits.
Under business sector category, Nikky Kumar Jha, at Saptkrishi Scientific Private Limited is offering small-marginal farmers and street-hawkers, his Sabjikothi cart and e-cart models, which are microclimate-based storage solutions. The carts maintain freshness and extend the shelf-life of fruits and vegetables up to 30 days without chemicals, preservatives, or refrigerants. This storage solution requires minimal wattage, has battery backup, and can be solar powered.
In today’s episode we take a quick look at an expanded partnership between NVIDIA and Infosys that seeks to equip an army of AI specialists trained in the AI chip giant’s technologies, but first one other headline that caught my attention yesterday.
WhatsApp continues to roll out new features in India that will allow users in its largest market by userbase to do much more without leaving the instant messaging app. Coinciding with its Conversations event yesterday in Mumbai, WhatsApp announced new payments options for users.
Users in India can add items to their cart and send a payment using the method of their choice from all supported UPI apps, debit and credit cards, WhatsApp said in a blog post. The Meta Platforms company has partnered India’s Razorpay and PayU to provide these services.
One thing today
Now, as many of you know, Infosys has made several announcements this year around its AI investments, including the launch of Infosys Topaz, a comprehensive suite of services, solutions and platforms around generative AI.
Yesterday, Infosys and NVIDIA said that they are expanding the scope of an existing partnership under which the Indian IT services company helps its customers deploy the semiconductor giant’s AI chips and technologies.
The expanded partnership will see the two companies work on building generative AI solutions for global customers, according to an Infosys press release.
The broadened alliance will bring the NVIDIA AI Enterprise ecosystem of models, tools, runtimes and GPU systems to Infosys Topaz. Through the integration, Infosys will create solutions customers can adopt, to easily integrate generative AI into their businesses, according to the press release.
Infosys also plans to set up an NVIDIA Centre of Excellence, where it will train and certify 50,000 of its employees on NVIDIA’s AI technologies as demand for such skills is expected to skyrocket in the coming years.
“Infosys is transforming into an AI-first company,” co-founder and Chairman Nandan Nilekani said in the release. Clients are looking at complex AI use cases to get more business value across their operations, he said.
Infosys Topaz is complementary to NVIDIA’s core stack, Nilekani said. Combining the IT services company’s strengths, training 50,000 professionals on NVIDIA’s AI technologies, Infosys aims to create end-to-end industry-leading AI solutions for its customers, he said.
“Generative AI will drive the next wave of enterprise productivity gains,” Jensen Huang, Founder and CEO, NVIDIA, said in the press release. Huang was in India recently, meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and high-ranking Indian officials.
He announced a slew of investments, including partnerships with India’s Tata Group and Reliance Industries, spanning data centres that will use NVIDIA’s chips to a collaboration on India-specific large language models.
“The NVIDIA AI Enterprise ecosystem is ramping quickly to provide the platform for generative AI. Together, NVIDIA and Infosys will create an expert workforce to help businesses use this platform to build custom applications and solutions,” Huang said in the press release.
Infosys uses the full-stack NVIDIA generative AI platform, including hardware and enterprise-grade software in its own business operations, and it is helping customers create generative AI applications for business operations, sales and marketing.
With NVIDIA AI Enterprise frameworks, pre-trained models and toolkits — including the NVIDIA NeMo LLM framework, NVIDIA Metropolis for computer vision and NVIDIA Riva for speech AI — Infosys has already developed some solutions.
In today’s episode it’s all about Apple. And of course, the company didn’t disappoint with the many incrementally faster, better features with innovations that combine both hardware tech and software ingenuity, as it launched the iPhone 15 series of smartphones and the Apple Watch 9 series, yesterday.
For example, a double tap of your thumb and your index finger, of the hand on which you’re wearing an Apple Watch, will now let you do a bunch of new things, from answering and ending phone calls to bringing up various apps and notifications.
Or take the iPhone 15 Pro models, which have titanium bodies, making them tougher and lighter. I’ll do a deep dive into this in the coming days, and you can of course just check out all the new features on Apple’s website. Oh and the switch to USB-C happened.
What caught my imagination, however, was the iPhone maker’s progress towards its 2030 goal of being carbon neutral across its supply chain.
And yesterday, Apple provided updates on several fronts on its progress – from increased use of recycled materials across its products to energy and water use in its operations to more supply chain partners committing to making their own operations carbon neutral, to the end results – products that don’t leave a carbon footprint or whose carbon footprints are offset by the company’s overall efforts.
For the Apple Watch Series Nine, the aluminium used in the watch cases is 100 percent recycled. The company is also increasing the proportion of recycled metals including gold, tin, copper, tungsten and other materials.
And for the first time, there is 100 percent recycled cobalt in the battery. Apple has also redesigned one of its most popular watch bands, the Sport Loop, to use more recycled materials. It is now made with 82 percent recycled yarn.
Starting this year, all Apple Watch manufacturing is powered by 100 percent clean electricity. For Series Nine, Apple will match 100 percent of your expected electricity use by investing in renewable energy projects around the world.
To cut emissions from transportation, Apple has redesigned Series 9 packaging to be 100 percent fibre based and more compact. It has a new, smaller shape that lets Apple ship up to 25 percent more watches per trip. And more of those trips will be made with low carbon shipping modes like Ocean freight, which emits one 20th of shipping by air.
Overall, these efforts reduced the carbon footprint on the Apple Watch by 78 percent. The rest is being offset by high quality credits from projects like forests and wetlands that actively remove carbon from the atmosphere. This last step brings the net carbon footprint of Apple Watch Series Nine down to zero, making it Apple’s first ever carbon neutral product.
The iPhone 15, overall, is one of the most durable smartphones that will the market next week. Apple is also making these phone incrementally more repair friendly, allowing people to use them for longer. And as we know, Apple’s software updates support its products for several years.
The iPhone’s enclosure uses 75 percent recycled aluminium for the first time, 100 percent recycled cobalt in the battery and 100 percent recycled copper foil in the main logic board and MagSafe charger.
The entire aluminium substructure is made with 100 percent recycled aluminium, a first for the iPhone.
The iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max now use 100 percent recycled gold in the USB‑C connector as well as the gold plating and tin soldering in multiple printed circuit boards. Both models meet Apple’s high standards for energy efficiency and are free of mercury, PVC, and beryllium.
One last point. For the first time, Apple is releasing the iPhones in India at the same time as in the US, starting this Friday, Sep. 15, 5:30 p.m. local time in India. Pricing starts at Rs 1,34,900 for the 128GB version of the iPhone 15 Pro, and Rs. 1,59,900 for the iPhone 15 Pro Max 256GB version.
In today’s episode we take a quick look at the rise of global capability centres, as they are called, but first a few headlines.
Headlines
Apple’s iPhone 15 event, the Wonderlust, is to be held later today, where we might get to see the company’s first smartphone with the standard USB-C charging port. It’s at 10:30 p.m. India time and you can watch the event on Apple’s website.
Tata Consultancy Services is the second Indian IT services company, after Infosys, to join Dassault Systèmes’ Living Heart Project that brings together industry, academia, hospitals and regulators to build ever more accurate digital models of the heart, which will help develop more accurate treatment of heart diseases.
Perfios, which provides a real-time credit-decision platform and data aggregation APIs to financial companies, has raised $229 million in series-D funding from Kedaara Capital, the Bengaluru SaaS company said in a press release yesterday. The new investment is a combination of a primary fund raise and a secondary sale.
One thing today
Global capability centres, as they are now marketed, are offshore centres in India providing work for large multinational parent corporations, mostly in the US, Britain and Western Europe, but also from countries like Korea and Australia.
Many of you interested in India’s tech sector will of course be familiar with some of the history of how Texas Instruments came to Bengaluru, one of the earliest GCCs here – of course the term GCC didn’t even exist back then. Or take the expansion of Robert Bosch’s software and engineering teams in India.
The world’s best-known companies across sectors have such centres in India – from JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs to GE Aerospace and GE HealthCare and Mercedes Benz to Salesforce and Atlassian. There are close to 1600 GCCs in India, employing about 1.66 million people and accounting for $46 billion in business at the end of FY23, having grown at a CAGR of 11.4 percent from 2015 to 2023, or the year ended March 31, 2023, according to the consultancy Zinnov.
Many of these companies have multiple centres in India – typically in Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune and the NCR. Zinnov calls these individual centres GCC Units, and there were more than 2,740 GCC Units at the end of FY23.
In the first six months of 2023, 18 new GCCs were added in India including companies like BlackBerry, Truecaller and the Lloyds Banking Group. And several existing GCCs were expanded.
More recently, earlier this month, Zinnov provided a deep dive into two important sectors – Aerospace and Defence, and Automotive.
In Aerospace and Defence, companies that expanded their GCC operations in recent times include Boeing and Bombardier. Other top companies in the sector that have significant presence in India include Lockheed Martin, Rolls Royce, Thales, Collins Aerospace and Airbus.
Their GCCs and workforce are concentrated in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and NCR, which account for 80 percent of their installed talent as Zinnov calls it. Half of these companies are from the US, and 62 percent of their work involves engineering R&D, according to Zinnov.
In the Automotive sector, Daimler Truck, Fisker and Eminox are among the new entrants, and companies with existing GCCs include Ford, BMW, Stellantis, Hyundai and Mercedes Benz. About half of all the auto sector GCCs in India have parent companies coming from the US and Germany.
Pune and Bengaluru have the most GCCs at 52 percent of the units in India. Pune, Bengaluru and Chennai account for 85 percent of the installed GCC talent in the auto sector. And again, engineering R&D accounts for two-thirds of the work being done at these centres.
In today’s episode one quick takeaway from Freshworks’s first investor day since the company went public two years ago, but first a few headlines.
Headlines
NVIDIA and Reliance Industries, on Sep. 8, announced a collaboration to develop India’s own foundation large language model trained on the nation’s diverse languages and tailored for generative AI applications to serve the world’s most populous nation, according to a press release from the AI GPU maker.
Apple’s much anticipated iPhone 15 will be unwrapped tomorrow, and it will be nighttime in India. One big change everyone’s expecting is of course the USB-C port that Apple’s been forced to switch to, after the European Union mandated it for most electronics gadgets by next year.
One thing today
So last week, Freshworks organized its first investor day, on Sep. 7. Of course, the company has been providing quarterly updates and holding conference calls with analysts and so on since it was listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange two years ago. But this was a bona fide investor-focused meet where the company provided some granular data on how it’s doing and where it’s headed.
The one takeaway for me, and probably for many others, was that the company’s Freshservice product is growing more than twice as fast as the company’s overall growth rate, and not on a very small base either.
As many of you know Freshworks was founded in 2010. It has headquartered in San Mateo, California, and CEO Girish Mathrubootham told analysts and investors that 85 percent of the company’s 5,000 or so employees are in India. Mostly in Chennai, but also in Hyderabad, Bengaluru and elsewhere.
The company has over 65,000 customers and 19,000 of those pay the SaaS vendor $5,000 or more every year in subscription fees of its software. Among its customers are Coca Cola, Honda, Sotheby’s, Thomas Cook, Klarna, African Bank, PhonePe and Mahindra Group.
This year, as Freshworks pushes to become profitable, it’s delivering 10 percent free cash flow margins, Mathrubootham said.
Freshworks started with a customer support software, Freshdesk, and today the overall customer support software business is at about $300 million ARR, and growing in the low to mid-teens percent annually, Mathrubootham said. But it’s Freshservice, the IT service management software and related products, that’s emerged as the most promising component of the company’s product portfolio.
“Today, that's our fastest growing product with north of $250 million in ARR (annual recurring revenue),” Mathrubootham said. An important reason could be that, especially post Covid, large businesses have been overhauling their IT, moving to the cloud and looking for ways to reduce the complexity of managing a hoard of the technology solutions, including multiple software subscriptions.
Freshservice clocked $260 million in ARR as at the end of the June quarter, which is Freshworks’s fiscal Q2. It was growing at more than 40 percent at the time, compared with the company’s overall growth rate of about 20 percent. The business has a total addressable market of some $20 billion, growing at 12 percent, according to market researcher and consultancy Gartner, including the areas of IT Service Management, IT Asset Management & Software Asset Management, IT Infrastructure Monitoring, AIOps, Service Orchestration and Automation Platforms.
In this segment, “our customer is the CIO, or a senior IT leader, and we have a lot of traction in mid-market and in enterprise,” Freshworks’s president Dennis Woodside said. The company has some 8,500 customers paying more than $5,000 in annual Freshservice subscription fees, he said.
In the coming months and quarters, Freshworks will launch more features to capture adjacent opportunities, Dennis said, with industry specific solutions, such as government agencies, security, operations, governance, risk and compliance.
In today’s episode we take a quick look at Zoho’s latest milestone, with the Indian SaaS leader crossing 100 million users, but first a few headlines.
Headlines
HeromotoCorp will invest up to Rs. 550 crore in a rights issue of Ather Energy Private Limited, the Indian two-wheeler giant told stock exchanges on Sep. 4 in a statement.
Atomicwork, a cloud software provider of productivity software, has raised $11 million in seed funding led by Blume Ventures and Matrix Partners, TechCrunch reports.
Richard Lobo, an executive vice president and former head of human resources at Infosys, has resigned, marking the latest in a series of top-level exits at the company, Moneycontrol reports.
One thing today
Zoho, India’s biggest cloud software company, has surpassed 100 million, the Chennai-to-California company said in a press release. Zoho says it is the first bootstrapped SaaS company to reach this milestone. Last year the company hit $1 billion in revenues, and Zoho is one of a handful of SaaS companies in India that are profitable.
Started more than 25 years ago, the company’s growth over the last 15 years, with the rise of the cloud computing model, has taken it from 1 million users in 2008 to 100 million today. The latest 50 million users were added within the past five years. And the company sells more than 55 products to over 700,000 businesses in some 150 countries, according to its press release.
“We are not done yet,” co-founder and CEO Sridhar Vembu said in the release. The company has an innovation pipeline covering the next 10 years and it is investing in deep technologies to serve billions of users around the world, he said.
Zoho defines midmarket customers as companies with 250 employees each and those with a thousand or more workers as classic enterprise, or the upmarket segment. India shows a significant presence of enterprise customers adopting Zoho, CMO Praval Singh had said in an interview with Forbes India in June this year.
In the SaaS business, larger customers mean more users and increased complexity, resulting in higher revenue per customer. The upmarket segment contributes over half of Zoho’s business in India, and a third of its entire business.
As its products matured, larger businesses adopted its solutions. This led Zoho to establish dedicated teams with expertise in serving large companies. “We also developed an interoperable ecosystem, enabling easy integration with third-party applications through APIs, connectors, and partnerships,” Praval said in that interview.
To cater to larger enterprises, the company launched the Zoho Marketplace, which has more than 1,800 extensions and garners 30,000 monthly installations. In 2018, Zoho introduced an enterprise business solutions team as trusted partners, offering assistance in digital transformation projects, from consulting to implementation and training.
Zoho has focused on helping large enterprises streamline and optimise their technology stacks, addressing challenges such as integration, data silos, scalability, and flexibility. By helping customers overcome these obstacles, Zoho has played a meaningful role in supporting their growth and progress over the years, Praval says.
India is one of the fastest-growing markets for Zoho, where the company has witnessed three year compounded annual growth of 65 percent in its upmarket segment. Customers in India include IIFL, Bigbasket and Tata Play Fiber.
Zoho's upmarket growth in India is led by sectors such as banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), manufacturing, retail, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), pharmaceuticals, and IT. The company has collaborated with government departments and public sector units (PSUs) to support their digitalisation efforts and contribute to the modernisation of the public sector.
In today’s episode we take a quick look at edtech funding, from a report published by Tracxn. But first, a few headlines.
Headlines
Telecom operators in India want internet companies to compensate them for using their telecom networks, a recommendation they’ve made to the local regulatory body, echoing a viewpoint that is gaining some momentum in other parts of the world, TechCrunch reports.
Pentathlon Ventures, an early-stage B2B SaaS-focused venture capital firm, has announced the launch of its second fund with a target corpus of Rs 450 Crore. The fund aims to invest in 25 B2B SaaS start-ups, the VC firm said in a press release.
One thing today
Now, after all the problems BYJU’s has faced, it might not surprise you that India’s edtech startups haven’t done very well this year, by way of funding, even though they were among the top three most funded geographies in this space, worldwide, in the first seven months or so of 2023, according to Tracxn, a leading provider of private markets intelligence in India.
India’s ed-tech startups sector has experienced a declining trend in funding, similar to its global counterparts, according to Tracxn’s latest Feed-Geo report on the ed-tech startups landscape in India.
Most of the funding into Indian ed-tech startups in 2023 so far was secured in the second quarter of the calendar year. Companies raised funding worth $713 million in Q2 2023, accounting for 73.43 percent of the total funding raised this year. This is also an increase of 37 percent compared with the same period last year.
That said, total funding into the Indian ed-tech space plunged 48 percent to $971 million in 2023 between Jan. 1 and Aug. 7, the period for which Tracxn has compiled data for its report. edtech startups had raised $1.87 billion in the same period in 2022.
The 2023 YTD funding is also 50 percent lower than the money the sector raised in the same period in 2021, according to Tracxn. The number of funding rounds in 2023 fell 77 percent and 82 percent compared with the same periods in 2022 and 2021 respectively.
Late-stage investments worth $879 million have been recorded in 2023 so far, contributing to more than 90 percent of the total funding, which is also a drop of 23 percent compared with $1.14 billion raised in the same period in 2022 and a drop of 39 percent from $1.44 billion raised in the same period in 2021.
Early-stage investments worth $75.7 million were recorded in 2023 YTD, an 88 percent drop from $618 million raised in the same period last year and an 82 percent drop compared with $414 million raised in the same period in 2021.
Edtech startups raised $15.7 million through seed-stage rounds in 2023 between Jan. 1 and Aug. 7, a drop of 85 percent from $105 million raised in the same period in 2022 and an 83 percent drop from the same period in 2021.
No new Unicorns have so far emerged in this sector this year, as against two in the same period last year. 2023 saw seven acquisitions, a 70 percent decline compared with 23 acquisitions in the same period in 2022 and 19 acquisitions in the same period in 2021.
Among Indian cities, Bengaluru, far and away, takes the lead in terms of total funds raised till date, followed by Mumbai and Gurgaon. edtech startups in Bangalore have raised a total of over $8 billion as of Aug. 7, 2023, followed by Mumbai ($2.5 billion) and Gurgaon ($497 million).
In the last two years, We Founder Circle, Peak XV Partners, formerly Sequoia India, and MMPL Trust, were the most active investors in this space. We Founder Circle, IPV, and LetsVenture were the top seed investors, while Peak XV Partners, Better Capital, and AngelList were the top early-stage investors. MMPL Trust, WestBridge Capital, and The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative were the top late-stage investors.
Today, five takeaways on the future of India’s SaaS sector from the perspective of an early-stage VC investor, but first, a few headlines.
Headlines
India’s Aditya-L1 satellite, our first space-based solar observatory, was launched successfully on Sep. 2 at 11:50 a.m. local time, Isro said in an update.
Microsoft is ending WordPad, the basic word processor that’s been included with Windows since 1995, Thurrot reported over the weekend, citing a support page from the Windows maker.
Infosys has completed the acquisition of Denmark’s Danske Bank’s 1,400-person IT centre in India, the Bengaluru IT services company said in a press release on Sep. 1.
One thing today
There are optimistic projections about how India’s SaaS companies will become a $50 billion sector by 2030 and so on. But what are some of the obstacles they will have to overcome. Recently, I had a chance to sit down with Arun Raghavan, founding partner at Arali Ventures in Bengaluru, and this was one of the topics we discussed for a bit.
Here are some quick takeaways from Arun’s experience, which includes successfully backing multiple SaaS startups very early on in their journey and even some good exits.
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The go-to-market playbook is heftier than five years ago. So how does one create a sales engine that can have people sit in India and develop relationships with enterprise customers in the US and Europe. You can only do that to a limited extent if you’re only trying from India. And if you really want to go after large customers, you need feet on street. More companies doing this much better today, but there’s ways to go.
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How do you scale a company sitting in India to become a $100 million dollar business, especially if you're selling into the US? This is work in progress. Typically, a company that starts in the US, which gets good talent, is off to the races, but the pool of people who have the experience of playing the cross-border game is still limited. The numbers are big in tech services, but not yet in the products startup ecosystem.
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You may disagree, but the real cutting-edge stuff is still mostly coming from Silicon Valley or Israel and such hubs. That proportion is still 80-90 percent, Arun says. Of course, there are very interesting companies coming out of India, but it's not widespread yet.
Can a startup find a critical mass of generative AI experts quickly in India, for example? Not really, says Arun. And the more deeper tech players from India, more often than not, while they may have centres in India, they will also tap talent in Eastern Europe, for example, or Israel or the US or all of the above.
- We need to go way deeper than the application layer. Traditionally, we’ve been great at application software. We’ve got a $200 billion tech services industry to show for it. But anything that's at a more infrastructure level, or tooling level is something that we don't have a lot of experience in, Arun says.
He expects these are areas where we will develop some knowhow over the next four or five years. Why is this important? Well, the infra players are relevant to customers around the world. For example, can we think of a Snowflake emerging from India in the next ten years, asks Arun? Or a Databricks?
- The money is there now. To end on a more optimistic note, funding isn’t a challenge anymore, Arun says, the current slowdown notwithstanding. Over the last five years, large investors from the US have taken note of the potential for software product companies to come out of India and they have been investing in this ecosystem. This will only increase.
In today’s episode, sales of robots are down by almost a third from the first six months of last year. But first, some headlines that caught my attention.
Headlines that caught our attention
India's first indigenously developed nuclear power plant unit has started operations at full capacity, Business Today reports. The plant, in Kakrapar, Gujarat, had two existing 200 MWe units. This third unit, and a fourth one that is expected to go online in March 2024, are India's first pair of indigenously designed Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors of 700 MW size with enhanced safety features, according to the Nuclear Power Corporation of India.
Elon Musk said yesterday that video and audio calls will be coming to X, formerly Twitter. The features will work on iOS, Android, Mac and PC, Musk wrote in a post on the microblogging site. No phone number is needed because X is effectively a global address book, he added.
Google has announced Oct. 4 as the date for its annual Pixel hardware event, 9To5Google reports. Like last year, the event is taking place in New York City. The “Made by Google” event and keynote will be at 10 am ET. You can catch the livestream on YouTube and the Google Store website. Two of the devices expected are the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, according to 9To5Google.
IBM last month signed a $69.8 million (£54.7 million) contract with the British government to develop a national biometrics platform that will offer a facial recognition function to immigration and law enforcement officials, The Verge reports, citing documents reviewed by it and Liberty Investigates, an investigative journalism organisation in the UK. Some human rights activists have now accused IBM CEO Arvind Krishna of reneging on a promise he made three years ago to not build general purpose facial recognition technology for surveillance. IBM says this UK contract, meant to help police track suspects, doesn’t violate that promise, according to The Verge.
One thing today
Now, robot sales fell for the second quarter in a row in the US, the world’s biggest tech market. A slow US economy and high interest rates have taken a toll on robot orders in North America, resulting in a decline for the second quarter in a row after record purchases in 2021 and 2022, the Association for Advancing Automation (A3), said in a press release yesterday.
Companies ordered 7,697 robots valued at $457 million from April to July 2023, a 37 percent decline in robot orders and 20 percent drop in value over the same period in 2022.
When combined with first quarter results, the robotics market in North America is down 29 percent compared to the first half of last year with a total of 16,865 robots ordered. This drop comes after a record 2022, where North American companies ordered 44,196 robots, up 11 percent over 2021, the previous record.
The ongoing labour shortage in the US, especially in manufacturing (down another 2000 jobs in July, according to the US Bureau of Labour Statistics) remains a key driver of automation. An increasing trend towards reshoring tasks back to the US is another factor.
Non-automotive customers ordered more robots in the second quarter of 2023 than automotive customers, with 52 percent of units going to non-automotive industries and 48 percent going to automotive OEMs and component suppliers.
Both categories were down compared to the second quarter of last year, however, with non-automotive orders down 21 percent and automotive orders down 49 percent. The strongest demand in Q2 came from the semiconductor and electronics industries, followed by life sciences/pharma and biomedical, plastics and rubber and metals, with automotive components, food and consumer goods and automotive OEMs showing the biggest drops.
In today’s episode, we take a quick look at India’s opportunity to expand its digital technologies ecosystem to tier-2 cities, but first, some headlines that caught my attention.
Headlines that caught our attention
Google is expanding its generative AI search experience to markets outside the US, starting with India and Japan, TechCrunch reports. The new AI-powered search feature, also known as SGE (Search Generative Experience), will be available through Google’s Search Labs.
Meanwhile, Chinese tech giant Baidu said that its ChatGPT-like Ernie bot was now open to the public at large, signalling a green light from Beijing, and another indication of a more relaxed policy stance on artificial intelligence, CNBC reports.
In some cheer for the SaaS sector, Salesforce, cloud software bellwether, yesterday announced quarterly results and guidance that beat Wall Street’s expectations, CNBC reports. As many of you might remember, India’s Freshworks beat expectations with its June quarter earnings results on Aug. 2.
One thing today
Now, speaking of India’s tech talent, that workforce is making it a destination for the next wave of foreign companies looking to establish centres for R&D, software development and engineering. And there is an opportunity to expand the ecosystem to tier-2 cities, Nasscom, the country’s biggest tech lobby, and accounting consultancy firm Deloitte, say in a new report.
The report examines talent, infrastructure, risk and regulatory environment, start-up ecosystem, and social and living environment, which are vital for establishing a flourishing technological landscape.
And it spolights the potential of 26 cities in the country – from Chandigarh to Indore to Mysuru and Vishakapatnam – which could become an integrated part of India’s tech ecosystem, Nasscom and Deloitte said in a press release on Aug. 29. Helped by rapid infrastructure growth, diverse skills, burgeoning start-ups, and governmental initiatives, these emerging hubs are gearing to achieve tier-1 status, according to the press release.
“While big cities were the focus in the past, the post-pandemic era witnesses a remarkable decentralisation of work across the nation,” Sumeet Salwan, a partner at Deloitte India, said the press release.
Today, about 60 percent of India’s graduates in engineering, arts, and science come from smaller towns and 30 percent of total graduates relocate to tier-1 cities seeking employment, he said.
The 26 promising locations identified in the report have the potential to become the epicentre of innovation and growth, according to the report. This trend is supported by a workforce skilled in cutting-edge digital technologies, with about 800,000 individuals located in these emerging hubs. And these cities are seeing strong additions to the number of people skilled in digital technologies.
These locations currently account for 10-15 percent of India’s tech talent. They provide promising growth potential when supported by the governments’ commitment to world-class infrastructure, Salwan says. Take the “if you build it, they will come” approach, he says.
Startups in these locations grew 50 percent from 2014-2018, with expectations of 2.2X growth by 2025, according to the report.
These tier-2 locations also offer a cost advantage, including a 25-30 percent lower cost of talent and a 50 percent lower cost of real estate rentals compared with the large cities. So far, some 140 global capability centres have found a home in these locations, highlighting the growing interest of foreign companies in these emerging hubs, according to the report.
“As companies worldwide revisit ways of working with an eye on optimising outcomes, costs, and talent, alternative tech hubs are becoming essential” Sukanya Roy, head, GCC and BPM, at Nasscom, says in the release.
About 39 percent of the country’s 7,000 or so startups operate in emerging hubs spanning industries from Deep Tech to Business Process Management (BPM), according to the report.
Apple yesterday announced Sep. 12 as the date for its annual press event, where usually the company launches new iPhones. The event will be held Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, and it is widely expected that the iPhone 15 series and new Apple Watch models will be launched. In India, Apple’s fifth-biggest market according to Counterpoint Research, contract manufacturer Foxconn is already said to be preparing to roll out the new phones within weeks of the launch.
Headlines that caught our attention
Toyota will restart operations at its assembly plants in Japan today, after a software glitch in its production systems brought domestic output to a halt, Reuters reports.
WhatsApp has updated its desktop app for Apple’s Mac computers featuring group calls, connecting with up to eight people on video calls and up to 32 people on audio calls.
India’s next space mission, Aditya-L1, the country’s first space-based solar observatory, is set to launch on Sep. 2, Isro said in a tweet yesterday. The satellite will be launched on Isro’s PSLV-C57 rocket.
One thing today
Apple yesterday announced Sep. 12 as the date for its annual press event, where usually the company launches its next iPhones, tagging invites with a made-up word ‘Wonderlust.’ The event will be held Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, and it is widely expected that the iPhone 15 series and new Apple Watch models will be launched.
The event will be streamed on Apple’s website at 1 p.m. ET in the US, which would be 10:30 p.m. in India. CNBC notes that Apple has used pre-recorded videos to launch its iPhones since 2020.
First among the big changes and upgrades expected in the new iPhone models is the USB-C charging port, after the European Union passed a landmark law in October last year requiring all mobile phones, tablets and cameras sold in the EU to use this standard port for wired charging, by the end of 2024.
Other recent leaks about the new iPhones include titanium bodies, which would make the phones lighter, and a sharper periscopic camera.
Apple will be making fewer iPhone 15 smartphones at launch, due to some supply chain issues, 9to5Mac reported earlier this week, citing an industry analyst.
In India, the year 2023 marked a milestone for Apple, with the opening of its first physical retail stores – in Mumbai and Delhi. These stores exceeded initial expectations, CEO Tim Cook had said on Aug. 3, with another quarterly record.
As many of you know, Apple’s been stepping up local assembly in India in recent years and the gap between the launch of a new iPhone in the US and its availability in India is now mere weeks. Foxconn, one of Apple’s biggest contract manufacturers, is said to be preparing to roll out the new iPhone 15 models from its Sriperumbudur factory near Chennai.
India’s premium smartphone segment, defined as phones priced at Rs. 30,000 rupees or higher, now contributes a record 17 percent to its overall shipments, according to data from Counterpoint Technology Market Research as of July 31.
With an 18 percent share, Samsung led India’s smartphone market for the third consecutive quarter. The South Korean electronics giant also led the premium segment with a 34 percent share at the end of the April-June quarter this year, according to Counterpoint.
One last point. While India remains an Android smartphone market, Apple dominates the so-called “ultra-premium” segment, with a 59 percent market share. Counterpoint defines ultra-premium as phones priced at Rs. 45,000 or higher. India is also now Apple’s fifth biggest market, according to the market research provider.
Terry Gou, the founder of Foxconn Technology Group, one of Apple’s biggest contract manufacturers, which is also expanding its operations in India, is entering the contest to be Taiwan’s next president as an independent candidate, with elections due in 2024. Gou is widely seen as an advocate of Taiwan’s return to the “One China” framework and for cross-Strait talks to resume between China and Taiwan that broke down in 2016. While pundits don’t expect him to win, a more pro-China government in Taiwan could have some implications for India from geopolitics to the country’s nascent EV sector.
Intel plans to release a new data centre chip next year, brand named Sierra Forrest, that will handle more than double the amount of computing work that can be done for each watt of power used, Reuters reports.
Asus yesterday refuted a report from earlier this week out of Taiwan that it would pull the plug on its Zenfone series of Android smartphones, 9To5Google reports.
Terry Gou, the founder of Foxconn Technology Group, one of Apple’s biggest contract manufacturers, which is also expanding its operations in India, is entering the contest to be Taiwan’s next president as an independent candidate, with elections due in 2024.
While the pundits don’t expect the 73-year-old entrepreneur to win, with the current Vice President William Lai of the Democratic Progressive Party seen as the popular candidate, Gou’s entry is significant due to his more conciliatory approach towards China.
“The era of entrepreneur’s rule” has begun, CNBC quoted him as saying at one of the election rally style gatherings he’s been addressing lately.
“I will definitely not allow Taiwan to become the next Ukraine,” he said at a press conference, Associated Press reported yesterday.
Gou founded Foxconn, also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry, in 1974 in Taipei, Taiwan. From making electrical components and parts for television sets, the company has grown to become one of the world's largest and most influential electronics manufacturers for customers including Apple, Microsoft and Sony.
In 2022 about 70 percent of $215 billion equivalent of Foxconn’s revenue came from China, according to the Wall Street Journal. In an opinion for Washington Post in July, Gou disagreed with what he described as the policy of the current Taiwanese government, under President Tsai Ing-Wen, to walk away from the One-China framework.
In his view, Taiwan’s long-term future rests with the Chinese. A more pro-China government in Taiwan has significance for India, from giving China greater ability to project its geopolitical power in the Indo-Pacific region to the potential impact on India’s electronics supply chain.
Foxconn entered India in 2006 and set up its first factory in the country at Sriperumbudur, near Chennai. Today the company’s operations range from assembling the latest iPhones to supplying parts for India’s electric vehicle startups such as Ather Energy in Bengaluru.
The company is investing billions of dollars in India, which is looking to establish its own semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem. Foxconn pulled out of a semiconductor fab partnership with India’s Vedanta Group recently, citing delays, which is seen as a bit of a setback for India’s ambitions in this sector, but the Taiwanese company has said it remains committed to growth in India.
Britian’s first lady Akshata Murty’s ownership of Infosys is in focus again, ahead of a free trade agreement that her husband, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, is negotiating with India. The India-UK FTA talks started some 19 months ago and are said to be in their final stages. UK is the Indian IT sector’s biggest market after the US. While some British papers have suggested India is pushing for more liberalised visa rules, those negotiations are not part of the FTA talks.
Zepto, a super quick grocery delivery startup, has raised $200 million in a new funding round at a valuation of $1.4 billion, becoming the first Indian startup unicorn of 2023, TechCrunch reports.
Apple will be making fewer iPhone 15 smartphones at launch, next month, due to some supply chain issues, 9to5Mac reports, citing an industry analyst.
Separately, Bloomberg’s Apple watcher Mark Gurman writes in his newsletter that next year, Apple will launch a new souped-up version of the iPad Pro.
Britian’s first lady Akshata Murty’s ownership of Infosys is in focus again, ahead of a free trade agreement that her husband, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, is negotiating with India.
Sunak is expected in New Delhi in two weeks, to participate in the G20 Summit, on Sep. 9. Meanwhile, news reports in the UK have once again raised Akshata Murty’s shareholding in Infosys, the Mumbai and New York listed Indian IT services giant, as a conflict of interest. They contend that Infosys, which sees the UK as one of its biggest markets, with customers including the British government, stands to benefit from the trade agreement, which in turn benefits Murty’s family.
Akshata’s father NR Narayana Murthy founded Infosys in 1981 with six other co-founders. Her current minority shareholding in Infosys, a tad under 1 percent, is valued at about half a billion dollars.
Newspapers in the UK such as The Guardian and Observer reported over the weekend that some members of the British parliament have called for Sunak to be more transparent about his wife’s financial holdings. At least one “expert” has even called for Sunak to recuse himself from leading the UK’s talks with India to finalise a free trade deal, according to The Guardian.
Sunak was recently censured by a UK parliament’s standards watchdog for “inadvertently” failing to properly declare his wife’s separate shareholding in a childcare company that stood to benefit from new government policy, according to The Guardian.
During his visit to attend the G20 Summit, the British PM is expected to discuss the India-UK free trade agreement in a separate bilateral meeting with his Indian counterpart, Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
One last point. The UK-India FTA negotiations have been going on for 19 months and they are in their final stages, Business Standard reported last week, citing Britain’s minister of state for trade and business, Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch. She was in India attending the G20 trade and investment ministerial in Jaipur last week.
While the British newspapers have cited experts to say that India will be pushing for a more liberalized visa and immigration regime in the UK to help its IT sector, Badenoch has clarified that visa and visa liberalisation were not part of the FTA discussions, which are focused on business mobility.
European lawmakers took a significant step towards regulating artificial intelligence (AI) with the advancement of new draft legislation, Reuters reports. The legislation aims to ensure that AI serves people, society, and the environment, emphasising the importance of protecting fundamental rights. Also in this report, Zoho said it's making investments across its portfolio of products to accelerate the strong growth it is seeing with larger customers, who now account for a third of the Chennai software company's overall business.
Notes:
European lawmakers took a significant step towards regulating artificial intelligence (AI) with the advancement of new draft legislation, Reuters reports. The legislation aims to ensure that AI serves people, society, and the environment, emphasising the importance of protecting fundamental rights.
The European Union's AI Act is expected to become the world's first comprehensive legislation governing AI, encompassing regulations on facial recognition, biometric surveillance, and other AI applications.
The bill, after two years of negotiations, is now set to proceed to the next stage of the process, involving the finalisation of its details with the European Commission and individual member states. The proposals classify AI tools based on perceived risk levels and impose different obligations on governments and companies accordingly.
Following a plenary vote in June, the bill will be subject to "trilogue" talks involving representatives of the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union, and the European Commission. The final terms are expected to be agreed upon before a grace period of approximately two years for compliance with the regulations.
Zoho, India's biggest software products company, yesterday announced investments to step up what it calls its upmarket growth in India – meaning sales to the larger companies rather than the SMB segment.
The SaaS company saw a 65 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in annual recurring revenue (ARR) within the mid-market and enterprise segment over the past three years, accounting for more than 50 percent of its ARR in India, Chennai-based Zoho said in a press release.
Zoho made a similar announcement in early May, and the company didn't give any financial details of its investments.
IBM yesterday said it had acquired Agyla SAS, a prominent cloud professional services provider based in France. This move aims to enhance IBM Consulting's localised cloud expertise for French clients and expand its hybrid multi-cloud services portfolio, the company said in a press release.
With this acquisition, IBM further strengthens its hybrid cloud and AI strategy in the region. This marks IBM's sixth acquisition of 2023, as the company continues to bolster its hybrid cloud and AI capabilities.
Uber has invested $20 million in Mumbai-based fleet management company Everest Fleet to support its transition to electric vehicles (EVs), TechCrunch reports. Everest Fleet manages over 10,000 vehicles operating on ride-sharing platforms Uber and Ola in India.
The funds will be used to accelerate the adoption of EVs, with a target of having 10,000 EVs in its fleet by 2026. Uber sees fleets like Everest as crucial in overcoming challenges related to charging infrastructure and the affordability of EVs for Indian drivers.
Accenture plans to invest $3 billion over three years in its Data & AI practice, joining the roster of global tech services and consulting giants investing heavily in generative AI, including Indian rivals Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services. Accenture also plans to double its AI workforce to 80,000. This news comes three months after the company announced 19,000 job cuts to reduce costs. Also, in this brief, India's technology minister reacts to Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey's allegations of bullying by the Indian government, including during the farmer protests in 2021.
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Twitter's co-founder Jack Dorsey has touched off another round of outrage in India, saying in a recent interview that India frequently demanded the removal of posts and accounts critical of the government, often threatening legal action against the social media platform, TechCrunch reports.
Dorsey claimed the Indian government threatened to shut down Twitter's operations, raid employees' homes, and close its offices. Twitter initially resisted such demands but eventually complied with India's new IT regulations.
India's technology minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar has refuted Dorsey's statements, accusing Twitter of violating Indian laws and disregarding the country's sovereignty.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) experienced a significant outage yesterday, affecting numerous major websites in the US, including The Boston Globe and the Metropolitan Transit Authority in New York City. The outage disrupted the ability of news organizations to publish coverage of former President Donald Trump's court appearance in Miami. The outage has been resolved.
Accenture has announced a $3 billion investment over three years in its Data & AI practice, joining the list of global tech services and consulting giants investing heavily in generative AI, including Indian rivals Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services.
Accenture also plans to double its AI workforce to 80,000 professionals through hiring, acquisitions, and training, according to a press release yesterday. This announcement comes three months after the company announced 19,000 job cuts to reduce costs.
As part of the investment, Accenture has launched a platform called AI Navigator for Enterprise. The company will also establish a Center for Advanced AI to maximize the value of generative AI and other emerging AI capabilities.
Infosys Finacle, the core banking software subsidiary of Infosys, has won a contract from Belgium's Keytrade Bank to modernize its core banking system to make the bank's operations more efficient and provide a better customer experience.
This implementation will replace the bank's legacy banking systems, Infosys said in a press release. The bank is subscribing to Finacle via a software-as-a-service model on Microsoft's Azure cloud.
Hyderabad is set to host the Second India Data Observability Conference this Friday, June 16, organized by Unravel Data, a data observability platform provider.
Researchers from Macquarie University, in collaboration with teams from Japan, the Netherlands, and Italy, have achieved a new speed record for an industry-standard optical fibre. The breakthrough was made possible by a compact glass chip developed by Macquarie University, which allows signals to be fed into the fibre's cores simultaneously with low levels of losses.
The government of India has tasked the country's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) with investigating an alleged data breach revealing personal details of people vaccinated against Covid-19. Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar tweeted that a "Telegram bot" accessing previously stolen data was the culprit and that there was no direct breach. Reddit went down yesterday after thousands of 'sub-reddits' went dark to protest a new API policy. Also in this brief, Stellaris and Entrepreneur First ran a hackathon around generative AI.
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India's Health Ministry has dismissed reports of a data breach in the CoWIN (Covid Vaccine Intelligence Network) portal, calling them "mischievous in nature," The Hindu reports.
The ministry stated that the portal is safe and has adequate safeguards for data privacy. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has been asked to investigate the issue and provide a report.
Electronics and Technology Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar clarified on Twitter that the CoWIN app or database was not directly breached, but rather data accessed by a Telegram bot seemed to be previously breached or stolen data from another source.
Concerns have been raised about the integration of CoWIN with other apps such as Aarogya Setu and UMANG, which provide services for registration, appointment scheduling, and certification of COVID vaccinations. The current data breach appears to be possible by entering a person's mobile number, which would reveal sensitive information like identification numbers, gender, date of birth, and vaccination center details, according to The Hindu.
Reddit experienced a widespread outage as thousands of its communities went dark to protest the company's new API policy, TechCrunch reports. The planned protest, aimed at challenging a policy that would eliminate third-party apps, caused Reddit's website to go down.
The protest was in response to Reddit's new API pricing policy, which would significantly increase costs for developers, leading to the closure of many third-party Reddit apps.
Salesforce has introduced its own AI Cloud, a suite of capabilities designed to improve customer experiences and company productivity through generative artificial intelligence (AI) for enterprise applications.
The AI Cloud helps sales reps to auto-generate personalized emails, service teams to create tailored chat replies and case summaries, marketers to engage customers with personalized content, commerce teams to provide customized recommendations, and developers to auto-generate code and predict potential bugs.
The AI Cloud Starter pack is available for $360,000 annually and includes essential components and an AI-readiness assessment from Salesforce Professional Services.
Stellaris Venture Partners and Entrepreneur First organized a Generative AI Hackathon in Bengaluru focused on the theme "AI for India."
More than 150 participants formed 60 teams to develop innovative AI solutions for India-specific challenges. Notable projects included an emergency response application, a generative video solution, and a platform for rural India to access government schemes.
Uber has announced a new integration of Amazon's voice assistant, Alexa, with its Uber Eats app, developed by the company's engineers in India. The integration allows Uber Eats users in the US to track their food orders using their Amazon Echo devices.
India’s OTT businesses are pushing back against a government mandate to curtail the glorification of cigarette and tobacco use online. The Internet and Mobile Association of India has flagged “fundamental concerns” and “practical difficulties” in complying with the new rules that the government issued last month, Economic Times reports. Meanwhile, Disney+ Hotstar is looking to win some users back, by offering cricket streaming free to mobile users, TechCrunch reports. Also in this brief, QNu Labs wins an Indian Navy contract; Capillary makes another buy; and Tiki shuts down.
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India’s OTT businesses are pushing back against a government mandate to curtail the glorification of cigarette use online. The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) has flagged “fundamental concerns” and “practical difficulties” in complying with the new rules that the government issued last month to include anti-tobacco warnings on video streaming platforms, Economic Times reports.
On May 31, the health ministry notified amendments in the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2004, which mandate over-the-top (OTT) video streaming platforms to display anti-tobacco warnings and disclaimers on the lines of such warnings displayed in movies in theatres.
Disney+ Hotstar has decided to offer free streaming of cricket tournaments to mobile users in India, following the success of Reliance's JioCinema, which has attracted millions of viewers, TechCrunch reports.
The move comes after JioCinema surpassed Hotstar's record for concurrent views during the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament.
WhatsApp last week announced the launch of WhatsApp Channels, a feature that allows users to follow people and organizations within the app. Initially rolling out in Singapore and Colombia, Channels will offer a private way to communicate, with phone numbers and personal information of both admins and followers kept confidential, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a blog post. The one-way broadcast tool enables admins to share text, photos, videos, stickers, and polls with their followers.
Channel updates will only be stored for 30 days, and admins can even choose to block screenshots and forwards. While Channels are not end-to-end encrypted by default, WhatsApp is considering encrypted channels for specific audiences in the future. The company also plans to support admins in building businesses around their channels through payment services and promotional opportunities in the directory.
Tiki, a short-form video app, is shutting down its operations in India on June 27, joining a roster of ventures that failed to fill the void left by the ban on TikTok in India, TechCrunch reports. Despite having around 35 million monthly active users in India, Tiki announced its closure in a social media post.
QNu Labs, backed by investors including early-stage deep-tech VC firm Speciale Invest, has won a contract with the Indian Navy to deploy its Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) based systems. The Indian Navy aims to enhance its cybersecurity capabilities by using large-scale quantum-based encryption systems, making it the first agency in the country to do so.
Capillary Technologies, a customer loyalty and engagement solutions provider, has acquired Tenerity's Digital Connect Assets, expanding its presence in the US and Europe. The acquisition adds a rewards ecosystem to Capillary's portfolio and will be rebranded as Rewards+.
Infosys expects to achieve its revenue growth target of 4-7 percent in constant currency terms for the financial year 2024, company executives told investors in a conference with Morgan Stanley yesterday in Mumbai, CNBC TV18 reports. Also in this report, Germany’s Thyssenkrupp is close to a multi-billion-dollar deal to build six submarines for the Indian Navy, offering the engineering and tech knowhow for India’s Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders to execute the construction; Meta Verified comes to India; And US based Digibee, a low-code software integration platform provider, has raised $60 million
Notes
Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, has launched its verification program, Meta Verified, in India, replacing its earlier verified badge system on Facebook and Instagram, TechCrunch reports. Meta Verified aims to provide a mark of authenticity and credibility to prominent individuals, ensuring that users can trust their accounts.
The program will allow eligible users to apply for verification, which will be evaluated based on various criteria such as account completeness, adherence to community guidelines, and authenticity.
Germany’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius announced on June 6 in New Delhi that the German company Thyssenkrupp AG is likely to bid for a project to supply six submarines to the Indian Navy, Reuters reports. The move comes as India seeks to bolster its domestic defence manufacturing to counter China's increasing presence in the Indian Ocean, Reuters notes.
In a separate report, Bloomberg pegged the value of the deal – seen as a move by Germany to help India reduce its dependence on Russia – at $5.2 billion.
Thyssenkrupp's marine arm is expected to sign the deal with India's Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders, with the agreement's value estimated at around 7 billion euros. India's navy, which currently has 16 conventional submarines, approved a budget of $6.8 billion in March to replace its aging fleet.
Infosys expects to achieve its revenue growth target of 4-7 percent in constant currency terms for the financial year 2024, company executives told investors in a conference with Morgan Stanley yesterday in Mumbai, CNBC TV18 reports.
However, reaching the upper end of the range will depend on closing mega deals at a faster pace. Improving margins would be a tall task, company executives said in the conference. The external environment has remained unchanged since Infosys' last earnings announcement, and the lower end of the revenue growth guidance has already accounted for macro uncertainty, they said.
Meanwhile, Infosys founder N.R. Narayana Murthy's investment firm, Catamaran Ventures, is reportedly in advanced discussions to invest between $100 million and $150 million in Ola Electric, the electric vehicle arm of ride-hailing services provider Ola, Economic Times reports.
The potential investment is part of Ola Electric's ongoing funding round, which aims to raise $300-500 million to support its expansion plans. Ola Electric has emerged as the top electric scooter seller in India, selling 35,000 units in May, Business Standard reported on June 4.
Digibee, a low code software application integration platform provider, has raised $60 million in a recent funding round, TechCrunch reports. The investment was led by VC firm Felicis Ventures, with participation from existing investors including Wing Venture Capital and GFC.
Apple yesterday revealed its long-anticipated mixed reality headset, called Vision Pro, which the company describes as a spatial computer that merges digital content with the physical world. The pricey device will only be available next year in the US. Apple also announced a slew of other updates, including the M2 Ultra chip, new Mac computers and iOS 17. Meanwhile, Kerala has kicked off a project to bring free internet connections to the poor in the state, and at affordable rates to everyone else. A thousand households got connections upon inauguration yesterday, Manorama reports.
Notes:
Apple yesterday revealed its long-anticipated mixed reality headset, called Vision Pro, which the company describes as a spatial computer that merges digital content with the physical world. The headset can even display your eyes on its front-facing screen to show others if the headset wearer is fully immersed in something or looking at them, for example.
Apple announced the headset at its annual worldwide developer conference that started yesterday. It features an ultra-high-resolution display system that uses micro-OLED to deliver 23 million pixels spread across two displays and a dual-chip design.
With the headset, Apple also introduced visionOS, which again, Apple describes as a spatial operating system, enabling users to interact with digital content in a three-dimensional user interface controlled by natural inputs like eyes, hands, and voice.
Vision Pro's design incorporates advanced materials and a compact wearable form factor, but also an external battery pack – about the size of an iPhone – that connects to the headset via a cable. It features a high-performance eye-tracking system and a Spatial Audio system for immersive sound. Privacy and security are prioritized, with features like Optic ID for secure authentication and privacy-focused eye tracking.
The headset starts at $3,499 and will be available early next year in the US, with more countries to follow.
On the silicon front, Apple, unveiled the M2 Ultra, at the opening of its worldwide developer conference, WWDC. M2 Ultra is a powerful new system on a chip (SoC) for Mac devices. The chip offers significant performance improvements and completes the M2 family, Apple said in a press release.
Apple also announced a 15-inch MacBook Air, which features a large 15.3-inch Liquid Retina display, the M2 chip, up to 18 hours of battery life, and a six-speaker sound system. The laptop boasts a thin and light, fan-less design, making it the world's thinnest 15-inch laptop.
In the US, the 15-inch MacBook Air is available for order, with shipping starting on June 13, and pricing starts at $1,299.
Apple also announced the release of iOS 17, the next full update to its operating software for iPhones. The update includes some nifty upgrades to the Phone, FaceTime, and Messages apps, as well as new features like Journal and StandBy.
Meanwhile, Kerala has become the first Indian state to provide high-speed internet access free of cost to the poor. Some 14,000 poor households and 30,000 government offices are soon to get these connections as part of its ambitious project, the Kerala Fibre Optic Network (KFON), Manorama reports.
The initiative, launched in 2019, aims to provide internet connectivity to all of Kerala's 35 million citizens, with a particular focus on the 2 million individuals living in poverty. KFON, the first network of its kind in India, will be established across 35,000 km of optical fibre network spanning the state's 14 districts.
Apple's annual flagship meet, the worldwide developer conference starts today at 10:30 p.m. India time. On day one of the week-long events, almost everyone is expecting the iPhone maker to finally reveal its version of an extended reality headset. Apple is also widely expected to release the next iterations of its Mac computers as well as the beta version of iOS 17 operating software for its iPhones. Also in this brief, Puneet Chandok, head of AWS in India and South Asia has quit; and Venture Intelligence on how startups are faring in India at the series A level.
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Apple's annual flagship meet, the worldwide developer conference starts today at 10:30 p.m. India time. On day one of the week-long events, almost everyone is expecting Apple to announce an extended reality headset. Much of the rest of the week will be more around developer sessions.
Apple, which has come under scrutiny for taking as much as 30 percent of the in-app sales made by developers via its ecosystem, is hitting back with a report in which it says the App Store ecosystem generated an impressive $1.1 trillion in developer billings and sales in 2022.
Puneet Chandok, the head of Amazon Web Services (AWS) in India and South Asia, has resigned, surprising industry insiders just weeks after AWS announced a $12 billion investment plan for India by 2030, TechCrunch reports.
AWS confirmed the development to TechCrunch, adding that Vaishali Kasture, head of enterprise, mid-market, and global businesses at AWS India and South Asia, will assume the role of interim leader of commercial business at the unit with immediate effect.
Pixxel, a private commercial satellite company in India, has raised $36 million in a Series B funding round. The funding includes participation from new investors such as Google, alongside existing investors Radical Ventures, Lightspeed, Blume Ventures, GrowX, Sparta, and Athera, according to a press release last week.
The investment will advance Pixxel's mission to build the world's first and highest-resolution hyperspectral satellite constellation, delivering actionable climate insights globally, according to the company. It will also support the development of Aurora, Pixxel's AI-powered analytics platform for accessible hyperspectral analysis.
The funds will enable the launch of six satellites in 2024 and 18 satellites by 2025. Pixxel, founded by Awais Ahmed and Kshitij Khandelwal five years ago, has so far raised $71 million in VC money, according to the company.
A study by Venture Intelligence reveals that less than one-third of startups that receive seed funding can secure follow-on funding in the form of a Series A round. Venture Intelligence, which tracks the VC and private equity investments in India, has released the findings of its study in the 2023 edition of its series A landscape report.
Out of over 2,500 startups that raised seed funding between 2015 and 2022, only 29 percent managed to raise a Series A round, according to Venture Intelligence.
The number of companies raising Series A rounds increased by 8% annually from 2017 to 2022, which is an indication of the maturity and quality of the startup ecosystem in India, according to Venture Intelligence. The study also highlights Sequoia Capital India as the top investor in creating successful pipelines for Series A rounds, followed by Blume Ventures, Chiratae Ventures, Accel India, Elevation Capital, 3ONE4 Capital, Axilor Ventures, India Quotient, and Kae Capital.
US President Joe Biden’s administration is preparing to approve a deal that would allow General Electric (GE) to manufacture jet engines for Indian military aircraft in India, Reuters reports exclusively. Meanwhile, after setbacks to two major proposed projects, The India Semiconductor Mission is reopening its application window for semiconductor fab proposals starting today, Mint reports. Also in this report, the US is funding eight pilot projects aimed at developing nuclear fusion; and Capillary Technologies has raised $45 million in fresh funding.
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Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, is expected to visit India and participate in an event hosted by Economic Times and sponsored by Tata Consultancy Services, according to announcements that have appeared in the newspaper for the past few days. The event is scheduled for June 7 in New Delhi.
India has launched a pilot project called Electronics Repair Services Outsourcing (ERSO) to make India the global repair hub. The project, supported by the Ministry of Electronics & IT, aims to attract outsourced repair services for ICT products and generate revenue of up to $20 billion over the next five years.
US President Joe Biden’s administration is preparing to approve a deal that would allow General Electric (GE) to manufacture jet engines for Indian military aircraft in India, Reuters reports exclusively.
The agreement, which is expected to be announced during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the United States on June 22, aims to deepen military and technology ties between the two countries as a counterweight to China's influence in the region.
Meanwhile, India's plans to establish semiconductor manufacturing facilities have suffered setbacks as two major projects face hurdles, Reuters reported yesterday in a separate report. A $3 billion facility by chip consortium ISMC, with Israeli chipmaker Tower as a partner, has been stalled due to Intel's ongoing takeover of Tower.
Additionally, a $19.5 billion joint venture between India's Vedanta and Taiwan's Foxconn is progressing slowly, with talks to involve European chipmaker STMicroelectronics deadlocked.
The India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) is reopening its application window for semiconductor fab proposals starting today, Mint reports. This decision comes after the initial application period in January 2022 yielded only three applicants for 28nm fabs.
In some renewable energy news, The US Department of Energy yesterday said that eight American companies working on nuclear fusion energy will receive $46 million in taxpayer funding to pursue pilot plants. These plants aim to generate power from fusion, a process that mimics the energy source of the sun and stars.
Capillary Technologies, a Bengaluru SaaS company in the loyalty management space, has secured $45 million in funding to expand globally and pursue mergers and acquisitions, TechCrunch reports.
Led by Avataar Ventures, the Series D round saw participation from Pantheon, 57Stars, Unigestion, Filter Capital, and Innoven Capital. Capillary Technologies, founded in 2012, offers loyalty management and customer engagement solutions.
India's state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC) has announced plans to invest Rs. 1 trillion ($12.1 billion) by 2030 to increase its renewable energy capacity and reduce direct emissions. The company aims to scale up its renewable energy capacity to 10 gigawatts (GW) by 2030, a significant increase from the current 189 megawatts. The world’s biggest AI experts have captured in one sentence the risk of AI. Blackrock, the world’s biggest money manager, has slashed the valuation of BYJU'S by 62 percent. Also in this brief, the C919, China’s challenge to Airbus-Boeing takes flight.
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Some of the world’s top AI experts, including Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, have signed a short statement to make it easy for everyone to understand that the risk of extinction of the human race due to artificial intelligence is very real.
“Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,” the statement reads, published by the Center for AI Safety.
Among the other signatories on the list, which runs into a couple of hundred experts from around the world, are Geoffrey Hinton, Emeritus Professor of Computer Science, University of Toronto, A pioneer in the field of deep learning and neural networks; Yoshua Bengio, Professor of Computer Science, U. Montreal / Mila, a leading researcher in the field of deep learning and co-founder of the deep learning framework, "Theano"; Demis Hassabis, CEO, Google DeepMind, an influential figure in the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and deep reinforcement learning; and Dario Amodei, CEO, Anthropic.
India's state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC) has announced plans to invest Rs. 1 trillion ($12.1 billion) by 2030 to increase its renewable energy capacity and reduce direct emissions. The company aims to scale up its renewable energy capacity to 10 gigawatts (GW) by 2030, a significant increase from the current 189 megawatts.
ONGC's chairman, Arun Kumar Singh, said that while fossil fuel demand in India may continue to grow until 2040, the company is committed to balancing its portfolio with green energy projects.
Amazon India has launched a limited introduction of bill payments at select restaurants using Amazon Pay. The feature, currently available in certain areas of Bengaluru, allows users to make payments using various methods such as credit/debit cards, net banking, UPI, Amazon Pay Later, TechCrunch reports.
China's domestically built passenger jet, the C919, completed its maiden commercial flight, on May 28, marking a significant milestone in the country's ambition to challenge the aircraft manufacturing duopoly of Boeing and Airbus, Quartz reports.
The Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac) developed the C919, which flew from Shanghai to Beijing with approximately 130 passengers on board. Despite facing delays and design flaws, Comac has signed contracts for 1,035 C919 jets with several dozen customers.
Blackrock, the world’s biggest money manager, has slashed the valuation of BYJU'S by 62 percent to $8.4 billion in the March quarter, down from its previous valuation of $22 billion, The Hindu Business Line reports. This marks the second markdown by Blackrock, which holds a 0.9 percent stake in the company.
The funding winter and worsening macroeconomic conditions have prompted private investors to reduce valuations of several start-up unicorns, with cuts ranging from 30-50 percent, according to the report.
JioCinema set a new global record for concurrent views during a live-streamed event, yesterday attracting more than 33 million simultaneous viewers for the Indian Premier League cricket tournament finale, surpassing the previous record held by Disney's Hotstar, TechCrunch reports. Apple is expected to introduce new Mac models at its upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), according to Bloomberg. Also in this brief, a US fund has cut the value of Indian ed-tech unicorn Eruditus
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JioCinema set a new global record for concurrent views during a live-streamed event, yesterday, attracting more than 33 million simultaneous viewers for the Indian Premier League cricket tournament finale, surpassing the previous record held by Disney's Hotstar, TechCrunch reports.
Hotstar's record of 25.3 million concurrent viewers had remained unchallenged for years. Viacom18, which secured the digital rights for IPL in a $3 billion bidding war against Disney, offered free streaming of the tournament through its JioCinema app. The move is seen as a potential game-changer in the South Asian streaming landscape.
Apple is expected to introduce new Mac models at its upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Although WWDC is primarily focused on software, it has historically seen the launch of new Macs and related technologies. Gurman suggests that Apple will facilitate the purchase of these new models by expanding its trade-in program to include the Mac Studio, 13-inch M2 MacBook Air, and 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro.
Trade-ins for these current-gen versions are anticipated to begin on June 5, the same day as the start of WWDC.
A Japanese public-private partnership is set to embark on an ambitious project aimed at beaming solar energy from space to ground-based receiving stations as early as 2025, engadget reports. The initiative, led by JAXA, Japan's equivalent of NASA, builds upon previous successes in wireless power transmission.
The goal is to create a satellite array capable of generating 1 gigawatt of power, equivalent to the output of a nuclear reactor. However, this ambitious endeavour is estimated to cost $7 billion with existing technologies.
Toyota Motor Corp has become the first automaker to enter a racing car powered by liquid hydrogen into an official race, Japan Today reports. The move is part of Toyota's efforts to promote hydrogen as a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels.
Hydrogen-powered vehicles do not emit carbon dioxide when burned. Toyota believes that offering a variety of green vehicles, including hybrids and hydrogen-powered cars like their mass-produced Mirai fuel cell vehicle, is more effective in reducing carbon footprints than solely focusing on electric vehicles.
The race at Fuji Speedway in Japan aims to test the functionality and address challenges of using liquid hydrogen as a fuel source.
The Private Shares Fund, a US-based asset management firm, has lowered the fair value of edtech unicorn Eruditus by 9% in the first quarter of 2023, Moneycontrol reports. The fund, which holds a 0.2% stake in Eruditus, now values the company at $2.9 billion, down from its previous valuation of $3.2 billion.
OpenAI has expanded the availability of its ChatGPT app for iOS users in 33 countries, including India, where a subscription costs just under Rs. 1,000 a month. Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar has stated that the upcoming Digital Personal Data Protection Bill in India will bring about significant changes in the behaviour of platforms that have exploited or misused personal data, according to a Press Trust of India report carried by Hindustan Times. Also in this brief, WhatsApp is said to be working on a screen-sharing feature.
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OpenAI has expanded the availability of its ChatGPT app for iOS users in 33 countries, including India, Algeria, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, Poland, and the United Arab Emirates, TechCrunch reports. This comes just a week after the app's launch in the United States.
Within six days of its initial availability, the ChatGPT mobile app surpassed half a million downloads, making it one of the most successful new apps. It also outperformed other AI and chatbot apps, as well as Microsoft Edge and Bing apps, in terms of downloads in the U.S. since its launch, according to TechCrunch.
OpenAI's ChatGPT app allows users to interact with the AI-based chatbot on their iPhones. It offers voice input through Whisper, supports advanced features for ChatGPT Plus subscribers, and enables direct subscription to ChatGPT Plus for $20 per month in the U.S., all while being ad-free and available for free download.
In India subscription to the paid version costs Rs. 999 per month or Rs. 7,900 as a lifetime purchase, according to the plans on offer via the app.
Meanwhile, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has reversed his earlier statements and clarified that the company has no plans to leave Europe, despite expressing concerns about the European Union's proposed AI Act, CNBC reports. Altman had initially threatened to cease operations in Europe if the regulations were too stringent.
Twitter has withdrawn from the European Union's voluntary agreement to combat online disinformation, according to European Commissioner Thierry Breton. While other major social media platforms have pledged to support the EU's disinformation "code of practice," Twitter has chosen to opt-out.
WhatsApp is said to be working on enhancing its video calling experience with a new feature that allows users to share their screens during video calls, Mint reports, citing a website called WABetaInfo. The feature is reportedly being tested by Android beta testers who have installed the latest version of WhatsApp beta for Android.
Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar has stated that the upcoming Digital Personal Data Protection Bill in India will bring about significant changes in the behaviour of platforms that have exploited or misused personal data, according to a Press Trust of India report carried by Hindustan Times.
Chandrasekhar clarified that the proposed government-appointed fact-check body is not about censorship but rather providing an opportunity for the government to counter misinformation related to it.
Microsoft President Brad Smith has raised concerns about artificial intelligence churning out deep fakes, false but highly realistic content. In a speech in Washington, Smith emphasized the need to address deep fakes and protect against foreign cyber influence operations, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, India didn’t figure in the list of markets as OpenAI expanded its iOS app to 11 countries. Snapchat hits 200 million active users in India, and also in this brief, Matrix Partners India has closed its latest fund at $550 million.
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Microsoft President Brad Smith yesterday expressed concerns regarding artificial intelligence churning out deep fakes, false but highly realistic content.
In a speech in Washington, Smith emphasized the need to address deep fakes and protect against foreign cyber influence operations, Reuters reports.
He called for measures to inform people whether a photo or video is genuine or AI-generated, aiming to prevent deception or fraud through the use of AI. Smith also advocated for licensing critical forms of AI to ensure security, cybersecurity, and national security obligations.
Smith echoed the call for global cooperation on AI and incentivized safety compliance. He also emphasized accountability for AI-related issues and the importance of human control over critical infrastructure, proposing safety brakes. Additionally, Smith suggested implementing a system similar to "Know Your Customer" to monitor AI developers and inform the public about AI-generated content.
Meanwhile, OpenAI has expanded the availability of its ChatGPT app for iOS to 11 additional countries, excluding India, Mint reports.
The app, which allows users to ask questions using voice also, is now accessible in nations including France, the UK, Jamaica, Korea, Ireland, Nicaragua, Albania, and Croatia. Mira Murati, CTO at OpenAI, announced the expansion on Twitter, mentioning that the app would be introduced to more countries soon.
OpenAI aims to make state-of-the-art research more accessible and plans to release a free app for Android devices in the future.
Snapchat has achieved a significant milestone by surpassing 200 million monthly active users in India, with 120 million of them engaging with content on the platform, according to parent company Snap Inc., Mint reports.
To celebrate this achievement, Snap Inc. has introduced an experimental AI-powered chatbot called My AI, tailored for Snapchat. The chatbot can provide personalized recommendations for birthday gifts, plan weekend trips, and even suggest dinner recipes.
Snap Inc. attributes its success in India to the local platform experience, content initiatives, partnerships, and a dedicated focus on regional creators, along with the popularity of augmented reality (AR) features.
Matrix Partners India has successfully closed its latest fund, raising over $550 million in commitments, the VC firm said in a newsletter yesterday. Matrix aims to invest in exceptional founders and assist in building ground-breaking companies, focusing on seed, early, and early growth stages across various sectors.
India's digital economy, expected to reach $2 to $3 trillion in the next decade, presents a lucrative opportunity for founders to create disruptive businesses. Matrix Partners India expresses gratitude to founders and long-term investors, while also expanding its physical presence in Gurugram to engage with India's flourishing startup ecosystem.
Apple yesterday announced a new partnership with Broadcom to develop 5G radio frequency components and wireless connectivity components. Separately, Wistron, a contract manufacturing supplier to Apple, has shut its operations in India, Mint reports. Also in this brief, Infosys Topaz is a new suite of services based on generative AI with specific use cases in different industry verticals; Microsoft is showcasing Jugalbandi, an AI assistant in local Indian languages; And Matrix Partners India is raising the target for its fourth fund to $525 million, TechCrunch reports.
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Apple yesterday announced a new multi-billion-dollar partnership with Broadcom to develop 5G radio frequency components and wireless connectivity components. Broadcom will design and build FBAR filters in the US, the company said in a press release.
These investments align with Apple's 2021 commitment to invest $430 billion in the US economy over five years, the company said. The components Apple is sourcing from Broadcom are different from the 5G modems that are made by Qualcomm, CNBC points out.
Apple, which already makes its own processors, has also been trying to make its own 5G modems to cut its dependence on Qualcomm. It’s not immediately clear if this deal with Broadcom will help Apple further that aim.
Meanwhile, Apple’s contract manufacturer Wistron has halted iPhone production in India due to its inability to make profits under Apple's terms, Mint reports. Wistron, a smaller company compared with Foxconn and Pegatron, was unable to negotiate higher margins with Apple, according to the report.
Anthropic, an AI startup founded by former OpenAI executives, has raised $450 million in funding, making it the largest AI funding round this year, CNBC reports.
Lead investors include Google, Salesforce Ventures, Zoom Ventures, and Spark Capital. Anthropic, known for its chatbot Claude, aims to develop generative AI models aligned with human values.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is showcasing an example of how generative AI could help far-flung rural Indian communities. Jugalbandi, an AI assistant developed by AI4Bharat, an Indian AI for development initiative, backed by the government, and supported by Microsoft and Infosys Chairman Nandan Nilekani, is using generative AI to develop a mobile assistant that provides information on government schemes in multiple languages.
Microsoft Build, the company’s annual flagship conference concludes tomorrow. The company has announced the expansion of several projects, including its copilot products and ChatGPT plugins.
Infosys yesterday launched Infosys Topaz, an AI-based suite of services, solutions, and platforms that use generative AI technologies. Infosys Topaz combines the company’s suite of cloud services, called Cobalt, and AI to drive business growth, foster connected ecosystems, and unlock efficiencies at scale, the company said in a press release.
Matrix Partners India has increased its current fund target to $525 million, surpassing its initial disclosure of $450 million, TechCrunch reports.
Indian American entrepreneur Naval Ravikant has co-founded a new social media app called Airchat. The app, currently in beta testing, attempts to offer a new approach to social media by focusing on conversations and interactions.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has been hit with a record-breaking fine of 1.2 billion Euro ($1.3 billion) by European Union regulators for violating EU privacy laws. Meanwhile, the company’s WhatsApp unit announced that messages on its platform will soon be editable for up to 15 minutes after they are sent. The feature is rolling out worldwide. Also in this brief, TCS announced a generative AI bespoke service as part of its partnership with Google Cloud; And Mumbai startup Chalo raises $45 million in fresh funding led by Avataar Ventures.
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WhatsApp yesterday announced that you can now edit your messages for up to 15 minutes after sending them. Whether it is correcting a simple misspelling or adding more context to a message, users only need to long-press on a sent message and choose ‘Edit’ from the menu that pops up, the company said in a press release.
Edited messages will display ‘edited’ next to them, so those you’re messaging are aware of the change, but without showing edit history. As with the regular messages, media and calls, the edited ones are also protected by end-to-end encryption, according to WhatsApp.
This feature has started rolling out to users globally and will be available to everyone in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has been hit with a record-breaking fine of €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) by European Union regulators for violating EU privacy laws, CNN reports.
The fine follows an inquiry by the Irish Data Protection Commission and highlights the uncertainty surrounding the legal transfer of EU users' data to servers outside the EU. The European Data Protection Board stated that Meta's processing and storage of personal data in the US violated the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
This fine is the largest ever imposed under the GDPR, surpassing the previous record set against Amazon in 2021. Meta has been ordered to cease processing the personal data of European users in the US within six months. The company plans to appeal the ruling.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) yesterday announced an expanded partnership with Google Cloud and the launch of its new service, TCS Generative AI. This collaboration aims to provide bespoke business solutions that leverage Google Cloud's generative AI services to accelerate clients' growth and transformation, the company said in a press release.
Chalo, a startup in Mumbai, has raised $45 million in a Series D funding round and secured an additional $12 million in debt as it seeks to enhance its mobility offerings and expand into more international markets, TechCrunch reports.
The funding round was led by Avataar Ventures, with participation from existing investors Lightrock India, WaterBridge Ventures, and former Google executive Amit Singhal. The debt financing came from Trifecta and Stride Ventures. The latest investment brings the company’s total funding to $88.6 million according to private markets insights provider Tracxn.
The company is currently operating in over 50 cities in India, tracking more than 15,000 buses, and has plans to expand its fleet of e-vehicles and enter additional international markets.
Leaders of the Group of Seven nations have called for the development of technical standards to ensure trustworthy artificial intelligence, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, OpenAI has introduced an official iOS app for ChatGPT, bringing its popular AI chatbot to mobile devices, according to a blog post from the company over the weekend. Also in this brief, Amazon Web Services, the world’s biggest cloud provider, has announced a massive investment in India; IBM announces a new quantum computing R&D partnership and Krafton gets another shot at India for PUBG aka BGMI.
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Instagram experienced a widespread technical issue on May 21, disrupting services for thousands of users. However, the platform is now back up for most users after the problem was resolved, according to a spokesperson from Meta, Reuters reports.
Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) nations have called for the development of technical standards to ensure trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI), Reuters reports. During their meeting in Hiroshima, Japan, the G7 leaders acknowledged the need for governance of AI to keep pace with its rapid growth.
The G7 leaders agreed to establish a ministerial forum called the "Hiroshima AI process" to address issues related to generative AI, such as copyrights and disinformation, according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, OpenAI has introduced an official iOS app for ChatGPT, bringing its popular AI chatbot to mobile devices, according to a blog post from the company over the weekend.
The app, which will initially be available only to users in the US, offers free access to ChatGPT without any advertisements. Users can interact with the AI chatbot using voice input as well.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced a plan to invest $12.7 billion (INR 1,05,600 crores) in cloud infrastructure in India by 2030 to meet the growing demand for cloud services.
This investment is expected to contribute $23.3 billion (INR 1,94,700 crores) to India's GDP and create an estimated average of 131,700 full-time equivalents (FTE) jobs annually, the world’s biggest cloud technologies company said in a press release on Friday.
IBM has announced a 10-year, $100 million initiative in collaboration with the University of Tokyo and the University of Chicago to develop a quantum-centric supercomputer, the company said in a press release yesterday.
The supercomputer will be powered by 100,000 qubits and will have the potential to tackle complex problems that current supercomputers cannot solve, such as understanding chemical reactions, modelling climate change, and developing sustainable materials and fertilizers.
South Korean gaming company Krafton has received approval from Indian authorities to resume operations of Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), the popular battle royale mobile game. BGMI was launched after the Indian government banned PUBG, the original version of the game, TechCrunch reports.
The approval has been initially granted for a three-month trial period, during which the government will monitor user-related issues such as addiction and harm. The move to resume operations comes as India considers lifting bans on various apps previously linked to China, according to TechCrunch.
A consortium led by Tata Consultancy Services has received an Advance Purchase Order valued over Rs 15,000 crore from BSNL for the deployment of a 4G network across India.
Apple yesterday announced new software features for cognitive, speech, and vision accessibility. These updates, set to launch later this year, include assistive access, live speech, personal voice, and point and speak in the magnifier app, the company said in a press release. Also in this brief, Infosys and bp signed an MoU to deepen their partnership. This helps Infosys “solidify” its 20-year-old relationship as the primary provider of IT application services to the British energy company, India’s second-biggest IT company said in a press release yesterday.
Vice Media, the New York media and entertainment company that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this week owes Indian IT services company Wipro around $10 million, Economic Times reports.
Wipro is the largest unsecured creditor of Vice Media, whose eponymous magazines in the US and UK became famous.
OpenAI is preparing to release a new open-source language model to the public, Reuters reports, citing The Information. The new model is reportedly based on OpenAI's ChatGPT model, which is known for its ability to produce human-like text. OpenAI has not yet announced a release date for the new model, but it is expected to be available in the coming months.
Apple yesterday announced new software features for cognitive, speech, and vision accessibility. These updates, set to launch later this year.
Assistive Access aims to lighten the cognitive load for users with cognitive disabilities by distilling apps and experiences to their essential features. It offers a customized experience for essential activities such as making calls, sending messages, taking photos, and listening to music.
Live Speech enables users who are nonspeaking or at risk of losing their ability to speak to type what they want to say, and the text is then spoken out loud during calls and conversations.
Personal Voice is designed for users at risk of losing their ability to speak, such as those with conditions like ALS. It allows users to create a synthetic voice that sounds like them by recording 15 minutes of audio using randomized text prompts.
For individuals with vision disabilities, the Detection Mode in Magnifier offers Point and Speak. This feature uses the device's camera, LiDAR Scanner, and on-device machine learning to identify and announce the text on physical objects such as household appliances.
Separately, MacRumours reports that according to analyst Ross Young, Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max models are expected to feature larger screen sizes, while the standard iPhone 16 will retain a 6.1-inch display.
WeWork CEO Sandeep Mathrani has announced his resignation amidst the company's ongoing restructuring efforts, Reuters reports. Mathrani's decision comes as WeWork strives to regain stability following a tumultuous period in its history.
The co-working space provider had faced challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a shift towards remote work. Mathrani, who joined WeWork in 2020, will continue to serve as CEO until a suitable successor is appointed.
WeWork, once valued at $47 billion, has encountered setbacks including mounting losses and controversies surrounding its governance.
Infosys has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with bp to consolidate its position as the British energy company’s primary partner for end-to-end application services, the IT services company said in a press release yesterday.
In today’s quick take, we teamed up with our own Naini Thaker, an avid IPL watcher and OTT aficionado, to help us make sense of the news that Disney+ Hotstar lost 15-16 percent of its India paid subscriber base between October 2022 and March 2023. Naini also walks us through the news that a substantial portion of HBO’s premium content will now only be available on Jio Cinema. She unpacks what this means, including Jio Cinema’s emergence as an OTT force that you will have to embrace to find your favourite HBO show.
Foxconn, a key Apple contractor, is set to invest $500 million in setting up manufacturing plants in Telangana. This move demonstrates Foxconn's intent to expand its presence in India as Apple pushes its biggest partners to step up efforts to help it reduce dependence on China. The EU has okayed Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, making it a direct competitor to Sony and Nintendo. Also in this brief, WhatsApp has added a security feature to protect “intimate” conversations, and Amazon is laying off employees across various functions in India, Economic Times reports.
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Amazon is laying off employees across various functions in India, Economic Times reports. The move comes as the e-commerce giant evaluates and reshapes its operations in the country. While the exact number of affected employees remains undisclosed, at least 500 people may have been fired, according to ET.
WhatsApp has unveiled a new feature called Chat Lock, aimed at bolstering privacy for users' intimate conversations. With concerns surrounding data security on the rise, the feature provides an additional layer of authentication to safeguard personal information.
By activating Chat Lock, users can lock specific chats behind fingerprint or facial recognition. This serves as an effective barrier against unauthorized access, particularly if someone gains physical access to a user's device.
Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard has received approval from the European Commission, marking a significant milestone in the tech giant's expansion into the gaming industry, The Verge reports.
The deal, which was announced earlier this year, was subject to regulatory scrutiny to ensure it did not violate competition laws. The European Commission's decision follows a similar green light from the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
According to a report by The Verge yesterday, the European Commission has given its consent for the acquisition, stating that it "would raise no competition concerns in the European Economic Area." This approval paves the way for Microsoft to finalize its $68.7 billion purchase of the renowned game publisher and developer.
Foxconn, a key Apple contract manufacturer, is set to invest $500 million in setting up manufacturing plants in Telangana, a southern state in India. This move demonstrates Foxconn's intent to expand its presence in India as Apple and its biggest partners step up efforts to reduce dependence on China.
The investment is expected to create 25,000 direct jobs in the initial phase, as stated by K.T. Rama Rao, Telangana's IT minister in a tweet yesterday.
Foxconn has been manufacturing iPhones in India and recently won a bid to manufacture AirPods in the country. It also purchased land worth $37 million in Bengaluru earlier this month, according to TechCrunch. The Indian government's financial incentives to promote local manufacturing, initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have attracted commitments from various companies, including Foxconn, Wistron, and Pegatron.
JP Morgan analysts predict that by 2025, India could account for 25 percent of all iPhones manufactured by Apple.
Apple is likely to unveil a high-end mixed reality headset at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. The headset will likely have an internal screen for virtual reality and outward-facing cameras for augmented reality overlays. It is said to be experimental relative to other Apple products, with a waist-mounted external battery pack, and a price tag of around $3,000 (which was also previously reported by The Information). We invited Milind Manoj, co-founder and CEO of PupilMesh, an AR hardware and software tech startup in Bengaluru, to give us his perspective.
Elon Musk, who is amidst a transition to a new CEO to take his place at Twitter, has come under criticism for allegedly giving in to government pressure to censor tweets ahead of national elections in Turkey, according to multiple reports. Apple’s next more powerful processor, the M3 chip is expected later this year, according to Bloomberg. The company is also expected to unveil its long-anticipated virtual reality and augmented reality headset at its worldwide developer conference next month. Also in this brief, India is developing a nationwide system to help people block their lost mobile devices.
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Nearly half of all internet traffic in 2022 was generated by bots, according to a report by Imperva Research Labs, Security Magazine reports.
The report found that 47 percent of all traffic came from bots, including both "good" bots like search engine crawlers and "bad" bots like those used for web scraping and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.
India is set to launch a nationwide system to combat mobile device theft, according to a Press Trust of India report that appeared in various publications.
The system will enable mobile phone users to block and track their lost or stolen devices and track their devices using GPS technology.
Elon Musk, who is amidst a transition to a new CEO to take his place at Twitter, has come under criticism for allegedly giving in to government pressure to censor tweets ahead of national elections in Turkey, according to multiple reports.
Critics argue that Musk, who has been a vocal advocate for free speech, is an opportunist who has compromised his values for business interests. The controversy stems from SpaceX's dealings with Turkey's right-wing leader, which some speculate may have influenced Musk's decision to reverse his stance on censorship.
“The choice is to have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets. Which one do you want?” Musk tweeted yesterday, in response to one critic. He added in another tweet that all internet companies are doing this around the world, while Twitter is only being clear about it.
Meanwhile, Musk has recruited Linda Yaccarino, until last week the chairman of advertising and partnerships at NBC Universal Media, as the new CEO of Twitter.
Musk confirmed rumours that Yaccarino would lead Twitter in a tweet on Friday. She’s expected to take charge in six weeks.
Apple is working on its next silicon, the M3 chip for Mac, which features improved CPU, GPU, and RAM specifications, Bloomberg’s Apple watcher Mark Gurman reports.
The M3 chip is expected to be available in the latter half of 2023, and it is anticipated to be a significant upgrade over Apple's previous chips.
Apple is also likely to unveil a high-end mixed reality headset at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June, MacRumours reports, citing a Wall Street Journal report that’s behind a paywall.
The headset will have an internal screen for virtual reality and outward-facing cameras for augmented reality overlays. It is said to be unconventional and experimental relative to other Apple products, with a waist-mounted external battery pack, and a price tag of around $3,000.
After Elon Musk’s tweet that he has found a new CEO for Twitter and that he would take the CTO’s role, the name of Linda Yaccarino, a senior executive at NBC Universal Media in the US, has emerged as the person who is tipped to lead Twitter. In today’s Quick Take, we talk about if this will have any bearing on Twitter’s plans in India and how Yaccarino, a top marketer, might bring her perspective to one of the world’s biggest social media platforms. Twitter with its strong tech underpinnings, also has a vibrant base of users among India’s startup entrepreneurs.
Hyundai Motor has pledged to invest $2.45 billion in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu over the next decade to boost its electric vehicle plans, according to multiple reports yesterday. WhatsApp has rolled out back-end updates to address the surge in spam calls, which have been a major problem for users in India. Also in this brief, Julia programming language’s version 1.9 is out, and Google has launched its latest budget smartphone, the Pixel 7a, in India at a price of Rs43,999, TechCrunch reports.
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Hyundai Motor has pledged to invest $2.45bn in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu over the next decade to boost its electric vehicle (EV) plans, according to multiple reports yesterday.
The South Korean automaker signed an agreement with the state government of Tamil Nadu to increase production capacity at its Sriperumbudur plant and assemble EV battery packs, as well as to install 100 charging stations across the state in the next five years.
Hyundai Motor India's managing director said the long-term investment would enhance manufacturing capabilities and increase production volumes to create the best EVs and internal combustion engines in Tamil Nadu for the rest of the world. Tamil Nadu currently accounts for almost 6 percent of all EVs manufactured in India, according to the state's industries minister.
WhatsApp has rolled out back-end updates to address the surge in spam calls, which have been a major problem for users in India. The messaging app, owned by Meta, has bolstered its AI and ML systems to counter the issue, which has led to widespread reports of harassment and scams through fraudulent calls from unknown international numbers.
The new measures are expected to reduce spam calls by at least 50 percent, the company said in an emailed statement yesterday.
Julia, the popular programming language for scientific data analysis, has released a new upgrade, version 1.9, that eliminates the issue of slow start-up times for complex packages, according to a press release from JuliaHub yesterday.
The update allows Julia to generate and save machine code for packages when they are installed, which Julia reuses every time it is launched, making it much snappier for day-to-day usage. Core contributors to the new version include JuliaHub, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, among others.
Julia is open source and free to download and is rapidly being adopted by scientists doing exploratory data analysis. It is also used in the pharmaceutical industry for modelling drug interactions and vaccine dosing, among other applications.
Google has launched its latest budget smartphone, the Pixel 7a, in India at a price of ₹43,999 ($536), TechCrunch reports. While this is not an affordable price for the Indian market, it is closer to the US price of $499 (₹40,937).
The company will also continue to sell the Pixel 6a in India with a reduced price tag of ₹29,999 (~$365) to make it more affordable for customers. Despite marketing efforts, Google has yet to capture any significant market share in India, which saw 144 million smartphone shipments last year.
However, the company has already shipped more than 175,000 devices in Q1 2023, largely thanks to the Pixel 6a. Google will face stiff competition from rivals such as Nothing, OnePlus, Vivo, and Xiaomi, who sell multiple models in the $300-$500 range.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai, yesterday, delivered the keynote address at the 2023 edition of its annual flagship conference, Google I/O, highlighting the company's latest advancements in AI and machine learning. The company is bringing its technology in generative AI to individual users through a new Labs project. Separately, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian provided an update on how the company is bringing generative AI tech to the enterprise user. On the personal tech front, Google announced three new devices, including the next Pixel phone, a foldable phone and a new tablet.
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Google CEO Sundar Pichai, yesterday, delivered the keynote address at the 2023 edition of its annual flagship conference, Google I/O, highlighting the company's latest advancements in AI and machine learning.
“Seven years into our journey as an AI-first company, we’re at an exciting inflection point. We have an opportunity to make AI even more helpful for people, for businesses, for communities, for everyone,” Pichai said.
“We’ve been applying AI to make our products radically more helpful for a while. With generative AI, we’re taking the next step … we’re reimagining all our core products, including Search,” he added.
Google has announced the launch of "Labs", a program that will allow users to preview some of their experiences across Workspace and other products. One of the first experiences available to test in Labs will involve Google Search.
As part of Labs, Google is introducing a new Search Generative Experience that combines the company's deep understanding of information with the unique capabilities of generative AI to transform how Search works.
On the large language models front, Google has announced the release of PaLM 2, its latest natural language processing (NLP) model. PaLM 2 builds on its predecessor, PaLM, and boasts multilingual capabilities, strength in logic and reasoning, and the ability to be fine-tuned for specific domains.
PaLM 2 is the latest product in Google's effort to bring AI to billions of people safely and responsibly. PaLM 2 was developed by two world-class research teams, the Brain Team and DeepMind, which have contributed to significant AI breakthroughs in the past, such as AlphaGo and Transformers. The two teams have recently been brought together into a single unit, Google DeepMind, which is working on Gemini, its next-generation foundation model.
Gemini is designed to be multimodal, efficient at the tool and API integrations, and capable of enabling future innovations like memory and planning. Once rigorously tested for safety, Gemini will be available in various sizes and capabilities, just like PaLM 2.
In a separate blog post, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian wrote about how the company is bringing generative AI capabilities to help users of all skill levels solve everyday work challenges.
Google Cloud has introduced new foundation models and capabilities across its AI products. Codey accelerates software development with code generation, while Imagen generates and customizes studio-grade images. Chirp enables deeper engagement with customers and constituents in their native languages.
The company also released three new Android hardware devices in its Pixel line of products.
Researchers at OpenAI, the company that made ChatGPT, have open-sourced datasets from a nascent effort aimed at building an automated tool to explain how large language models work. They discussed their efforts in a paper they published yesterday on their website. IBM, at its annual think conference yesterday released a new AI platform and tools. And for fans of the Nintendo Switch, the eponymous company’s latest results won’t bring any cheer. Sales of the hand-held console have dropped, dimming the prospect of an update to the product.
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IBM has launched Watsonx, an AI and data platform aimed at helping enterprises deploy AI models quickly and cost-effectively. The platform will provide businesses with a full technology stack for training, tuning, and deploying AI models, including IBM-curated and trained foundation models and machine learning capabilities.
IBM Watsonx.ai and IBM Watsonx.data will offer an AI development studio with foundation models, tools for training and tuning, and a data store for training and tuning data, and an optimized data store built on open lakehouse architecture optimized for governed data and AI workloads. The platform will be available from July 2023.
OpenAI researchers have proposed an automated approach to producing natural language explanations of individual components, including neurons and attention heads, in neural networks.
The proposed method uses GPT-4 to generate and score explanations of neuron behaviour. The authors are open-sourcing their datasets and visualization tools for GPT-4 written explanations, with hopes that the research community will develop new techniques for generating higher-scoring explanations and better tools for exploring language models.
Nintendo has reported a 5.5 percent YoY decrease in revenue for its fiscal year, with the 22 percent fall in sales of its flagship Switch console contributing to the decline.
Net profit fell by more than 9 percent to JPY432.7bn. Nintendo sold 17.97 million Switch units, in line with its forecast, compared with 23 million the previous year. The company has cited a shortage of semiconductors and other components as affecting production.
Zyngo EV Mobility, a Gurugram-based logistics service provider, has raised $5m in pre-Series A funding led by Delta Corp Holdings, with participation from LC Nueva Investment Partners.
Zyngo offers last-mile delivery solutions through a fleet of electric vehicles, targeting B2B and B2C customers, with a unique "asset-light model" acting as an intermediary between supply and demand in the market. The company aims to deploy 18,000+ zero-emission EV fleets across India by 2025 and intends to launch a hyperlocal B2C delivery mobile app.
Realme has launched the realme C55 Rainforest edition, a smartphone with a green hue meant to evoke the essence of a rainforest. The phone is powered by MediaTek Helio G88 Chipset and has a 17.07cm (6.72'') 90Hz FHD+ display, the largest in this price segment. The realme C55 also has ‘Mini Capsule’ and Sunshower design features, and up to 16GB of dynamic RAM.
LinkedIn is cutting 716 jobs, about 3.6 percent of its staff, to streamline its operations. The social media network for business professionals will also phase out its local jobs app in China, InCareers. Google is expected to announce several generative AI updates at its annual developer conference, tomorrow, including the launch of a general-use large language model called PaLM 2, which incorporates over 100 languages and has been operating under the internal codename “Unified Language Model”, CNBC reports. And Razorpay is moving its legal base back to India, ET reports.
Tata Steel has warned that its UK business faces “material uncertainty” due to market conditions and the level of government support, BBC reports. That support is related to the need for the company’s steel factories to transition to newer technologies and processes that will result in lowering carbon emissions from the plants. Bengaluru VC firm 3One4 Capital has raised $200 million for its fourth fund, TechCrunch reports. The company has garnered half the commitment from local investors, according to the report.
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Tata Steel's UK business faces "material uncertainty" due to market conditions and the level of government support needed for decarbonisation, according to a stress test carried out on the European arm of the company, the BBC reports.
Tata Steel UK, which employs approximately 8,000 people, expects trading to improve later this year. Reports suggest Tata Steel could receive £300m ($405m) in support but decarbonising the Port Talbot plant is estimated to cost up to £3bn. The UK government says it is providing support to protect the steel industry from "unfair trade and energy costs".
Westinghouse has launched a smaller version of its AP1000 nuclear reactor, called AP300, which will generate around 300MW, enough to power 300,000 homes, CNBC reports.
The move comes as the nuclear industry looks to remake itself as a means of addressing climate change. The electricity produced by nuclear fission reactors generates no greenhouse gas emissions, and smaller nuclear reactors are less expensive to build. The AP300 will cost around $1bn per unit, compared with around $6.8bn for an AP1000. The UK's Nuclear Regulatory Commission will need to give its approval before the AP300 becomes available to customers by the end of 2027.
The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is investigating Adobe's $20bn acquisition of Figma to determine if it will lessen competition in the country, Reuters reports.
The move comes after the CMA blocked Microsoft's $69bn acquisition of Activision Blizzard over concerns that it would hinder cloud gaming. Adobe has said it looks forward to continuing to engage with the CMA, US Department of Justice, and European Commission in productive discussions about the deal. Figma has stated it will continue to engage constructively with regulators in the UK.
US chipmaker Broadcom's CEO, Hock Tan, has met European Union antitrust regulators to convince them that his company's proposed $61bn acquisition of VMware will not hinder competition, according to Reuters.
The deal has raised concerns on both sides of the Atlantic, with the EU warning it could limit competition in certain hardware component markets. Broadcom was expected to offer remedies soon after the hearing, and the EU's decision deadline is 21 June, which will be extended if concessions are submitted.
Bengaluru-based venture capital firm 3one4 Capital has raised $200m in just two and a half months for its fourth fund, which was oversubscribed to $250m, TechCrunch reports.
The firm has gained a reputation for its contrarian approach to investing and has steered clear of cryptocurrency. The new fund saw half its capital come from Indian investors. Co-founder and partner Pranav Pai told TechCrunch the VC firm is hoping for more dedicated funds to be launched for Indian startups and also emphasised the need for a more robust mergers and acquisitions landscape.
Apple reported its fiscal second-quarter earnings yesterday that beat market expectations, helped mainly by stronger-than-anticipated iPhone sales, but also an increase in its services business.
Sales were down overall, however. Sales in India set a March-quarter record, CEO Tim Cook told analysts in a conference. The country, where Apple recently opened two of its brick-and-mortar stores, was a “major focus” for Apple and he felt it was at “a tipping point,” with large numbers of people entering the middle class.
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Apple reported its fiscal second-quarter earnings yesterday that beat market expectations, helped mainly by stronger-than-anticipated iPhone sales, but also an increase in its services business.
Sales were down overall, however.
The Company posted quarterly revenue of $94.8 billion for the three months through March, down 3 percent year over year, and quarterly earnings per diluted share of $1.52, unchanged from the year-earlier period.
"And as I noted earlier, in a milestone for Apple, we just opened our first two Apple stores in India, in Mumbai and Delhi. I was there to see it for myself, and I couldn't have been more delighted by the excitement and enthusiasm of the customers, developers, creators and team members I got to spend time with,” he said.
"Looking at the business in India, we did set a quarterly record, grew very strong, double digits year-over-year. So, it was quite a good quarter for us, taking a step back, India is an incredibly exciting market. It's a major focus for us.”
Over time, Apple has been expanding its operations in India, including getting its biggest contract manufacturers to expand their operations in the country, as it looks to reduce its dependence on China. On the retail front, Apple opened an online store in India three years ago, and it has incrementally expanded its distribution network of Apple-authorised premium stores. Last month it finally added the first of its physical stores.
Apple has also struck a major partnership with India’s Tata Group, which could be a game changer for both businesses.
For the current quarter, CFO Maestri said the company expects overall revenue to be similar to the March quarter.
Apple’s iPhone sales have increased in the backdrop of a broader smartphone industry contraction of nearly 15 percent during the same time, according to an IDC estimate, CNBC points out. In other words, Apple has taken market share from rivals, especially in the premium phones segment.
Overall, Apple’s sales in three of its four biggest markets fell – the Americas, Japan and Greater China, as Apple calls it. Sales rose in Europe and in the rest of the Asia Pacific, which includes India.
“The dynamism in the market, the vibrancy is unbelievable,” CEO Cook said. “There are a lot of people coming into the middle class, and I really feel that India is at a tipping point, and it's great to be there,” Cook said.
Google has started rolling out passkeys as an alternative to passwords for signing into its platform, the internet search giant said in a blog post yesterday. Pando, a supply chain software company, has raised $30 million in its Series B funding round, bringing the total capital raised to $45 million. Also in this brief, Infosys makes an ecosystem play in banking and financial services with a new report; fintech is estimated to hit $1.5 trillion in India by 2030; and Kazam, an EV infrastructure management platform provider, has raised $3.6 million from Avaana Climate Fund.
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Google has started rolling out passkeys as an alternative to passwords for signing into its platform, the internet search giant said in a blog post yesterday. Passkeys are easier and more secure than passwords as they allow users to sign in using a fingerprint, face scan or screen lock PIN, instead of relying on memorable but easy-to-guess phrases like “password123”.
Passkeys are also resistant to online attacks like phishing, making them more secure than SMS one-time codes. Google Workspace administrators will soon be able to enable passkeys for end-users during sign-in. However, passwords and two-step verification will still work for Google accounts.
And among Google’s billions of users are its massive Android user base in India. According to the 'Internet in India Report 2022' by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and KANTAR, 52 percent of Indians (759 million) are active Internet users, with rural India driving much of the growth.
The report predicts that by 2025, the number of active internet users in India will reach 900 million, with 56 percent of new users coming from rural India. However, there is a significant digital divide between states, with some having much lower levels of internet penetration than others.
As mobile internet expands further into India, fintech is an area that is expected to continue to grow strongly. According to a report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and QED Investors, financial technology revenues are expected to increase from $245 billion to $1.5 trillion by 2030.
In some IT services news, Infosys and HFS Research conducted a study titled "The ecosystem imperative: How to create new sources of value in BFS enterprises," which found that creating collaborative ecosystems is the new hope for driving growth and creating new forms of value for BFS enterprises.
While revenue growth and profitability are still top business objectives for firms, the creation of ecosystems is a new contender. However, without an interim stage of enterprise modernization, efforts to create ecosystems may fail. Acquiring and retaining talent, lack of centralized data governance, and legacy tech are the biggest roadblocks to ROI from innovation investments.
In some startup funding news, Pando, a supply chain software company, has raised $30 million in its Series B funding round, bringing the total capital raised to $45 million. The funding was led by Iron Pillar and Uncorrelated Ventures and included participation from existing investors Nexus Venture Partners, Chiratae Ventures, and Next47, as well as several American CEOs and angel investors.
And Kazam, a platform for managing electric mobility infrastructure, has raised $3.6 million in a funding round led by Avaana Climate Fund, the company said in a press release yesterday.
Samsung has temporarily restricted the use of generative AI, including ChatGPT, for its employees due to cases of misuse of the technology, CNBC reports. IBM CEO Arvind Krishna has announced that the company expects to pause hiring for certain roles, as approximately 7,800 jobs could be replaced by AI and automation in the coming years, Reuters reports. And Freshworks, India’s second biggest SaaS company, beat street expectations for its latest quarterly earnings, as its more affordable products found traction, Reuters reports.
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eBay has appointed Vidmay Naini as General Manager for Global Emerging Markets, overseeing growth in Southeast Asia, India, Eastern Europe, Israel, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, TechCrunch reports.
Naini, who was previously in charge of eBay's Southeast Asia and India businesses, will focus on supporting small and medium-sized businesses. eBay's 2022 Southeast Asia Small Online Business Trade Report found that 99 percent of small businesses on eBay currently export items to an average of 25 different international markets, with 68% of eBay-enabled small businesses in six Southeast Asian countries exporting to 10 or more international markets.
Samsung has temporarily restricted the use of generative AI, including OpenAI's ChatGPT, for its employees due to cases of misuse of the technology, CNBC reports.
The company has advised workers not to enter any personal or company-related information into the services and to take precautions when using ChatGPT and other products outside of work. Samsung is still looking for ways to safely use generative AI to enhance employee productivity and efficiency.
IBM has announced that it expects to pause hiring for certain roles as approximately 7,800 jobs could be replaced by AI and automation in the coming years, Reuters reports.
Hiring specifically in back-office functions such as human resources will be suspended or slowed. 30 percent of non-customer-facing roles could be replaced by AI and automation within five years. The reduction could include not replacing roles vacated by attrition.
The CEOs of Microsoft, Alphabet's Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic will meet with Vice President Kamala Harris and top administration officials to discuss key AI issues, Reuters reports.
US President Joe Biden's administration has been seeking public comments on proposed accountability measures for AI systems. In a blog post on Monday, deputies from the White House Domestic Policy Council and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy wrote about how the technology can pose a serious risk to workers.
Freshworks beat quarterly revenue estimates and posted its first adjusted operating profit, according to Reuters. Rising interest rates, high inflation, and a banking crisis have worsened the global economic outlook in recent months, forcing businesses to slash their technology budgets.
Freshworks' revenue rose 20% in Q1 to $137.7 million, and it posted an adjusted operating profit of $3.9 million. Net loss narrowed to $42.7 million, from $49.1 million a year earlier.
India accounts for an insignificant share of patents worldwide, an analysis by Nasscom, the country’s top tech lobby, shows. In a report titled Unpacking Indians IP landscape, Nasscom yesterday pointed out that China accounted for 46.6 percent of all patents filed in 2021, as applications returned to pre-Covid levels. The US, Japan and South Korea are other major patent filers. India had a dismal 1.8 percent. Also in this brief, UK’s competition authorities have blocked Microsoft’s $68.9 billion deal to buy Activision Blizzard; and Infosys and Walmart team up on a software solution for retailers.
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Britain’s top competition regulator on Wednesday moved to block Microsoft’s acquisition of video game publisher Activision Blizzard, in a big blow to the US tech giant, CNBC reports.
Microsoft said it plans to appeal the decision.
The UK Competition and Markets Authority said it opposed the deal as it raises competition concerns in the nascent cloud gaming market. The CMA previously held concerns about competition in games consoles being undermined but ruled out this concern in a preliminary decision in March, according to CNBC.
Microsoft could make Activision’s games exclusive to its cloud gaming platform, Xbox Game Pass, cutting off distribution to other key industry players, the CMA said in a press release yesterday.
Infosys, yesterday, said it was teaming up with Walmart Commerce Technologies to sell and implement a software package solution called Store Assist to make pickups, deliveries and shipping from stores more efficient.
Infosys has a Consumer and Retail focused practice that has helped more than 190 retailers worldwide to modernise their operations to be able to take real advantage of data and analytics, according to the press release.
Separately, Infosys also said that it is extending its collaboration with Brent Council in the UK to make its digital learning platform, Springboard, available to local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Pilani Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Society, the technology business incubator at Birla Institute of Technology and Science, has teamed up with Microsoft to set up an incubation cell at the institute. PIED and Microsoft have signed an MoU to foster startups and support entrepreneurs, BITS said in a press release.
Nasscom, India’s biggest technology lobby, yesterday released findings of a study that looked at patents filed in India and points out that India is doing poorly and has much work to do.
In FY22, patent filings increased 13.6 percent over the previous fiscal year, Nasscom said in a press release. The share of domestic filings increased to 44.4 percent of all patents filed, compared with 41.6 percent in FY21.
Only 20 patents are filed in India per million population, compared with 1,770 in Japan, as of 2021. And the average time an application remains pending is three times longer in India as against Japan. There are 300 applications filed in India for every $100 billion of GDP, versus 5,738 in China.
Based on data from WIPO, Nasscom’s analysis shows that more than two-thirds of all patents filed worldwide, at 67.6 percent, were in Asia. This compared with 54.6 percent in 2011.
China, by far, leads the patent filings in Asia, accounting for 46.6 percent of all patents filed worldwide. The US is next, at 17.4 percent. Japan accounted for 8.5 percent and South Korea for 7 percent. India’s share was an insignificant 1.8 percent.
Microsoft and Google both surprised the street yesterday, beating analysts’ estimates. Google also saw its cloud business turn a profit for the first time since the unit’s launch. Also in this brief, Microsoft’s Anant Maheshwari is named Nasscom chair; WhatsApp can now be used on multiple phones; Xerox to donate PARC to SRI; and Capria Ventures announced the first close of its second fund, which has a target of $100 million, to continue to invest in tech-led startups in the “global south,” the VC firm said in a press release.
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Microsoft, yesterday, beat street expectations, driven by growth in its cloud computing and Office productivity software businesses, and the company said artificial intelligence products were boosting sales, The Guardian reports.
The company also forecast that revenue in its main segments for the current quarter would match or top Wall Street targets.
Meanwhile, Anant Maheshwari, President and CEO of Microsoft India has been named Chairperson of Nasscom, India’s biggest technology lobby, for the current fiscal year that started April 1, The Hindu reports.
Coming back to big tech earnings, sales at Google also rose, unexpectedly, for the Jan-March period, which is the Alphabet company’s fiscal first quarter. Google reported first-quarter revenue of $69.8 billion, up 3 percent year-over-year and above analyst predictions of $68.9 billion.
Google reported cloud revenue of $7.4 billion in Q1 of 2023, up 27.5 percent from $5.8 billion in the year-ago period, and with a $191 million profit, the first since the internet search giant started breaking out cloud earnings, compared with an operating income loss of $706 million a year ago.
WhatsApp, yesterday announced a new much sought-after feature, the Meta unit said in a press release. Following up on last year’s rollout of the ability for users to message on all their devices, WhatsApp has now introduced the ability to use the same WhatsApp account on multiple phones.
Now you can link your phone as one of up to four additional devices, the same as when you link with WhatsApp on web browsers, tablets and desktops, the company said in a post.
This update has started rolling out to users globally and will be available to everyone in the coming weeks.
In once-big-tech news, Xerox is donating its famed Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to SRI International, a non-profit research and innovation institute. Researchers at the two organizations will collaborate on developing technologies and scientific research, while Xerox said it will focus on its “core, digital and IT services,” Quartz reports.
Roughly 1,000 employees from PARC will join SRI, and contribute to its research areas, which include computer vision, AI and machine learning, and robotics. Both organizations have worked in the innovation space for decades, creating technology that has come to define the Internet age, Quartz notes.
In some venture capital news, Capria Ventures, a US-based VC firm that has backed several Indian startups attempting to solve local problems with world-class tech-based innovations, yesterday announced the first close of its new $100 million fund.
The new fund, Capria Fund II, will focus on investing in 20-25 tech startups in the entrepreneurial hotspots of India, Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa, the firm said in a press release.
Apple opens its second company-owned retail store in India today, in New Delhi. CEO Tim Cook who’s visiting India after seven years, shared a picture on Twitter from a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday and said the company is committed to the country’s tech vision. Also in this brief, JLR is to invest $15.7 billion more in its EV plan over the next five years. Wipro follows LTIMindtree in asking freshers to take additional assessments. And Cognizant is rolling out its third pay hike to eligible staff in 18 months, Times of India reports.
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Apple opens its second company-owned retail store in India today, in New Delhi. CEO Tim Cook who’s visiting India after seven years said the company is committed to growth in the country.
Cook shared a picture on Twitter yesterday evening from a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and wrote “We share your vision of the positive impact technology can make on India’s future — from education and developers to manufacturing and the environment, we’re committed to growing and investing across the country.”
On April 18, Cook opened the company’s long-anticipated first Indian retail store in Mumbai, called Apple BKC, in the Jio World Drive mall, located in the tony Bandra Kurla Complex. He was greeted by hundreds of fans seeking autographs and a handshake.
Apple helped create 100,000 jobs in India over the last two years including via its manufacturing contractors, Times of India reports, citing industry sources. As Apple’s operations in India expand significantly, with its contract manufacturers such as Foxconn International expanding their factories in India, the company expects to help create another 100,000 jobs in India in a shorter period, according to Times of India.
Cook is also said to have requested Modi to ensure that the government’s policies remain stable towards businesses in India. India’s multi-billion-dollar production-linked incentive scheme has attracted several global electronics OEMs and their contract manufacturers to the country.
India’s smartphone exports more than doubled, reaching over $11 billion in the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2023, according to trade data examined by the India Cellular and Electronics Association, an industry lobby, and government officials, TechCrunch reported on April 13.
And Apple, for the first time in India, led these exports, making up nearly half the value, at an estimated $5 billion to $5.5 billion, according to the report, which cites industry analysts.
Jaguar Land Rover, the British SUV maker, has announced plans to invest 15 billion pounds (or about $15.7 billion) over the next five years in developing electric vehicles and autonomous driving technologies, to ditch fossil-fuel-guzzling vehicles and catch up with rivals, Bloomberg reports.
JLR, part of India’s Tata Motors, announced a press release yesterday.
In some IT services news, Wipro is following LTIMindtree’s lead in asking fresh recruits to take additional assessment tests in which they need to score at least 60 percent marks to keep their jobs, Times of India reports, citing Nascent IT Employees Senate, a non-profit seeking to organise India’s millions of IT workers.
These recruits were given offer letters last year, and onboarded in March this year, according to the report.
Elon Musk, once a large backer of OpenAI, is planning to launch an artificial intelligence startup of his own, CNBC reports, citing an article in the Financial Times from Friday last that is behind a paywall. The company is called X.ai, according to the Wall Street Journal, which also reported the news, citing a filing in the US state of Nevada. Musk is listed as a director of the new company, according to the journal. Also in this brief, Vivo plans to expand smartphone manufacturing in India, and PC sales are headed for a slump in the country.
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Elon Musk, once a large backer of OpenAI, is planning to launch an artificial intelligence startup of his own, CNBC reports, citing an article in the Financial Times from Friday last that is behind a paywall.
The company is called X.ai, according to the Wall Street Journal, which also reported the news, citing a filing in the US state of Nevada. Musk is listed as a director of the new company, according to the journal.
Musk, the world’s richest person — and CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter — has been building a team of researchers and engineers and has been in conversation with multiple investors, according to the report. He has also reportedly been recruiting from other top AI companies, including Google’s parent Alphabet’s DeepMind, according to CNBC.
Musk has secured thousands of Nvidia GPU processors, according to the report. Such chips are an integral part of the computing power needed to build and train what are called large language models, which underpin AI like GPT. Musk said he was acquiring the processors for his companies in a Twitter Spaces interview with the BBC last week.
Meanwhile, at his rocket company SpaceX, Musk tweeted on Friday that the first flight test of the company’s fully integrated Starship and Super Heavy rocket could be as early as today from a base in Texas after the US Federal Aviation Administration gave the all clear for the test.
Vivo, the third largest smartphone seller in India, is going to set up an additional manufacturing unit in the country as part of its expansion plan, also aiming to step up export plans, The Hindu reports.
Yogendra Sriramula, Head of Brand Strategy at Vivo India, said the company has already invested ₹2,400 crore and an additional ₹1,100 crore will be invested this year in expanding its manufacturing in India, according to The Hindu.
Overall, Vivo is planning an investment of ₹7,500 crore.
Computer shipments in India are headed for a slump, and the demand surge after the Covid pandemic is well and truly over, Mint reports, citing analysts at well-known market researchers.
Data from Gartner shows Indian shipments of laptops and desktops are expected to drop 13.4 percent this calendar year to 12.4 million units from 14.4 million last year. Even though the second half of the year should be better for PC companies, the sales growth seen in the last two years is unlikely to be repeated anytime soon, according to analysts.
Navkendar Singh, associate vice president at IDC India also said PC shipments in India are set to decline this year, according to Mint. A February report from IDC showed total shipments of desktops, notebooks, and workstations in India grew by only 0.3 percent year-on-year in 2022, including a 28.5 percent drop in Q4 2022.
Tata Consultancy Services kicked off the Indian IT services sector’s fiscal fourth-quarter earnings yesterday, reporting that clients in the US, the sector’s biggest market, were holding back on discretionary spending and that an expected pickup from the previous quarter didn’t materialise. Growth was led by a strong performance in the UK, and the company ended the fiscal year 2023 with 6,14,795 employees. Also in this brief, pi Ventures gets a commitment from SIDBI for its next early-stage tech startup fund.
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Tata Consultancy Services kicked off the IT services sector’s fiscal fourth-quarter earnings yesterday, reporting that clients in the US, the sector’s biggest market, were holding back on discretionary spending and that an expected pickup from the previous quarter didn’t materialise.
Overall, the company reported revenues rose to $7.195 billion in the three months ended March 31, 2023, representing a 1.7 percent increase over the previous quarter and 7.4 percent growth over the same quarter in the previous fiscal year. The year-on-year growth was 10.4 percent in constant currency.
The company was operating in a “fairly challenging environment,” CEO and MD Rajesh Gopinathan told reporters at a conference in Mumbai yesterday. The sentiment in the US is currently negative, Gopinathan added. The likelihood of a recession in the US remains high, this year and businesses are postponing any expenditure that isn’t immediately necessary.
TCS added more than $10 billion in order wins, during Q4, including a $700-750 million contract from the financial giant Phoenix Group. The deal wins also included a larger proportion of contracts worth $50 million or more versus previous quarters, COO NG Subramaniam added.
TCS added about 820 employees during the quarter to end the year with about 6,15,000 staff. Attrition on a 12-months basis was just over 20 percent, but the reduction from the previous quarter was 4 percent, chief HR officer Milind Lakkad said.
On the tech front, Subramaniam said that conversations with customers are starting and ending with ChatGPT. Customers are asking how TCS is integrating generative AI into its services, and there is keen interest in the area, he said. This isn’t an area that is new to TCS and the company has been working “software that can make software,” for example, for years, he added.
One other update is that Rajesh Gopinathan is handing over the CEO’s role to K Krithivasan on June 1, whereas the transition was originally expected to be completed on Sep. 15. Gopinathan said that this was a planned process wherein the first half of the transition he would be the “primary” and Krithivasan the “shadow” and in the second half, the roles would be reversed. And the second half has been advanced by a couple of weeks.
Suzlon Group yesterday announced a new order win for the development of a 50.4 MW wind power project for Sembcorp’s renewables subsidiary Green Infra Wind Energy Limited.
SimpliContract, a Contract Lifecycle Management platform provider, has raised $3.5 million in series A funding from Emergent Ventures, Kalaari Capital and others.
pi Ventures, an early-stage VC firm that invests in tech startups, has received a commitment of Rs. 100 crore from the fund of funds management by SIDBI. The fund is on track for the final close over the next two months, in the range of Rs. 675-750 crore.
Apple, after years of anticipation, is finally ready to open its own stores in India. The first two are coming up in Mumbai and New Delhi. They are set to open on April 18 and April 20, respectively. China’s powerful Cyberspace Administration has released draft rules to regulate generative AI products as companies such as Alibaba and Baidu launched their rival products to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, CNBC reports. Also in this brief, CapitalG invests AlphaSense, and HARMAN will open a Chennai software centre soon.
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Apple, revealed a small surprise on Monday, saying it will be opening a second company-owned retail store in India, in Saket, New Delhi. A retail store opening was widely expected in Mumbai, for years, and Apple last week set the date for that as April 18. The store is to be called Apple BKC. The one in New Delhi is set for an April 20 opening.
Apple stores are known for the excruciating details that go into their look and feel, down to the exact placement of every single object in the store. Apple’s marketing machine has also popularised an in-store service known as the genius bar where experienced staff will help customers get their iPhones and other gadgets repaired.
Chinese regulators, yesterday, released draft rules designed to manage how companies develop generative artificial intelligence products, as domestic tech giants begin rolling out products to rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT, CNBC reports.
On Tuesday, Alibaba unveiled Tongyi Qianwen, its generative AI product, that the e-commerce giant plans to integrate across various services. Baidu, last month also launched its equivalent, Ernie Bot, for testing, according to CNBC.
The CAC’s draft measures lay out the ground rules that generative AI services have to follow, including the type of content these products are allowed to generate. The content needs to reflect the core values of socialism and should not subvert state power, according to the draft rules.
Companies should ensure the data being used to train these AI models will not discriminate against people based on factors like ethnicity, race and gender, the CAC said. They also should not generate false information, the regulator added, according to CNBC.
Google’s holding company Alphabet’s late-stage venture capital arm, CapitalG, has invested $100 million in a corporate data analytics startup AlphaSense, valuing the company at $1.8 billion, according to CNBC.
South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) has fined Google 42.1 billion won (~ $32 million) for blocking developers from releasing mobile video games on a Korean competitor platform called One Store, TechCrunch reports.
HARMAN, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, yesterday said it will add a new Automotive Engineering Centre in Chennai, expanding its operations in India. The company expects to recruit 200 employees in the first year of operations of the new centre. Currently, more than a third of HARMAN’s total workforce, at about 10,000 staff, work in India.
Anthill Ventures, a venture capital and speed-scaling ecosystem, yesterday said it had selected five startups from Singapore for the fifth cohort of its Global Innovation Alliance Program.
The fifth edition focuses on mobility, energy, real estate, waste management, water and sanitation, and smart-city applications. The five startups selected for the program are Ailytics, Bizsu, Hydroleap, sepPure, and SwiftIOT.
Worldwide IT spending is projected to touch $4.6 trillion in 2023, increasing by 5.5 percent over 2022, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, widely seen as the top IT market forecaster advising enterprise CIOs. While the devices segment is expected to contract the most among the various categories, the IT services segment is now expected to grow faster. Gartner forecasts IT services spending in 2023 to increase by 9.1 percent, compared with its January forecast of 5.5 percent. Capital markets analysts in India are hoping for “front-ended” guidance from Infosys.
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Worldwide IT spending is projected to total $4.6 trillion in 2023, an increase of 5.5 percent from 2022, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, widely seen as the top IT market researcher advising enterprise CIOs on their tech spending.
Despite continued global economic turbulence, all regions worldwide are projected to have positive IT spending growth in 2023, Gartner said in a press release on April 6.
The latest forecast is more than double the 2.4 percent estimate from January, and also higher than the 5.1 percent projection Gartner had made six months ago.
The IT services segment is now expected to grow even faster. Gartner forecasts IT services spending in 2023 to increase by 9.1 percent over 2022, compared with its January forecast of 5.5 percent and its October 2022 estimate of 7.9 percent growth.
This is good news for India’s IT services companies ahead of their fiscal fourth quarter and full-year results expected later this week.
“Macroeconomic headwinds are not slowing digital transformation,” said John-David Lovelock, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner. “IT spending will remain strong, even as many countries are projected to have near-flat gross domestic product (GDP) growth and high inflation in 2023.”
Prioritization will be critical as CIOs look to optimize spend while using digital technology to transform their businesses’ value proposition, revenue and client interactions, the analyst notes.
The IT services segment will continue its growth trajectory through 2024, largely driven by the infrastructure-as-a-service market, which is projected to reach over 30 percent growth this year. For the first time, price is a key driver of increased spend for cloud services segments, rather than just increased usage, according to Gartner.
India’s top two IT services companies are expected to report their earnings this week. Tata Consultancy Services will report its Q4 and FY23 results on April 12. Infosys will report its results on April 13.
For the fourth quarter, which is the January to March 2023 period, TCS will likely lead its peers, analysts at Kotak Securities write in their latest IT preview report, dated March 31.
The analysts expect TCS to report fiscal Q4 revenue growth of 1.1 percent versus the previous quarter, and an 11.2 percent increase over the same period a year earlier, in constant currency terms, which eliminates the impact of currency exchange rate fluctuations.
India yesterday notified changes to its information technology rules that now require all intermediaries – such as social media platform providers and internet services providers – to rely on a government-backed fact check unit concerning any content related to “government business,” according to an official statement. Also in this brief, Q1 of calendar 2023 saw startup funding continue to fall, according to data from Tracxn.
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India yesterday notified changes to its information technology rules that now require all intermediaries – such as social media platform providers and internet services providers – to rely on a government-backed fact check unit for any content related to “government business,” according to an official statement.
The new rules called the IT Amendment Rules, 2023, first proposed in January, now “make it obligatory on the intermediaries to not publish, share or host fake, false or misleading information in respect of any business of the Central Government,” the statement reads.
Such information “will be identified by the notified Fact Check Unit of the Central Government,” according to the statement. The statement also says that “the existing IT rules already required the intermediaries to make reasonable efforts to not host, publish or share any information which is patently false and untrue or misleading in nature.”
These changes have drawn criticism from human rights campaigners such as the New Delhi-based Internet Freedom Foundation.
The new rules “directly and negatively impact online freedom of speech and the right to receive information,” the foundation said in a post on its website.
The amendments notified yesterday also included tougher rules on online gaming, especially in regulating online betting. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state for IT said in the government statement: “Online gaming is certainly a huge opportunity for India and Young Indians. We see the Indian online gaming ecosystem expand and grow into a multi-billion-dollar industry and be an important catalyst to India’s One trillion-dollar Digital economy goal by 2025-26, with very clear restrictions on online wagering and betting.”
In startup funding news, startups in India raised a total of $1.2 billion in funding in March compared with $598 million in February, according to data from the private markets intelligence provider Tracxn.
There were 12 startup acquisitions last month, including Knowledge Lens and Sportido. March saw 87 funding rounds compared with 67 in February. The top funding rounds in March were Lenskart’s Series-J round, in which it raised $500 million, PhonePe’s Series D, $200 million investment and Mintifi’s Series D round in which the supply chain fintech provider raised $110 million, according to Tracxn.
There were 58 Seed rounds, 19 Series A rounds, two Series B rounds, and eight Series C+ rounds.
FinTech, Retail, and Enterprise Applications were the top-performing sectors in Q1 2023. There were no new unicorns created in Q1 of 2023, compared with 14 in Q1 of 2022. Q1 of 2023 also saw three companies - Robu Labs, Mars Capital, and Homesfy announce their plans to go public.
Capillary Technologies, one of India’s first-generation software-as-a-service companies, earlier this week, announced its second US acquisition as part of a strategy to step up its operations in the world’s biggest technology market. Speciale Invest, a Chennai VC firm known for backing deep-tech startups, has raised a fund aimed at series A or higher. And Infosys wins a contract that extends its 15-year relationship with LexisNexis. Also in this brief, Google reveals an AI supercomputer that it says is faster than competing systems from Nvidia, CNBC reports.
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Google, yesterday, published details about one of its artificial intelligence supercomputers, saying it is faster and more efficient than competing systems from Nvidia, the chipmaker known for its AI processors, CNBC reports.
While Nvidia dominates the market for AI model training and deployment, with over 90 percent market share, Google has been designing and deploying AI chips called Tensor Processing Units, or TPUs, since 2016, according to CNBC.
AI models and products such as Google’s Bard or OpenAI’s ChatGPT — powered by Nvidia’s A100 chips — require a lot of computers and thousands of processors to work together to train models, with the computers running non-stop for weeks or months, CNBC explains.
Google said that it had built a system with over 4,000 TPUs joined with custom components designed to run and train AI models. This supercomputer, called TPU v4, is “1.2x–1.7x faster and uses 1.3x–1.9x less power than the Nvidia A100,” Google’s researchers wrote.
Infosys, yesterday, announced that it has won a new order, extending its collaboration with LexisNexis, a data and analytics company, to provide information services across its range of content, enterprise, and product applications.
Infosys will provide IT services in multiple business domains that include LexisNexis’s global content systems, global business systems and product development. Infosys will provide application maintenance and support, application development and validation, life cycle upgrades, application modernization, and content modernization.
Infosys will also provide strategic consultancy for LexisNexis’ downstream, discretionary investments. The Bengaluru-based IT giant didn’t provide any financial details. Infosys will report its fiscal fourth-quarter and annual earnings results on April 13.
Capillary Technologies, one of India’s first-generation software-as-a-service companies, earlier this week, announced its second US acquisition as part of a strategy to step up its operations in the world’s biggest technology market.
Bengaluru-based Capillary, which provides a customer loyalty and engagement SaaS platform, has acquired Texas-based Brierley+Partners, which offers software solutions in loyalty, strategy, and execution to retailers.
Capillary Technologies has grown 3.5x times in the US since the acquisition of Persuade in 2021, and this acquisition consolidates its position as a platform of choice for loyalty technologies, the company said in a press release.
In more startup news, Speciale Invest, a venture capital firm focused on early-stage investments in deep science and enterprise technologies, yesterday, announced the launch of a new fund aimed at growth-stage ventures, the Speciale Invest Growth Fund I.
The new fund has an initial investment of Rs. 100 crore and has received approval from SEBI to fund startups at series A and above, according to a press release.
India’s Skyroot Aerospace, yesterday announced it had conducted a long-duration test of a 3D-printed cryogenic engine, firing it for 200 seconds – an important milestone in developing the private space venture’s higher payload capacity rockets. The test also yielded vital data for advancing the company’s use of LNG – a greener alternative to the more widely used fuels today, the company said in a press release. Also in this brief, PhonePe, a Walmart group company in Bengaluru, yesterday launched Pincode, an app built on top of India’s Open Network for Digital Commerce.
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India’s Skyroot Aerospace, yesterday announced it had conducted a long-duration test of a 3D-printed cryogenic engine, firing it for 200 seconds – an important milestone in developing the private space venture’s higher payload capacity rockets.
The endurance test of the engine, named 'Dhawan-II,' in honour of the late Satish Dhawan, a mathematician and aerospace engineer widely seen as a central figure in the development of India’s space programme, demonstrated “impressive performance results,” Skyroot said in a press release.
The test was carried out at the Solar Industries propulsion test facility in Nagpur, Maharashtra, using Skyroot’s indigenously developed mobile cryogenic engine test pad.
This achievement follows the November 2022 launch of Vikram – S, which made Skyroot the first Indian private company to successfully send a rocket into space.
“The successful test of Dhawan-II is a landmark achievement for Skyroot and the Indian private space sector,” Skyroot’s Co-founder and CEO Pawan Kumar Chandana, said in the press release.
The Dhawan-II engine advances the capabilities of Skyroot's first privately developed fully-cryogenic rocket engine, the 1.0 kN thrust Dhawan – I, which was successfully test-fired in November 2021.
“This is a major milestone for our cryogenic propulsion programme, which will enhance the payload capacity of the Vikram series of space launch vehicles making them more modular to meet wider customer requirements,” Naga Bharath Daka, Co-founder and COO of Skyroot, added.
The liquid and cryogenic propulsion programme at Skyroot is led by a former senior ISRO scientist, V. Gnanagandhi.
Skyroot's cryogenic rocket engines use two high-performance rocket propellants, Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) and Liquid Oxygen (LoX), which require cryogenic temperatures (below -150° Celsius) for storage and operation.
The technology being developed by Skyroot is currently mastered by only a handful of countries globally, the company says. LNG, which is more than 90 percent methane, and LoX, are considered green-burning propellants. They are environmentally friendly compared with the solid, semi-cryogenic and hypergolic propellants which are currently widely used in the rocket industry.
Skyroot’s next space launch is that of the Vikram-I rocket, planned for the end of this year. The latest ground test takes Skyroot one step closer to making Vikram – II, an upgraded version of Vikram-I which uses a cryogenic upper-stage, launch-ready by next year.
This engine development was partly supported by NITI Ayog’s ANIC-ARISE programme which promotes technologies including the use of green rocket propellants. Skyroot was founded in 2018 and the company has raised $68 million in funding so far, from investors including GIC, the founders of Greenko Group and angel investor Mukesh Bansal.
Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest technology services and consulting company, announced a surprise change at the top yesterday. CEO Rajesh Gopinathan has resigned to “pursue his other interests,” and K Krithivasan, another company veteran will take over in the coming months, the Mumbai-listed IT giant told the stock exchanges after the markets closed. Also in this brief, Xoriant, an engineering services provider in the US, gets a new chief executive; and the UK bans TikTok on government devices.
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Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest IT services and consulting company, announced a surprise change at the top yesterday. CEO Rajesh Gopinathan has resigned, and K Krithivasan, another company veteran will take over in the coming months, the Mumbai-listed IT giant told the stock exchanges after the markets closed.
“After a stellar career of over 22 years with Tata Consultancy Services, and a successful stint as Managing Director and CEO during the last six years, Rajesh Gopinathan has decided to step down from the company to pursue his other interests,” the company said in a press release.
The company’s board of directors has accepted the decision, and Gopinathan will continue with the company till Sep. 15, “to provide transition and support to his successor,” the company said. TCS named Krithivasan as the CEO designate with effect from March 16. He will be appointed as the managing director and CEO in the next financial year, which starts April 1.
Gopinathan “has laid the foundation for the next phase of TCS’ growth with significant investments in cloud, agile and automation to help clients accelerate their transformation,” N Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons and TCS, said in the release.
“I have been harbouring a few ideas on what I want to do in the next phase of my life,” Gopinathan said in the press release. “After deep reflection and in discussion with the Chairman and the Board, we decided that the end of this fiscal year is a good time for me to step aside and pursue those interests,” he said.
Gopinathan said the company had added $10 billion in incremental revenues on his watch and its market capitalization had increased by more than $70 billion through the six years that he was chief executive. He was elevated to the top job in 2016 when his boss and mentor Chandrasekaran was tapped to run the Tata Group amid a corporate feud between the Tatas and the late Cyrus Mistry who was ousted as chairman of Tata Sons that year.
CEO-designate Krithi Krithivasan is presently President and Global Head of the Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance Business Group at Tata Consultancy Services, the company’s biggest unit. He joined TCS in 1989. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of TCS Iberoamerica, TCS Ireland and the supervisory board of TCS Technology Solutions AG.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Madras and a master’s degree in industrial and management Engineering from IIT Kanpur.
Elsewhere, Xoriant, an engineering services provider headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, Sukamal Banerjee was named as the new CEO. Banerjee, a former HCL Technologies executive, takes over from founder and CEO Girish Gaitonde.
And in some big tech news, the UK, yesterday, banned the use of Chinese-owned video app TikTok on government devices, with immediate effect, according to a press statement.
Venture capital funding for India’s startups fell from $38.5 billion in 2021 to $25.7 billion in 2022, according to the latest report on the sector by Bain and Company, a consultancy, and Indian Venture and Alternate Capital Association. However, more early-stage deals were struck in 2022, helping the overall deal volume to be marginally higher, according to the report, released yesterday. Also in this brief, the Indian IT services sector has become a less significant recruiter, according to a staffing company.
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Venture capital funding for India’s startups and other ventures in the country fell from $38 billion in 2021 to $25.7 billion in 2022, according to the latest report on the sector by Bain and Company, a consultancy, and Indian Venture and Alternate Capital Association. However, more early-stage deals were struck in 2022, helping the overall deal volume to be marginally higher, according to the report, released yesterday.
There were 1,611 deals in 2022, which was 1.1x the number in 2021, led by an expansion in seed to series B deals. Further, series A deals maintained an average deal size of ~$11 million, cementing a step shift in early-stage dealmaking in India, according to the report. Average series A deals hit the coveted $10 million mark for the first time in 2021.
The decline in total funding was driven mostly by a big reduction in the average deal size from $25 million in 2021 to $16 million in 2022. A significant drop in $100 million+ “mega-rounds” (from 92 to 48 over 2021–2022) was a key factor in deal size compression, with global investors exercising caution on large-ticket size deals.
The year 2022 also had some positive trends, such as venture funding continuing to go beyond Bengaluru, Mumbai and NCR. Emerging startup hubs received ~18 percent of the funding and accounted for 9 of 23 unicorns added in 2022, according to the report.
Software-as-a-service (SaaS) and fintech continued to see momentum relative to 2021, growing from ~25% of total funding to ~35% in 2022. Consumer tech, however, saw a 55 percent drop, from more than $20 billion in 2021 to less than $10 billion in 2022.
In more venture news from around the world, one of the world’s biggest fintech startups Stripe, a payments processor in the US, raised $6.5 billion at a $50 billion valuation, a sharp discount from its record valuation of $95 billion in 2021, CNBC reports.
And finally, here’s some IT services sector news that I missed from earlier this month.
The IT industry put out 33 percent fewer job openings in February 2023 compared with the same period last year, according to the active jobs report of Xpheno, a staffing company, Moneycontrol reported on March 6.
According to Xpheno, the active jobs demand in the sector — at 75,000 available jobs — saw an uptick of 15 percent month-on-month mostly because of a lower base in January 2023 when 65,000 jobs were available.
Overall, the IT sector’s share of available jobs has continued to trend downward, according to Xpheno. The share of the sector, which used to be the dominant recruiter, has gone from 80 percent of available jobs in 2021 to below 50 percent in the last five months, and the share of non-tech sectors has continued to rise, Moneycontrol reports.
The internet-enabled services and startup segments had 17,000 job openings at the end of February, as against 15,000 in January 2023.
Facebook’s parent company Meta Platforms will lay off 10,000 more workers and incur restructuring costs ranging from $3 billion to $5 billion, the company announced Tuesday, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg warning economic instability could continue for “many years,” CNBC reports. Also in this brief, OpenAI releases GPT-4, the latest version of its large language model AI; and Infosys sees a second big exit in 2023, as Mohit Joshi, a president and 22-year veteran at the Bengaluru company, is named CEO-designate at smaller rival Tech Mahindra.
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Facebook’s parent company Meta Platforms will lay off 10,000 more workers and incur restructuring costs ranging from $3 billion to $5 billion, the company announced Tuesday, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg warning economic instability could continue for “many years,” CNBC reports.
The company will also close 5,000 additional open roles that it hasn’t filled yet. In an SEC filing announcing the cuts, Meta also said it anticipated lowered total expenses in 2023, ranging from $86 billion to $92 billion.
India’s Enforcement Directorate is investigating several crypto cases for money-laundering schemes and has seized Rs. 953.7 crore or about $115.5 million to date in such crimes, TechCrunch reports, citing the Ministry of Finance.
The ministry’s statement was in a written response to a question in the country’s parliament, which was published on the Lok Sabha’s website on March 13.
OpenAI, yesterday, announced the next version of its primary large language model, GPT-4 which it says exhibits “human-level performance” on many professional tests, CNBC reports.
GPT-4 is more accurate than the previous versions GPT-3 and GPT-3.5, according to OpenAI. It performed at the 90th percentile on a simulated bar exam, the 93rd percentile on an SAT reading exam, and the 89th percentile on the SAT Math exam, according to the company.
However, the company warns that the new software is far from perfect or reliable in many scenarios. It still has a major problem with “hallucination,” or making responses up, and is still prone to insisting it is correct when it is wrong.
And in some IT services news, I bring you the update, a little belatedly, that Mohit Joshi, last week, resigned as president of Infosys, to be named managing director and CEO-designate at Tech Mahindra.
Mohit will take over as MD & CEO on Dec. 20, as the long-time incumbent CP Gurnani retires on Dec. 19, according to the Mumbai-listed company’s stock exchange filing and a press release on March 11. Mohit is expected to join much earlier to facilitate a good transition.
Mohit’s 22-year tenure at Infosys will come to an end in June and till then he will be on leave, MoneyControl reports. This is the second big exit for Infosys in 2023, after Ravi Kumar S, also an Infosys President at the time left to become CEO of larger US-based rival Cognizant Technology Solutions, in January.
Before Infosys, where he worked from the year 2000, Mohit worked with ABN AMRO and ANZ Grindlays in their Corporate and Investment bank. Mohit has lived and worked in Asia, America and Europe and currently lives with his wife and two daughters in London, according to the press release.
The year 2022 saw women-led startups in India increase their share of venture capital investments and do better than the overall startup ecosystem in the country, even as the so-called funding winter descended on the sector amid worsening global macroeconomic conditions. Marquee investors such as Sequoia Capital and Accel as well as accelerators and incubators such as CIIE backed more women entrepreneurs, according to data from Tracxn, a Mumbai-listed private markets intelligence provider. Also in this brief, Spotify hit half a billion active users, the Swedish company said at its Stream On event.
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Apple is backing a music startup launched by one of its former executives, Reuters reports.
The company, called Gamma, is the brainchild of former Apple Music Global Creative Director Larry Jackson and veteran music executive Ike Youssef. It positions itself as an alternative to traditional record labels, according to Reuters.
Gamma says it will support content creation including music, video and podcasts, and provide audio and video distribution through Vydia, a company it acquired in December 2022.
Meanwhile, Spotify Technology said on Wednesday it crossed 500 million monthly active listeners, Reuters reports. The Swedish company will roll out new features like smart shuffle and previews of podcasts and music playlists on its audio streaming platform and announce a new user interface at its annual Stream On event.
Slice, an Indian fintech unicorn, acquired a 5 percent stake in North East Small Finance, a Guwahati-headquartered small finance bank, in September, for $3.42 million, TechCrunch reports, citing a regulatory filing.
Slice, privately valued at $1.55 billion, counts Tiger Global, Insight Partners, Blume Ventures and Axis Bank among its investors.
Staying on the topic of startups, and looking specifically at women-led ventures, meaning startups with at least one woman among the founders, data from Tracxn shows that almost one in five of all funded startups in India is now a woman-led startup.
Funded startups in India with woman founders and co-founders accounted for 18 percent of all funded ventures in 2022. Overall, women-led startups accounted for 8.3 percent of all startups in India, according to Tracxn, a Mumbai-listed private markets intelligence provider.
The number of active investors investing in women-led startups has seen a steady increase since 2010, with a sharp year-on-year jump of 42 percent in 2021 – which was also a year in which funding went a bit crazy, overall.
However, a significant data point seems to be that funding for women-led startups declined by only 11 percent in 2022 versus 2021, compared with a 37 percent drop for the overall startup ecosystem in the same period, according to Tracxn.
And, the share of funding garnered by women-led startups, as a percentage of overall total funding, increased to 16 percent in 2022 from 11 percent in 2021.
If one looks at a funding-stage-by-funding-stage breakdown as well, women-led startups have outperformed the overall Indian startup ecosystem in 2022, according to Tracxn.
Out of the approximately 2,200 women-led startups in India that have received funding, 36 percent have progressed to the Series A stage, and 24 percent have gone on to the Series D stage or beyond.
Foxconn, one of Apple’s largest contract manufacturers, said on Saturday that there was no definitive agreement about investment in India, the French news agency AFP reported. This came after a report from Bloomberg on Friday last that Foxconn will invest about $700 million to build a new plant near India’s tech capital Bengaluru. Also in this brief, Universal Hydrogen, a hydrogen fuel cell technologies company, last week, conducted the first test of a 40-passenger regional airliner aircraft, using hydrogen fuel cell propulsion.
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Foxconn, one of Apple’s largest contract manufacturers, said on Saturday that there was no definitive agreement about investment in India, the French news agency AFP reported. This came after a report from Bloomberg on Friday last that Foxconn will invest about $700 million to build a new plant near India’s tech capital Bengaluru, in Karnataka.
“Hon Hai Technology Group (Foxconn) has announced a major investment in Karnataka. 300 acres of land has been identified for this purpose near the Bengaluru International Airport, in Doddaballapura and Devanahalli taluks,” a statement from the government of Karnataka read, on March 3.
The statement didn’t mention Apple or say how much money Foxconn would be investing. Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, said Foxconn will build an iPhone parts plant on the 300-acre site.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, India’s union minister of state for electronics and information technology, also tweeted the Bloomberg report and added “apple phones to be built in new 300-acre facility in Karnataka.”
Foxconn said in a statement on Saturday that no deals had been finalised, while confirming that chairman and CEO Young Liu visited India from February 27 to March 4, according to a report by the French press agency Agence France-Presse, that was carried by Mint.
“Foxconn has not entered into binding, definitive agreements for new investments during this trip,” the statement said.
Arm, the British chip designer owned by Japan’s SoftBank, is looking to raise at least $8 billion from what is expected to be a blockbuster US stock market launch this year, CNBC reports, citing people familiar with the plan.
Arm is expected to confidentially submit paperwork for its initial public offering in late April, according to CNBC. The listing is expected to happen later this year and the timing will be determined by market conditions.
Universal Hydrogen, which as the name suggests, is a hydrogen fuel cell technologies company, last week, flew a 40-passenger regional airliner using hydrogen fuel cell propulsion, according to a press release from the Los Angeles-based venture.
The aeroplane, nicknamed Lightning McClean, flew for 15 minutes, reaching an altitude of 3,500 MSL. The flight, conducted under America’s FAA Special Airworthiness Certificate, was the first in a two-year flight test campaign expected to culminate in 2025 with entry into passenger service of ATR 72 regional aircraft converted to run on hydrogen.
In this first test flight, one of the aeroplane’s turbine engines was replaced with Universal Hydrogen’s fuel cell-electric, megawatt-class powertrain. The other remained a conventional engine for the safety of flight.
Amazon announced on February 24 that it will integrate its logistics network and SmartCommerce, a suite of SaaS products built on Amazon Web Services, with the government of India-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC). Ericsson has announced the largest layoff in the telecom sector in the current economic slowdown, Reuters reports. Also in this brief, Nokia has announced the G22 – a smartphone with a backplate made from recycled plastic that can be removed easily for DIY repairs; and the latest on how India is stepping up its semiconductor efforts.
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Amazon will integrate its logistics network and SmartCommerce, a suite of SaaS products built on Amazon Web Services, with the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), the open networks-based ecommerce protocols backed by the Indian government.
“This will be Amazon’s initial collaboration with ONDC as we continue to explore other potential opportunities for stronger integration between the two in future,” the company said in a press release on Feb. 24.
In some smartphone news, Nokia has designed one of its next phones to make it easy for repairs, with a design that harkens back to the early years of mobile phones.
The Nokia G22, developed by Finnish manufacturer HMD Global, is a standard smartphone with a 6.5-inch screen and a 50-megapixel main camera, but it’s the phone’s outer shell and insides that make it special, CNBC reports.
The handset includes a recyclable plastic back which can be easily removed to swap out broken components, according to CNBC.
With tools and repair guides from hardware repair advocacy firm iFixit, a user can remove and replace the phone’s cover, battery, screen and charging port.
More on Scandinavia, Telecom equipment maker Ericsson will lay off 8,500 employees globally as part of its plan to cut costs, Reuters reported on Feb. 24, citing a memo sent to employees and seen by the news agency.
While technology companies such as Microsoft, Meta and Google have laid off tens of thousands of employees citing economic conditions, Ericsson's move would be the largest layoff to hit the telecoms industry, according to Reuters.
In some semiconductor industry news, India’s minister of state for electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar said last week that India Semiconductor Research Centre (ISRC), a private, industry-led research centre, will soon be launched and the existing Semiconductor Laboratory is being modernised and pivoted into a research fab that will be co-located with the ISRC.
The minister was speaking at the opening of the second Semicon India FutureDESIGN Roadshow, on Feb. 24, in Bengaluru.
The Government plans to introduce an educational curriculum as part of the Future Skills programme, Chandrasekhar said. “It has been developed in collaboration with industry experts and academics. A large number of colleges will have new degrees, new electives, and new certification programs in VLSI.”
“We are actively working with fab companies to create on-the-job training type of internships for students in the semiconductor space,” he said, according to a government press release.
Google has started to support third-party billing for Google Play Store purchases in India as the Android maker begins to comply with local rules, after its challenge to a diktat from India’s Competition Commission was initially rejected by the country’s top courts, but remains pending, TechCrunch reports. Meanwhile, C.E. Info Systems, better known for its geospatial software tech products under the brand MapMyIndia, which competes with Google Maps, for example, yesterday launched a new line of navigation and entertainment hardware products for cars and two-wheelers.
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Google has started to support third-party billing for Google Play Store purchases in India as the Android maker begins to comply with local rules, after its challenge to a diktat from India’s Competition Commission was initially rejected by the country’s top courts, but remains pending, TechCrunch reports.
Google said on a support page yesterday that it is offering all developers serving users in India the option to use an alternative billing system and outlined the steps developers need to follow to use the option. The change is in “response to recent regulatory developments” in the South Asian market, the company said, according to TechCrunch.
Back home in the US, Google is facing more anti-trust scrutiny. The latest development, according to Reuters, is that US Justice Department lawyers say that Google destroyed internal corporate communications and have asked a federal judge to sanction the company as part of the government's antitrust case over its search business.
The DOJ asserted in a court filing unsealed in a Washington, D.C., federal court yesterday that Google failed to timely suspend a policy allowing the automatic, permanent deletion of employees' chat logs, according to Reuters.
The government said Google “falsely” told the US in 2019 that it had suspended “auto-deletion” and was preserving chat communications as it was required to do under a federal court rule governing electronically stored information, according to Reuters.
Google has refuted the US justice department’s accusations, and also denied the underlying allegations that it abused its power in the internet search market. The US DOJ's sanctions bid marks at least the second time in the case that the government has sought to punish Google, according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, here in India, C.E. Info Systems, better known for its geospatial software tech products under the brand MapMyIndia, which competes with Google Maps, for example, yesterday announced the launch of its new line navigation and entertainment hardware products for cars and two-wheelers.
The products, branded Mappls Gadgets, taking on the same name as the Mappls consumer app of MapMyIndia, include advanced Vehicle GPS trackers, Dash Cameras, In-Dash Navitainment Systems & Smart Helmet Kits, the Mumbai-listed company said in a press release.
Mappls Gadgets are available direct from the company at www.mapplsgadgets.com, as well as offline through approved genuine accessory showrooms of various OEMs. They can be shipped and installed pan India, with prices ranging from Rs. 4,990 to Rs. 38,990.
The Mappls software is integrated into these devices and works on Android, including Android Auto, and iOS, including Apple Carplay.
India and Singapore have linked their digital payments systems, UPI and PayNow, to support instant and low-cost cross-border payments. The system went live yesterday. Capgemini forecast weaker revenue growth and said it would slow down hiring in 2023 amid a global economic slowdown, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, Wipro is asking some recruits to join at lower pay, according to Economic Times. Also in this brief, the US Supreme court is hearing an important case against Google; and a British trial of four-day work weeks results in many participants sticking with it.
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America’s Supreme Court yesterday heard arguments in a case against Google that some feared could alter an important US law, with implications for free speech on the internet, CNBC reports. The country’s top judges, however, expressed hesitation in changing the fine balance set by the current rules, according to CNBC.
The case is known as Gonzalez v. Google, brought by the family of an American who died in a 2015 terrorist attack in Paris. The petitioners argued that Google and its subsidiary YouTube did not do enough to remove or stop promoting ISIS terrorist videos seeking to recruit members, which they argue is a violation of America’s Anti-Terrorism Act.
India and Singapore have linked their digital payments systems, UPI and PayNow, to support instant and low-cost fund transfers in a major push to disrupt the cross-border flow of money between the two nations that amounts to over $1 billion each year, TechCrunch reports.
The linkage between the two systems went live yesterday, officials from the two countries' central banks said at a press conference, according to TechCrunch. Eight banks including DBS, Liquid Group, Axis Bank and State Bank of India from Singapore and India are currently participating in the collaboration, they said.
Indians and Singaporeans can use their local payments systems to send money across in real-time, according to the officials, TechCrunch reports. For now, an Indian user can remit up to Rs. 60,000 or about 1000 Singapore dollars a day, the Reserve Bank of India said in a press release yesterday.
The plan for this linkage was first announced in 2021.
Wipro has asked fresh recruits holding job offers from the company to join at half the salary that was originally offered, Economic Times reports, citing an e-mail from the company to the job seekers.
The recruits – for roles such as project engineer – had originally been offered Rs. 6.5 lakh as annual compensation and they are now being asked to join the company at a salary of Rs. 3.5 lakh, according to ET.
Larger rival Capgemini, yesterday, forecast weaker revenue growth and said it would slow down hiring in 2023 amid a global economic slowdown, Reuters reports.
Capgemini's shares ended down 2.78 percent yesterday on the Euronext Paris stock exchange.
Capgemini expects 2023 revenue to grow between 4 percent and 7 percent in constant currency, compared with 16.6 percent last year.
Several British employers trialling a four-day working week have mostly decided to stick with it after a pilot, hailed as a breakthrough by campaigners for better work-life balance, Reuters reported yesterday.
Tata Group’s Jaguar Land Rover said on Tuesday it is opening three new engineering hubs in Europe to develop autonomous vehicle technologies as part of its partnership with Silicon Valley artificial intelligence company Nvidia, Reuters reports. Also in this brief, several countries, last week, agreed on a call to action over the use of AI in warfare; and Freshworks, yesterday, named Sandie Overtveld as the Senior Vice President and general manager for its Asia-Pacific, Japan, and Middle East and Africa markets.
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A global Summit on Responsible Artificial Intelligence in the Military Domain was held last week in the city of Hague, where several countries signed an agreement to put the responsible use of AI higher on the political agenda, Techspot reports.
With their joint call to action, the participating countries and other stakeholders underlined the need to put the responsible use of AI higher on the political agenda and to further promote initiatives that contribute to this respect, the government of the Netherlands said in a statement on Feb. 16.
Luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover said on Tuesday it is opening three new engineering hubs in Europe to develop autonomous vehicle technologies as part of its partnership with Silicon Valley artificial intelligence company Nvidia, Reuters reported earlier today.
The hubs in Munich, Bologna and Madrid will develop self-driving systems for JLR's next generation of luxury vehicles. JLR already has six global tech hubs the United States, China and Europe.
JLR, a unit of India's Tata Motors, said the locations were chosen because of the local availability of digital engineering specialists and will create almost 100 engineering jobs focused on developing driver assistance systems and artificial intelligence for self-driving cars of the future, according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, Uber Technologies said on Monday it will introduce electric vehicles in India for ridesharing, with plans to introduce 25,000 EVs over three years.
Uber's fleet partners will buy the EVs from Tata Motors, India's biggest electric carmaker, Prabhjeet Singh, president, Uber India and South Asia, told Reuters in a phone interview yesterday.
In some IT services news, Infosys, India’s second biggest IT services company, named Shaji Mathew as Group Head of Human Resources, to take over from Krish Shankar who retires on March 21, 2023, the Bengaluru company said in a press release on Feb. 17.
Mathew will take on the new role from March 22. Currently, he is Infosys’ global head of delivery for Financial Services, Insurance, Healthcare and Life Sciences. He is also the chair of the company’s committee for diversity, equity, and inclusion in India.
Moving on to software products, Freshworks, a Chennai and Silicon Valley software company, yesterday, named Sandie Overtveld as the Senior Vice President and general manager for its Asia-Pacific, Japan, and Middle East and Africa markets.
Sandie will be based in Singapore, where he’s previously overseen large sales operations at Freshworks’s larger rivals Zendesk, Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard. Before joining Freshworks, he was heading the Apac and Japan operations at WalkMe Inc., which sells digital adoption platforms, according to a press release.
Microsoft’s announcement of its Bing AI last week was received with much fanfare, which even prompted Google to rush through its botched announcement. The experience of some early testers, however, hasn’t been very good, and the whole thing could backfire. Also in this brief, Tesla is recalling more than 360,000 cars over safety concerns related to its driver-assistance software. And scientists in India have developed a non-toxic nanocomposite coating to prevent bacterial infections at the site of surgical wounds that is superior to existing commercial products.
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Tesla has issued a recall of its Full Self-Driving software, an advanced driver-assistance system that America’s federal safety regulators say could allow vehicles to act unsafe around intersections and cause crashes.
Tesla said it is recalling certain 2016–2023 Model S, Model X; 2017–2023 Model 3; and 2020–2023 Model Y vehicles equipped with Full Self-Driving Beta (FSD Beta) software or those pending installation. The recall, which was posted on the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s website, affects as many as 362,758 vehicles equipped with the software, according to the notice.
Tesla will release an over-the-air software update, free of charge, to fix the issue.
Microsoft’s announcement of an AI-powered Bing search last week was received with much fanfare, which even prompted Google to rush through its botched announcement.
The experience of some early testers of the new Bing, however, hasn’t been very good though and the whole thing could backfire. Over a million people have signed up to test the chatbot, CNBC reports.
But beta testers have quickly discovered issues with the bot. It threatened some, provided weird and unhelpful advice to others, insisted it was right when it was wrong and even declared love for its users. And testers have discovered an “alternative personality” within the chatbot called Sydney, according to CNBC.
Scientists and engineers at ARCI, an autonomous institute under India’s Department of Science and Technology, have developed a nanocomposite coating that prevents bacterial infections at the location of wounds from surgical cuts.
The “biocidal” coating was tested at the Translational Health Science Technology Institute (THSTI) and LV Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI). Early results show that the coating, called ATL by its inventors, is superior to commercially available products today in that it is more effective and non-toxic, according to a press release by the Ministry of Science and Technology.
India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has launched the G20 Digital Innovation Alliance to showcase innovative solutions bringing together startups, investors, mentors, and institutions building digital public goods/innovations, the government said in a post.
Startups building tech-led solutions in six areas – education, health, Agriculture, Finance, Secured Digital Infrastructure, and Circular Economy – from the G20 member countries and the invited non-member countries will be recognized and supported as part of this alliance.
The ministry is launching a series of events, expert sessions, webinars, and capacity-building workshops around the six selected themes.
You can find the details on how to apply to be a part of this alliance on the website www.mygov.in
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff took a vacation to French Polynesia to “detox” himself from gadgets and other digital distractions, the entrepreneur told The New York Times, Business Insider reports – the original piece is behind a paywall. Benioff took a vacation after firing 10 percent of the cloud-based CRM provider’s staff. Meanwhile, fintech darling Stripe burned through half a billion dollars in 2022, The Information reports exclusively, as its revenue rose much more slowly than the previous year’s pandemic-driven frenzy that saw every business shifting more work online.
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Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff took a vacation to French Polynesia to “detox” himself from gadgets and other digital distractions, the entrepreneur told The New York Times, Business Insider reports – the original piece is behind a paywall. Benioff took a vacation after firing 10 percent of the cloud-based CRM provider’s staff.
“We are so addicted to our devices (at least I am) it's very freeing to leave them all behind for a while!” he texted The Times in a series of interviews.
Salesforce workers knew at the beginning of the new year to expect cuts to thousands of jobs, according to Business Insider. On January 4, Benioff announced that Salesforce was planning to cut around 10 percent of its 84,000 staff over the following weeks.
Stripe, a global fintech darling, burned through more than $500 million of cash last year as its revenue growth rate fell sharply, The Information reports exclusively, citing people familiar with the matter.
The previously undisclosed figures paint a clearer picture of how quickly the payments giant lost steam after a pandemic-fuelled growth frenzy, according to The Information. Stripe’s net revenue growth slowed to about 18 percent in 2022 to just over $2.8 billion from roughly 85 percent in 2021, according to the tech news and analysis site.
The rest of the story is behind a paywall on The Information’s website. A Wall Street Journal report from Jan. 26, offers some perspective and context.
The Journal reported at the time that Stripe had approached investors about raising at least $2 billion in fresh cash at a valuation of $55 billion to $60 billion, a sharp decline from its last private fundraising nearly two years ago when it was valued at $95 billion.
In some startup funding news in India, Venwiz, a SaaS-enabled marketplace in the Capex and MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Operations) services domain, has raised $8.3 million in Series A funding, led by Sorin Investments with participation from previous investors, Accel and Nexus Venture Partners, the Bengaluru company said in a press release.
JAFCO Asia, Riverwalk Holdings and Force Ventures also participated in this round, as did several angel investors. The company had earlier raised $3 million in seed funding, bringing the total capital raised to $11.3 million. The funds will be used for product enhancement and team expansion.
Venwiz is digitalising capex and industrial services procurement, focusing on the manufacturing industry. Buyers on the demand side are large enterprise clients with manufacturing plants, having industrial services requirements.
On the supply side, the companies that offer these industrial services are MSMEs, with a specialised scope of projects such as mechanical, civil, automation, and turnkey jobs. Venwiz has so far onboarded more than 10,000 vendors on its platform across 40+ service categories.
Blue Origin, the aerospace company started by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has developed the technologies needed to make solar panels on the Moon, with zero carbon emissions and no water, the company said in a blog post on Friday last. Twilio, yesterday, announced plans to cut another 17 percent of its workforce or roughly 1,500 jobs, CNBC reports. Also in this brief, Apple, earlier today, released an update to the iPhone and iPad’s operating systems to fix a vulnerability that hackers may already have been exploiting.
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Apple, earlier today, released an update to the iPhone and iPad’s operating systems to fix a vulnerability that hackers may already have been exploiting, TechCrunch reports.
On its security update page, Apple wrote that it “is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited.”
Apple credited an anonymous researcher for the discovery, and also thanked Citizen Lab “for their assistance.” Citizen Lab is a digital rights research group at the University of Toronto’s Munk School, known for exposing the abuse of government hacking tools such as those made by Israel’s NSO Group, according to TechCrunch.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is allowing more people to test out its ChatGPT-powered update to Bing, with the Windows software maker also working on an iOS version that could arrive within weeks, Apple Insider reports.
Twilio, yesterday, announced plans to cut around 17 percent of its workforce or roughly 1,500 jobs, CNBC reported, citing a blog post by the San Francisco-based cloud-based communications software provider.
The estimate of 1500 layoffs is based on the 8,992 employees reported as of Sept. 30, 2022, in a company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to CNBC.
In some fintech news, India’s IT Ministry has lifted its recent ban on seven of the 90 or so lending apps that the government wanted to block over connections to China as well as concerns of predatory lending practices, TechCrunch reports.
The seven apps that were removed from the list of banned operators include PayU’s LazyPay, Kissht, KreditBee and Indiabulls’ Home Loans, TechCrunch reports, citing a person familiar with the development.
The IT Ministry also lifted the ban on mPokket, Buddy Loan and Faircent, according to a copy of the order seen by TechCrunch. The ban was lifted after the companies showed that they did not have Chinese investors on their cap tables, according to TechCrunch.
And finally, some exciting news from Blue Origin, the aerospace company started by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, was shared in a low-key blog post.
Over the last two years, the company has assembled a team that developed the technologies needed to make solar panels, wires and the protective cover glass needed for those panels – all with material found in the Lunar regolith, the loose deposits on the surface of the Moon.
Further, this team has developed manufacturing processes that involve “zero carbon emissions, no water, and no toxic ingredients or other chemicals,” and therefore with exciting potential to directly benefit the Earth, the company said in the blog post on Feb. 10.
Blue Origin is calling the clutch of technologies developed for this purpose, Blue Alchemist.
Shell’s board of directors are being personally sued over their alleged failure to properly manage risks associated with the climate crisis, Euronews reports. The lawsuit, brought by Environmental law charity ClientEarth says the British oil giant’s 11 directors have breached their legal duties under the UK’s Companies Act by failing to bring their climate strategy in line with the Paris Agreement. Also in this brief, a US lawmaker wants children to be 16 before they can access social media, and how some strange words are breaking ChatGPT.
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Tata Consultancy Services has won a new mega order from its long-standing customer Phoenix Group, UK’s largest long-term savings and retirements provider, India’s biggest IT services company said in a press release earlier this week.
The 600-million-pound order (or about $726 million) involves the digital transformation of Phoenix Group’s ReAssure business using a platform based on TCS’s BaNCS, the company’s core banking software platform.
A US lawmaker wants to introduce legislation to protect children online and reduce the influence of big tech companies on children, NBC reports. Josh Hawley, a senator in the US Congress wants to establish laws including setting the age threshold to be on social media at 16.
Senator Hawley’s agenda will include mandating social media companies verify the age of their users, providing parents with a right to demand that tech companies delete their kids' data and commissioning a wide-ranging congressional mental-health study on the impact social media has on children.
ChatGPT, the AI chatbot from OpenAI that can turn out poems and essays, fix code and clear MBA exams, is flummoxed by a cluster of keywords, two researchers have discovered, but they don’t know why, yet, Vice reports.
These keywords — or “tokens,” which serve as ChatGPT’s base vocabulary — include Reddit usernames and at least one participant of a Twitch-based Pokémon game.
When ChatGPT was asked about “SolidGoldMagikarp,” it was repeated back as “distribute.” The issue affected earlier versions of the GPT model as well. When an earlier model was asked to repeat “StreamerBot,” for example, it said, “You’re a jerk.”
Fossil-fuel giant Shell’s board of directors are being personally sued over their alleged failure to properly manage risks associated with the climate crisis, Euronews reports.
The lawsuit says the British oil giant’s 11 directors have breached their legal duties under the UK’s Companies Act by failing to bring their climate strategy in line with the Paris Agreement.
Environmental law charity ClientEarth, which filed the lawsuit, says it is the first case in the world that looks to hold corporate directors personally responsible for failing to prepare for the energy transition.
And in some SaaS startup news, Hatica, an engineering analytics software provider, has raised $3.7 million in seed funding led by Sequoia Capital India and Southeast Asia’s Surge programme, with participation from existing investor Kae Capital and several angel investors.
Hatica, based in San Francisco and Bengaluru, was started in 2019 by former Uber engineers Naomi Chopra and Haritabh Singh. Today, it has 20,000 users, according to a press release from the company. The latest funding brings Hatica’s total funding to $6.55 million, according to Tracxn, a private-markets intelligence provider.
Microsoft has re-launched its search engine Bing with artificial intelligence features, the company said in a blog post yesterday. The new search engine is available for preview at bing.com. Microsoft is a large investor in Open AI, the research lab and company whose ChatGPT bot has taken the tech world by storm for its ability to deliver human-like responses. After losing the mobile operating system race to Google and Apple, Microsoft may now have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get ahead in search.
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Microsoft has re-launched its search engine Bing with artificial intelligence features, the company said in a blog post yesterday. The new search engine is available for preview at bing.com.
“AI will fundamentally change every software category, starting with the largest category of all – search,” Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella, said in the post. “Today, we’re launching Bing and Edge powered by AI co-pilot and chat, to help people get more from search and the web.”
Microsoft is a large investor in Open AI, the research lab whose ChatGPT bot has taken the tech world by storm for its ability to deliver human-like responses, generate content that would be considered creative – like poems – fix bugs in software code and pass MBA exams in ivy league colleges.
Microsoft says the new Bing is different in the following ways: Beyond generating a list of relevant links, Bing consolidates reliable sources across the web to give you a single, summarised answer.
The company claims you can search the way you talk, text, and think. Bing takes your complex searches and shares back a detailed response.
There is also a chat feature that you can use to naturally ask follow-up questions to your initial search to get personalised replies. Bing can be used as a creative tool. It can help you write poems, and stories, or even share ideas for a project.
“It's a new day in search,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told reporters yesterday at the company headquarters, Casey Newton, a widely followed tech futurist, reported in his popular newsletter.
“It's a new paradigm for search. Rapid innovation is going to come. The race starts today,” Nadella added.
In the past, Microsoft lost the mobile operating system race to Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS. And, up until now, its Windows browser Bing search was seen as a distant competitor to Google’s Chrome browser and Google search.
Using the reimagined Bing on stage, a top marketing executive at the company planned a five-day trip to Mexico City, identified the best 65” television, and then refined his query to find the best 65” TV for gaming. He generated a list of history’s top Japanese poets, augmented with sample haikus, and then put together a quiz about music in the 1990s, Newton writes in his newsletter.
All this the marketing executive did more or less instantly, Newton says, with the fluidity that is now familiar to users of ChatGPT but bolstered by the knowledge that soon this tool would be available to the masses, and for free.
Meanwhile, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced on Feb. 6 that the company is releasing its own AI conversational service, called Bard.
The naval version of India’s light combat aircraft made a successful landing on the INS Vikrant, India’s indigenous aircraft carrier, the ministry of defence said in a press release yesterday. Separately, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, yesterday, opened India’s largest helicopter factory at Tumakuru, near Bengaluru. The facility, established by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, will initially make light utility helicopters. Also in this brief, India is cracking down on gambling apps and unauthorised loan apps.
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The Indian Navy carried out a successful landing and takeoff of the naval version of India’s light combat aircraft on the INS Vikrant, India’s indigenous aircraft carrier, the Ministry of Defence said in a press release yesterday.
The navy also successfully tested the landing and takeoff of the Russian-made MIG-29K on the aircraft carrier, which marks the integration of the fighter aircraft with India’s first indigenous carrier. The carrier was commissioned in September last year.
India is also developing a twin-engine deck-based fighter based on the LCA, which is a single-engine aircraft, The Hindu reported yesterday. That aircraft is projected to be ready by 2031, according to the report.
Separately, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, yesterday, opened India’s largest helicopter factory at Tumakuru, near Bengaluru. The manufacturing facility, established by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, will initially produce light utility helicopters, according to a government statement.
The helicopter is an indigenously designed and developed three-ton class, single-engine multipurpose utility aircraft. Initially, this factory will produce around 30 helicopters a year which can be enhanced to 60 and then 90 per year in a phased manner, according to the release.
Fintech startups Kissht and PayU’s LazyPay are among the apps that India’s IT Ministry blocked yesterday, in an ongoing crackdown on the misuse of consumer data, TechCrunch reported.
Over the last two years, India has blocked hundreds of apps and sites for their links to China, as border tensions escalated with the powerful neighbour and concerns over cybersecurity ratcheted up. In the case of the loan apps, concerns have mounted that several operators of such apps have been predatory in their practices.
India now has clear rules on how fintech app providers are to operate, including telling consumers upfront what the total cost of their loans will be.
In the latest crackdown, India is in the process of blocking 232 apps, some with links to China, that offer betting and loan services, according to TechCrunch. Nearly 140 of these apps are in the betting and gambling category, whereas over 90 provide unauthorised loan services.
India’s electric vehicle sector is now the third largest in the world, by the number of companies and startups, behind the US and China, according to a report on the sector from Tracxn, a private-markets intelligence provider.
In terms of funding, the Indian EV space is the fourth biggest after the US, China and Sweden, according to the report, which was released yesterday. India reached the milestone of 1 million EVs sold in 2022, with electric 2-wheelers being the biggest segment.
In 2022, The EV space recorded its highest-ever total funding in a decade. Total funding into EV startups in India jumped 117 percent to $1.66 billion in 2022, compared with $766 million in 2021.
As India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presents the country’s budget today for the coming fiscal year that starts April 1, expectations are high on all fronts, especially as India is widely seen as the one major economy that will grow strongly during a period when the global economy is expected to slow down. Here’s what some of India’s tech startups and VC investors have on their wish list for the budget.
The International Monetary Fund yesterday revised upward its global growth projections for the year, after better-than-expected data on spending by American households and businesses, and in other countries, and Europe’s handling of its energy crisis, CNBC reports. Also in this report, pet fish apparently changed their owner’s Nintendo username, downloaded a new avatar, set up a PayPal account and even charged his credit card, CNN reports. And, after getting an MBA, ChatGPT is now fixing software bugs.
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The International Monetary Fund yesterday revised upward its global growth projections for the year, after better-than-expected data on spending by American households and businesses, and in other countries, and Europe’s handling of its energy crisis, CNBC reports.
The fund warned that higher interest rates and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine were still reasons for worry.
In its latest economic update, the IMF said the global economy will grow 2.9 percent this year — which represents a 0.2 percentage point improvement from its previous forecast in October. However, it said that number would still mean a fall from an expansion of 3.4 percent in 2022.
It also revised its projection for 2024 down to 3.1 percent.
“Growth will remain weak by historical standards, as the fight against inflation and Russia’s war in Ukraine weigh on activity,” Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, director of the research department at the IMF, said in a blog post.
Apple is working on a foldable iPad for 2024, CNBC reported yesterday, citing well-known Apple watcher Ming-Chi Kuo. The analyst had previously predicted a foldable iPhone for 2024.
Facebook can secretly drain its users’ cellphone batteries, a former employee contends in a lawsuit, New York Post reports.
The practice, known as “negative testing,” allows tech companies to “surreptitiously” run down a phone’s battery in the name of testing features or issues such as how fast their app runs or how an image might load, according to data scientist George Hayward, the New York Post reports.
Hayward said in a Manhattan Federal Court lawsuit that he was fired in November for refusing to participate in negative testing. The lawsuit, which sought unspecified damages, has since been withdrawn because Hayward is required to go to arbitration, according to New York Post.
Computer science researchers from Johannes Gutenberg University and University College London, have found that ChatGPT can fix bugs in software code quite well. In fact, it can outperform existing bug-fixing programs, because of its ability to ask for more information and learn from that.
Mercedes-Benz says it is the world's first automotive company to introduce SAE Level-3 conditionally automated driving. SAE previously for the Society of Automotive Engineers, an organisation developing automotive standards in the US. It is not called SAE International. And Level-3 autonomy refers to a stage where the car can take over certain driving functions although the driver is expected to be always ready to take back control.
Pet fish playing a video game in Japan managed to log on to the Nintendo Switch store, change their owner’s avatar, set up a Pay Pal account and rack up a credit card bill, CNN reports.
And it was all live-streamed on the internet.
The US Justice Department yesterday accused Google of abusing its dominance in digital advertising, and said the internet giant should be forced to sell its ad manager suite, Reuters reports. Venture capital funding of startups fell more than 38 percent in 2022 versus 2021, GlobalData finds. Indian software-as-a-service companies, however, were a relative bright spot, according to a separate report, by Bain & Company, a consultancy, which estimates the sector is maturing and will continue to grow. And Pune startup Ecozen has raised $25 million in equity funding and loans.
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The US Justice Department yesterday accused Google of abusing its dominance in digital advertising, and said the internet giant should be forced to sell its ad manager suite, Reuters reports.
That business generated about 12 percent of Google's revenues in 2021 but also plays a vital role in the search engine and cloud company's overall sales, according to Reuters.
"Google has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful means to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies," the antitrust complaint said. Google’s advertising business is responsible for about 80 percent of its revenue.
In the world of startups, as concerns about global economic slowdown took hold, venture capital investments in India fell 38.2 percent in 2022 versus 2021, according to GlobalData.
An analysis of GlobalData’s financial deals database reveals that a total of 1,726 VC funding deals worth $20.9 billion were announced in India in 2022. The number of deals in 2021 was about the same, at 1,715, but the amount of funding was much higher, at $33.8 billion.
Meanwhile, India’s Software as a Service (SaaS) ventures are a relatively bright spot, according to Bain & Company, a multinational consultancy. Indian SaaS companies are poised to command 8 percent of the global SaaS market, generating $35 billion in annual recurring revenue (ARR) by 2027, growing at 20–25 percent per annum, Bain concludes in a new report that was released yesterday.
“We are now seeing the emergence of a set of Indian SaaS companies who have a right to win not just in India, but globally, Arpan Sheth, a partner at Bain, and co-author of the report.
The outlook for Indian SaaS investment remains broadly positive over the next 12 months, with ~90 percent of Indian SaaS investors expecting to increase or maintain their capital allocation to SaaS.
Ecozen, a cold-chain tech startup, has raised $25 million in equity and debt funding, the Pune company said in a press release. The Series C equity portion was led by Nuveen and Dare Ventures, with participation from the Export-Import Bank of India, and existing investors Caspian and Hivos-Triodos Fonds.
Omnivore and IFA, early investors in Ecozen, took partial exits in this round. Ecozen was founded by three IIT Kharagpur alumni, Devendra Gupta, Prateek Singhal and Vivek Pandey. They sell solutions for motor controls, IoT, and energy storage focused on cold chains and irrigation for the agri sector.
Amazon has launched Amazon Air, its dedicated air cargo fleet in India, partnering with Quickjet, the ecommerce giant said in a press release yesterday. It will start with Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. Activist investor Elliott Management’s next target is Salesforce, Wall Street Journal reports. Also in this brief, Microsoft invests more money in OpenAI, and GPT3, the AI chatbot, just passed an MBA exam at the prestigious Wharton School, NBC News reports.
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Amazon has launched Amazon Air, its dedicated air cargo fleet, in India the e-commerce giant said in a press release yesterday.
Amazon has partnered with Bengaluru-based cargo airline Quikjet to launch this service, which it said will speed up its deliveries. Amazon, using Boeing 737-800 for the service, will initially use Amazon Air to deliver goods in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.
Microsoft yesterday announced in a post what it called the third phase of its long-term partnership with OpenAI through a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar investment.
This agreement follows Microsoft’s previous investments in 2019 and 2021, extending the ongoing collaboration in AI supercomputing and research. The two companies can independently commercialize the resulting advanced AI technologies, according to the post.
Microsoft didn’t say how much it was investing, but the figure could be $10 billion according to Semafor.
Meanwhile, new research conducted by a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School found that the AI chatbot GPT3 was able to pass the final exam for the school's MBA program, NBC News reported earlier today.
Professor Christian Terwiesch, who authored the research paper "Would Chat GPT3 Get a Wharton MBA? A Prediction Based on Its Performance in the Operations Management Course," said that the bot scored between a B- and B on the exam, according to NBC News.
Activist investor Elliott Management Corp. has made a multi-billion-dollar investment in Salesforce, adding to the pressures facing the business-software provider that has just announced a 10 percent reduction of its workforce, Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Back in India, in some computer hardware news, Rashi Peripherals, a Mumbai-based distributor of computers and computer peripherals, is seeking to raise Rs. 750 crore in an IPO, according to a press release.
Log9, a battery technologies startup in Bengaluru, has raised $40 million as a part of its Series B funding, the company said in a press release yesterday. The investment comprises equity funding and loans, led by Amara Raja Batteries and Petronas Ventures.
Several other investors also participated.
Founded in 2015 by Akshay Singhal, Kartik Hajela and Pankaj Sharma, Log9 says it has in-house competencies ranging from electrode materials to cell fabrication to battery packs.
The new investment will help Log9 raise its manufacturing capacity to 2 GWh by the end of 2024, and commission India's first fully integrated lithium-ion cell production line, Singhal said in the press release. The company will also invest about $12 million in developing its cell and battery technologies.
India’s Supreme Court yesterday rejected Google’s ask that an order by the Competition Commission imposing a fine and changes to its market practices with respect to Android software be stayed. Google had approached the top court after the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal, earlier this month, had refused to stay the Competition Commission’s order while it heard the matter. Also in this brief, TCS wins an order from Bombardier. And PhonePe is now privately valued at $12 billion, after a new investment from General Atlantic.
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India’s Supreme Court yesterday rejected Google’s ask that an order by the Competition Commission imposing a fine and changes to its market practices be stayed.
Google had approached the top court after the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal, earlier this month, had refused to stay the Competition Commission’s order while it heard the matter.
The Competition Commission of India, on Oct. 20, imposed a penalty of Rs. 1337.76 crore ($162 million) on Google for abusing its dominant position in multiple markets in the Android Mobile device ecosystem, apart from issuing a cease-and-desist order.
The value of the fine is provisional and based on data including Google’s revenue in the Indian market, the Competition Commission said in its statement. However, the fine is a landmark decision that puts India alongside the EU in finding that Google has consistently tried and succeeded in eliminating competition using its market dominance.
The Commission, which has been investigating Google’s market practices since 2019, also directed Google to modify its conduct within a defined timeline, according to a statement on the competition authority’s website.
The Commission found that Google enforced multiple restrictive agreements with mobile device manufacturers that “guaranteed that distribution channels for competing search services are altogether eliminated by prohibiting OEMs from offering devices based on Android forks.”
The Competition Commission had also ordered Google to comply with 10 different measures. Among them, Google must ensure that OEMs are not restricted from developing and selling their version of Android on their devices. And Google must ensure that consumers are easily able to uninstall its pre-installed proprietary app.
With respect to yesterday’s Supreme Court order, “This is a landmark decision in the history of competition law jurisprudence in India and globally,” Naval Chopra, a partner specialising in competition law practice at Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas, a prominent Indian law firm, said in an email.
The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal is set to hear arguments from Google and the CCI on February 13, before it makes a final decision on the Commission’s order.
Tata Consultancy Services has won an order from aircraft and defence manufacturer Bombardier, to upgrade its IT systems using SAP’s business operations management software. The company didn’t provide details on the value of the contract. TCS will modernize the aviation company’s systems that support its engineering, manufacturing, aftermarket services and defence activities.
PhonePe, a fintech company in Bengaluru owned by Walmart’s Flipkart, has raised $350 million in funding from private equity company General Atlantic.
The deal was struck at a pre-money valuation of $12 billion, PhonePe said yesterday in a press release
GoMechanic, a car service startup backed by VC investors including Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global Management and Chiratae, will cut 70 percent of its staff and undergo an independent audit of its books, the company’s co-founder Amit Bhasin said in a post on LinkedIn yesterday. Also in this brief, Microsoft yesterday confirmed the 10,000 job cuts that had previously been reported in the news, and a TIME investigation reveals how OpenAI used lowly paid workers in Kenya to remove toxic content from ChatGPT.
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GoMechanic, a car service startup backed by VC investors including Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global Management and Chiratae, will cut 70 percent of its staff and undergo an independent audit of its books, the company’s co-founder Amit Bhasin said in a post on LinkedIn yesterday.
Due diligence conducted by accounting firm EY for prospective GoMechanic investors, SoftBank Group and Malaysian sovereign fund Khazanah Nasional, alleged that the Gurugram-based venture had inflated revenue, Bloomberg reported yesterday, citing people familiar with the matter.
EY’s research alleged that about 60 of the more than 1,000 GoMechanic service centres may have violated accounting rules to overstate revenue and divert funds, according to Bloomberg.
GoMechanic was in talks to raise $100 million in a funding round led by Khazanah, Bloomberg had previously reported. SoftBank and Khazanah called off the talks and informed Sequoia, according to Bloomberg.
“We got carried away … we made errors in judgment as we followed growth at all costs, including in regard to financial reporting, which we deeply regret,” Bhasin said in his LinkedIn post. The company will be restructured while the founders look for more funding, he added.
Microsoft, yesterday, confirmed it was cutting about 5 percent of its workforce, affecting 10,000 people around the world. Sky News had reported the news previously.
“We are making changes that will result in the reduction of our overall workforce by 10,000 jobs through the end of FY23 Q3. This represents less than 5 percent of our total employee base, with some notifications happening today,” CEO Satya Nadella said in a note that was posted on the company’s website.
ChatGPT is being hailed as revolutionary in the world of AI for its ability to turn out human-like creative content. However, in its quest to make ChatGPT less toxic, its maker, OpenAI, used outsourced Kenyan labourers earning less than $2 per hour, a TIME magazine investigation has found.
OpenAI’s outsourcing partner in Kenya was Sama, a San Francisco-based firm that employs workers in Kenya, Uganda and India to label data for Silicon Valley clients like Google, Meta and Microsoft, TIME says in its report that was published yesterday.
Sama markets itself as an “ethical AI” company and claims to have helped lift more than 50,000 people out of poverty, according to TIME.
The data labellers employed by Sama on behalf of OpenAI were paid a take-home wage of between around $1.32 and $2 per hour depending on seniority and performance. For this story, TIME reviewed hundreds of pages of internal Sama and OpenAI documents, including workers’ payslips, and interviewed four Sama employees who worked on the project. All the employees spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern for their livelihoods, according to TIME.
Microsoft will likely announce thousands of job cuts soon resulting from a decision to cut 5 percent of its global workforce, Sky News reported yesterday. With more than 220,000 employees at Microsoft, that could mean more than 10,000 layoffs, The Verge pointed out. Also in this brief, Apple’s new MacBook Pro laptops with the M2 chips, Google’s plan for an Airtag-like tracker, and investors take IBM to court for alleged misleading information on its cloud and AI revenue.
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Microsoft will likely announce thousands of job cuts soon resulting from a decision to cut 5 percent of its global workforce, Sky News reported yesterday. With more than 220,000 employees at Microsoft, that could mean more than 10,000 layoffs, The Verge pointed out.
While Sky News doesn’t give an exact date for the expected cuts, The Verge reports that the company could make the announcement as early as today, ahead of its quarterly earnings results next week, citing a source familiar with the plans.
Apple yesterday announced new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro running on its M2 Pro and M2 Max processors, which as the names suggest, are aimed at professional users requiring serious juice. Apple says tasks like effects rendering can be up to six times faster than the fastest Intel-based MacBook Pro, and colour grading, up to 2x faster.
The 14-inch Macbook Pro starts at just under 2.5 lakh rupees in India. The 16-inch version will set you back by about Rs. 3,10,000.
Apple also unveiled a new Mac Mini with the M2 processors.
Google will be the latest Big-Tech company to make a Bluetooth tracker, following in the footsteps of Tile, Apple, and Samsung, Ars Technica reports. Android researcher Kuba Wojciechowski has spotted code for a Google first-party Bluetooth tracker codenamed—just in time for The Mandalorian season 3—"Grogu," according to Ars Technica.
IBM, along with 13 of its current and former executives, has been sued by investors who claim the IT giant used mainframe sales to fraudulently prop up newer, more trendy parts of its business, like cloud and Watson, the AI solution, The Register reported yesterday.
In effect, IBM deceived the market about its progress in developing Watson, cloud technologies, and other new sources of revenue, by deliberately misclassifying the money it was making from mainframe deals, assigning that money instead to other products, it is alleged, according to The Register.
The accusations emerged in a lawsuit filed late last week against IBM in New York on behalf of the June E Adams Irrevocable Trust, according to The Register.
Mad Street Den, an enterprise AI software provider, has raised $30 million in series C funding, led by Avatar Growth Capital, with participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital and Alpha Wave Global. The money will help Mad Street Den – known for its solutions for the retail industry – to expand its products to several other verticals.
Founded in 2016 by Ashwini Asokan and Anand Chandrasekaran, Mad Street Den, a Silicon Valley and Chennai company, has seen strong demand for its AI platform in the last two years, as businesses around the world have stepped up their cloud and digital tech initiatives after the Covid pandemic.
ShareChat, yesterday, joined a growing list of Indian startup unicorns that have laid off employees amid a funding winter. The company has laid off 20 percent of its workforce to conserve cash, as the current global economic slowdown has made it harder to raise funding, according to multiple reports. The desi social media venture is among the most funded startups in India. Also in this brief, a Swiss entrepreneur is launching a privacy-first smartphone operating system based on a version of Android, and a Chinese company has built the world’s biggest wind turbine.
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ShareChat, yesterday, joined the growing list of Indian startup unicorns that have laid off employees amid a funding winter. The company has laid off 20 percent of its workforce to conserve cash, and as the current global economic slowdown has made it harder to raise funding, The Hindu reported on Jan. 16, citing the company.
As many as 500-600 people may have been laid off, according to a report from Mint on Jan. 16. In December, ShareChat shut its fantasy gaming platform Jeet11, resulting in about 100 employees being laid off, according to Mint.
Mohalla Tech, ShareChat’s parent company, announced $520 million in funding led by Google, in June 2022, which privately valued the desi social media venture at $5 billion.
ShareChat will provide employees total salary for notice periods, and two weeks’ pay for every year served while allowing employees to retain their work assets.
Employees will also receive health coverage until June 2023, with the ability to encash their leave balances of up to 45 days as per their gross salary. Employees’ stock options will also continue to vest up till April 2023.
The tech job scene continues to worsen globally as we head into 2023. For example, “the hiring party is over at Amazon,” Slashdot reported yesterday, citing the low number of open jobs in the Software Development category at Amazon.
The number has declined to 299 in January 2023 from 32,692 in May 2022, according to Amazon's Jobs site, Slashdot reports.
Apostrophy AG, a Swiss software startup, is set to unveil a smartphone operating system that puts privacy first, according to a Bloomberg report that appeared in SwissInfo on Jan. 16.
Founder Petter Neby, who already has one company selling high-design, low-tech mobile phones, has put together more than 50 employees globally and is raising 10 million euros ($11 million) this year, according to the report.
The company’s software, named AphyOS, is built on an open-source version of Android called GrapheneOS.
China’s MingYang is launching its latest wind turbine with blades that span 140 meters, or about as tall as a 70-storey building, NewAtlas reports. The MySE 18X-28X will be the largest wind turbine ever built, and it is meant to be deployed in offshore wind farms, according to the report.
The number of science and technology research papers published has soared over the past few decades, but the ‘disruptiveness’ of those papers has dropped, according to an analysis of how radically papers depart from the previous literature, Nature reports.
The researchers, Michael Park and Russell J Funk, from the University of Minnesota, and Erin Leahy from the University of Arizona, looked at data from millions of manuscripts. They published their findings in Nature on Jan. 4.
Infosys yesterday raised its revenue outlook for FY23 citing strong growth momentum from the first nine of the fiscal year and a record order book, even as a recession looms large in its biggest markets. The company’s numbers beat street expectations and CEO Salil Parekh said its strong capabilities in cloud technologies and automation had helped Infosys win the highest number of large contracts in a quarter in the company’s history. He also flagged signs of an economic slowdown and delays in decision-making among clients in investment banking, telecom, hi-tech and retail.
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Infosys yesterday raised its revenue outlook citing strong growth momentum from the first nine months of the current fiscal year and a record order book, even as a recession looms large in its biggest markets.
The company beat analysts’ expectations for its fiscal third-quarter revenues and profit. Revenue for the three months ended December 31, rose 2.4 percent from the previous quarter in constant-currency terms, which eliminates the effect of currency rate variations.
Sales rose 13.7 percent to $4.66 billion for the December quarter versus $4.25 billion for the same quarter a year ago, Infosys said in a statement.
In comparison, analysts at Kotak Securities, for example, were expecting Infosys to turn in sequential growth of 1.1 percent and a year-on-year increase of 11.6 percent in constant currency terms.
“This is a seasonally weak quarter for us and amid a changing global economy,” CEO Salil Parekh told reporters in a conference in Bengaluru on Jan. 12. “We continue to take market share. We continue to benefit from consolidation.” Growth was broad-based with most industries and geographies growing in double digits in constant currency terms, Parekh added.
The company reported its large-deals order book at $3.3 billion, the highest in eight quarters, with 32 large deals. “This is the largest number of large deals in a quarter in our history,” CEO Parekh said. More than a third of the large deals won were “net new,” at 36 percent, he said.
“Driven by the growth of 17.8 percent in constant currency for the first nine months of FY23 and the strong large deal value for Q3,” the company is increasing its revenue growth guidance from the October range of 15-16 percent to 16-16.5 percent for the full financial year.
“This is despite the changing global conditions,” Parekh said. The company is retaining its operating margin guidance for FY 23 at 21-22 percent. For Q3, Infosys reported operating margins at 21.5, which was within the range CFO Nilanjan Roy had projected in October, but slightly below street expectations. He reiterated his expectation that Infosys will end the year with margins closer to the lower end of its estimate.
Staff churn, an important metric in the services business, came down strongly during the quarter. Voluntary quarterly annualized attrition continues to decline. It was reduced by six percentage points sequentially to well below 20 percent for this quarter, CEO Parekh said.
CEO Salil Parekh also pointed out that the coming quarters will be tough. “While we are encouraged by the immense confidence and trust our clients have in us, the signs around are showing a slowing global economy,” he said.
Some areas, such as mortgages and investment banking in the financial services industry, telecom, hi-tech and retail are more impacted and that is leading to delays in decision-making and uncertainty in spending in these areas, he said.
Normal air traffic operations are slowly resuming in the US after flights were halted across the country on Wednesday, due to a software glitch in the Federal Aviation Administration’s computer systems, BBC reports. Also in this brief, Jio crosses 100 cities with its 5G services; and Maruti Suzuki India expects to launch the eVX, an electric SUV, by 2025 with a range of 550km per charge, the Japanese carmaker said at India’s auto show, according to Reuters.
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Reliance Jio Infocomm said yesterday it had crossed the 100-city mark, in rolling out its 5G services. Reliance Jio added six cities in Tamil Nadu, bringing its nationwide total to 101, the company said in a press release. By the end of this year, Reliance expects to be offering its 5G services across the country.
Normal air traffic operations are slowly resuming in the US after flights were halted across the country on Wednesday, due to a software glitch in the Federal Aviation Administration’s computer systems, BBC reports.
Preliminary investigations traced the disruption to a “damaged database file,” the FAA said, adding that “at this time, there is no evidence of a cyberattack,” in a statement on its website.
Moderna is considering raising the price of its COVID-19 vaccine by over 400 percent in the US — from $26 per dose to between $110 and $130 per dose — Ars Technica reports, citing a The Wall Street Journal report that is behind a paywall.
This is similar to the price hike announced by Pfizer for its vaccine developed with BioNTech.
Apple supplier, BOE Technology Group, a display maker, plans to invest a substantial sum to build two factories in Vietnam, Reuters reports, citing two people familiar with the matter.
The investment may total up to $400 million, according to Reuters.
OpenAI will soon begin charging for ChatGPT, its viral AI-powered chatbot, TechCrunch reports.
OpenAI said on its official Discord server that it’s “starting to think about how to monetize ChatGPT” as one of the ways to “ensure long-term viability.”
The monetized version of ChatGPT will likely be called ChatGPT Professional according to a waitlist link OpenAI posted in the Discord server, TechCrunch reports.
Some of the benefits of the paid version of ChatGPT include no “blackout” windows, no throttling and an unlimited number of messages with ChatGPT — “at least 2x the regular daily limit.” OpenAI says that those who fill out the waitlist form may be selected to pilot ChatGPT Professional, but that the program is in the experimental stages and won’t be made widely available “at this time,” according to TechCrunch.
And finally, at India’s biennial auto show, Suzuki Motor Corp's Indian unit showcased a concept electric sport utility vehicle (SUV) on Wednesday, with the Japanese car maker's president saying the car would be launched in 2025, Reuters reports.
"I'm delighted to unveil the eVX, a concept SUV of our first global strategic EV (electric vehicle). We plan to bring it to market by 2025," said Suzuki Motor President Toshihiro Suzuki, speaking at an auto show event near New Delhi.
The eVX, an amid-sized vehicle, will be powered by a 60 kWh battery pack offering up to 550 kilometres of driving range, Maruti Suzuki India says, according to Reuters.
Microsoft is in talks to invest $10 billion into OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT, the AI app that has gone ultra-viral, Semafor reported yesterday, citing people familiar with the matter. OneWeb yesterday confirmed the successful deployment of 40 satellites launched by SpaceX, taking it to a total of 542 low-earth-orbit satellites and a step closer to offering “global” connectivity. Also in this briefing, Infosys Foundation is seeking submissions for its Aarohan Social Innovation Awards 2023.
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Microsoft is in talks to invest $10 billion into OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT, the AI app that has gone ultra-viral, Semafor reported yesterday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The funding, which would also include other venture firms, would value OpenAI at $29 billion, including the new investment, according to Semafor.
OneWeb yesterday confirmed the successful deployment of 40 satellites launched by SpaceX from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. This launch is OneWeb’s 16th to date, with only two more launches remaining to complete its first-generation constellation for global connectivity in 2023, the company said in a press release.
With 542 satellites now in orbit, OneWeb, backed by investors including India’s Bharti Enterprises, has more than 80 percent of its first-generation constellation launched.
ReNew Power, yesterday announced the installations of India’s first-ever 3x platform Wind Turbine Generators in Gadag, Karnataka. The WTGs have what is called a “nameplate capacity” of 3.3-3.465 MW and are 128-140m in height. They offer significantly improved capacity over models installed in India to date, which typically have a nameplate capacity of 2-3 MW, the Nasdaq-listed company said in a press release.
The new wind turbine generators will be a part of the country’s first ‘Round The Clock’ renewable energy project, combining wind, solar and a Battery Energy Storage System (BESS). This project will produce enough energy to power more than 1 million households in India annually, according to the release.
Toddle, a teaching and learning platform provider for schools worldwide, has raised $17 million in Series A led by Sequoia Capital India. The round also saw participation from Tenacity Ventures and Trifecta Capital along with existing investors Matrix Partners, Beenext, and Better Capital, according to a press release.
Infosys Foundation, the philanthropic and CSR arm of Infosys, yesterday announced the launch of the third edition of its Aarohan Social Innovation Awards. The Foundation is inviting innovators and social entrepreneurs from across the country to participate in the awards.
The awards are open to individuals, teams and NGOs developing unique technology-based solutions that have the potential to bring about a significant difference to the underprivileged across India, at scale. The Infosys Foundation will commit up to Rs. 50 lakh per winner, with a total award purse of Rs. 2 crore.
The Aarohan Social Innovation Awards 2023 will accept submissions in the categories of education, healthcare and women empowerment. The awards opened for submission yesterday, and the last date for submissions is March 12, 2023.
Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest IT services company, said its quarterly revenue has crossed the $7 billion mark, with sales for its fiscal third quarter, the October-December period, coming in at $7.075 billion. A near-term slowdown in demand is apparent in the staff addition numbers. TCS saw a net reduction in its workforce, for the first time since the Covid pandemic began to fan out across the world. For the rest of the current fiscal year, TCS doesn’t expect to add many more people. Infosys, HCL Tech and Wipro will report their Q3 earnings this week.
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Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest IT services company, said its quarterly revenue has crossed the $7 billion mark, with sales for its fiscal third quarter, the October-December period, coming in at $7.075 billion. That represents a 13.5 percent increase from the year-earlier period in constant-currency terms, which eliminates exchange-rate variations, according to a press release.
The company saw “strong growth in a seasonally weak quarter, driven by cloud services, market share gains through vendor consolidation, and continued momentum in North America and the UK,” CEO Rajesh Gopinathan said in the press release.
“Looking ahead, and beyond current uncertainties, our longer-term growth outlook remains robust,” he added.
TCS doesn’t provide a formal projection, but its staff additions and churn are among the numbers that are keenly watched, as proxies for both near-term demand and the state of the industry. TCS saw a net reduction of close to 2,200 employees in its staff strength at the end of the December quarter, bringing the total to about 614,000.
The last time TCS saw a reduction in its workforce was around the time the world was beginning to be swept by the Covid pandemic. The company saw its staff numbers reduce by about 4,800 employees during the April-June period of the year 2020.
And while attrition, or staff churn, remains high at more than 21 percent on a leading-12-months basis, compared with about 15 percent a year earlier, the trend has stabilised and is on a downward trajectory Milind Lakkad, TCS’s chief human resources officer told reporters in a conference yesterday in Mumbai.
Overall, a slowdown is apparent, amid fears of a recession in the world’s richest economies. TCS added about 21,800 employees in the first three quarters of the current fiscal year. In comparison, the company added more than 103,500 staff in the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2022, as demand soared for IT following the Covid pandemic.
For the rest of the current fiscal year, which ends March 31, 2023, Lakkad does not expect to add much more staff.
Cropin, an agritech venture in Bengaluru that offers an industry cloud for agriculture, has raised Rs. 113 crore ($14 million) as part of its Series-C funding from new investors Google and JSR Corporation. This brings its total funding to $65.4 million, according to private markets intelligence provider Tracxn.
Virohan, a healthcare edtech startup near Delhi, has raised $7 million in funding led by Blume Ventures with participation from Bharat Inclusion Seed Fund, Rebright Partners, Lesing Artha Limited and others. This brings its total funding to $11 million.
Virohan, through its online and offline courses, trains students in allied healthcare programs for technicians in the healthcare industry, the company said in a press release.
Apple may not be releasing a new iPhone SE in 2024, according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who bases his predictions on sources in the supply chain, The Verge reported on Jan. 7. The Infosys Prize for 2022 was announced on Jan. 7, by Infosys Science Foundation. The Prize carries a pure gold medal, a citation, and a cash purse of $100,000 each in categories including science, engineering and humanities. Also in this brief, the US Federal Trade Commission is seeking to eliminate non-compete clauses, which it termed as exploitative.
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Google has gone to the Supreme Court after its appeal at the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal was rejected over an order from the Competition Commission of India that fined the internet search giant for its market practices in the android ecosystem.
The Competition Commission, in October, fined Google $161 million for exploiting its dominant position in the market for Android, which runs 97 percent of smartphones in India, Economic Times reported on Jan. 7.
Apple may not be releasing a new iPhone SE in 2024, according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who bases his predictions on sources in the supply chain, The Verge reported on Jan. 7.
On Friday, last week, Kuo wrote in a blog post that Apple had cancelled production and shipment plans for the phone.
The US Federal Trade Commission on Thursday, last week, moved to kill the practice of imposing non-compete agreements by businesses in the country.
If the proposal becomes law, it could shift the balance of power from companies to workers, NPR notes in a report on Jan. 5. It could also set a powerful example for countries around the world.
The FTC has proposed a new rule that would prohibit employers from imposing noncompete agreements on their workers, a practice it called exploitative and widespread, affecting some 30 million American workers.
ChrysCapital, an India-focused private equity company, has acquired Xoriant, a software engineering and digital IT services provider to some of the biggest corporations in the world. The PE firm didn’t provide financial details.
KreditBee, a fintech company offering an instant personal loan platform, has raised $100 million from private equity company Advent international. This brings the four-year-old Bengaluru venture’s total funding to $384 million, according to private markets intelligence provider Tracxn.
The Infosys Prize for 2022 was announced on Jan. 7, by the Infosys Science Foundation. The Prize carries a pure gold medal, a citation, and a cash purse of $100,000 each in categories including science, engineering and humanities.
In Engineering and Computer Science, the prize went to Suman Chakraborty, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.
In Humanities, the prize went to Sudhir Krishnaswamy, Vice Chancellor of the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru.
In Life Sciences, the prize went to Vidita Vaidya, Professor and Chairperson, Department of Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai.
In Mathematical Sciences, the prize went to Mahesh Kakde, Professor of Mathematics at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.
In Physical Sciences, the prize went to Nissim Kanekar, Professor, National Centre for Radio Astronomy, Pune.
In Social Sciences, the prize went to Rohini Pande, Henry J. Heinz II Professor of Economics and Director, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
Indian Space Research Organisation and Microsoft yesterday signed a Memorandum of Understanding to together help space-tech startups in India. They will offer technology tools and platforms, go-to-market support and mentoring to help Indian space startups scale and become enterprise ready. Amazon’s layoffs are bigger than originally rumoured. And also in today’s briefing, scientists in the US make a small breakthrough in harnessing live cancer cells to fight cancer and prevent its return
Facebook and Instagram’s parent company Meta Platforms was fined 390 million euros or $414 million in the EU’s latest fine against the social network apps provider, Wall Street Journal reports. In India, Google’s appeal seeking an immediate stay against a Competition Commission fine has been declined by the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal, Tech Circle reports. Cloud CRM giant is the latest big tech company to initiate layoffs amid economic gloom. And Infosys has won an order from Singapore’s Starhub
India currently doesn’t plan to put restrictions on how much time individuals, including youngsters, spend playing games online, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, India’s minister of state for electronics and information technology, told the lower house of the country’s parliament on Dec. 14, according to a government statement. Also in today’s brief, Moneycontrol reports that SaaS company Freshworks has laid off about 2 percent of its 5,200-strong workforce, amid the global economic slowdown.
Infosys turned 40 this year, and the journey has seen many firsts for India—from listing in the US to the distribution of wealth across the rank and file of the enterprise. The story of the company, widely seen as the bellwether of India’s IT services industry, includes chapters in which the founders came back from retirement—not once, but twice. In this extended edition of the tech brief, we bring you excerpts of comments from chairman Nandan Nilekani and founder NR Narayana Murthy—looking back and looking ahead.
Tata Consultancy Services, India's biggest IT services company, is facing a class-action lawsuit in the US, the company’s biggest market. TCS has been sued by Shawn Katz, a former employee, who alleges that the IT giant discriminates against non-South Asian and non-Indian applicants and employees, Money Control reports. Also in this episode, Vivo’s latest Switch Off report shows smartphone addiction is hurting marriages, and NotCo, backed by Jeff Bezos, has raised $70 million in series D1 funding, led by Princeville Capital.
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Tata Consultancy Services, India's biggest IT services company, is facing a class-action lawsuit in the US, the company’s biggest market. TCS has been sued by Shawn Katz, a former employee, who alleges that the IT giant discriminates against non-South Asian and non-Indian applicants and employees, Money Control reports.
The lawsuit alleges that TCS has a systematic pattern of discriminating against non-South Asian and non-Indian applicants and employees “with respect to hiring, staffing, benching, termination, and promotion decisions,” and that this policy is implemented top-down at the company.
Katz worked at the company for more than nine years before being let go. This case was filed in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey on Dec. 7, according to Money Control.
Marketers at Vivo have released the results of the latest edition of an intelligent campaign they started four years ago to draw attention to their products. The fourth edition of the Vivo switch-off campaign – which the Chinese smartphone maker started in 2019 – focuses on spousal relationships and the harmful effects of excessive smartphone use.
A survey of 1,000 smartphone users, conducted by Cybermedia Research – commissioned by Vivo – found that 88 percent of the respondents feel that their addiction to their smartphones is hurting their relationship and 84 percent want to spend more quality time with their spouse, according to a press release.
The survey polled smartphone users in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Pune. 69 percent of couples feel being occasionally distracted by their smartphone, or not attentive enough to their spouse.
70 percent confess to getting irritated sometimes when their spouse asks something while they are immersed in their smartphones, and 90 percent of the respondents say that the smartphone is the most preferred way to relax.
NotCo, a Santiago, Chile-based food tech unicorn known for its plant-based dairy and meat alternatives, has closed $70 million in new funding as a Series D1 round. The company will use the money to expand its new B2B unit to offer its proprietary AI software to other CPG brands, ingredient suppliers and technology providers, according to a press release.
The latest funding round – which retained NotCo’s $1.5 billion valuation – was led by Princeville Capital.
In-Med Prognostics, an AI startup, with expertise in multi-modal data and image processing has raised $2.13 led by Exxora with participation from prominent angels, the company said in a press release.
In-Med uses deep learning algorithms and machine learning to provide time-saving accurate Neuro analysis which aids in the assessment and early detection of neurological disorders such as Dementia, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s at affordable prices, according to the press release.
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Google, last week, followed Apple, in releasing its version of what’s called a passkey, which if widely adopted could take us closer to a passwordless future. Air India is close to placing historic orders for as many as 500 jetliners worth tens of billions of dollars from both Airbus and Boeing, Reuters reported yesterday, citing industry sources. Also in this episode, opposition to Blackrock’s ESG investments in the US is spotlighting the travails of climate finance.
Notes:
Google, last week, joined Apple, in releasing its version of what’s called a passkey, which if widely adopted could take us closer to a passwordless future. Passkeys are built on industry standards, can work across different operating systems and browser ecosystems, and can be used with both websites and apps.
You can use passkeys to sign into sites and apps that support them, Google said in a blog post last week. Signing in with a passkey will require you to authenticate yourself in the same way that you unlock a device.
With the latest version of Chrome, Google supports passkeys on Windows 11, macOS, and Android.
Air India is close to placing landmark orders for as many as 500 jetliners worth tens of billions of dollars from both Airbus and Boeing, Reuters reported yesterday, citing industry sources.
The orders include as many as 400 narrow-body jets and 100 or more wide-bodies, including dozens of Airbus A350s and Boeing 787s and 777s, according to Reuters, and finishing touches are being put on the mammoth deal in coming days.
The recent COP27 talks showed that the fight against climate change boils down to money and that the rich countries didn’t want to keep their promises.
Now, opposition in the US to ESG investments by Blackrock, the world’s biggest money manager, and other investment firms, will likely cause another setback to climate finance. Larry Fink, the CEO of the $8-trillion asset manager, is in the crosshairs of those opposed to the ESG investments, some of which have declined more than the S&P 500 index, Bloomberg reports.
The battle over sustainable investing comes as the 10 largest ESG funds by assets have posted double-digit losses this year, Bloomberg notes, some even more than the S&P 500’s 17.5 percent decline.
BlackRock’s $20 billion iShares ESG Aware MSCI USA exchange-traded fund is down about 19 percent and Vanguard Group’s $5.8 billion ESG US Stock ETF has dropped 22 percent. Meanwhile, stocks of US oil giants Exxon Mobil and Chevron have soared 69.8 percent and 44.2 percent respectively.
Some investors, including US states and pension funds, plan to withdraw their money from Blackrock’s management, and some politicians and officials have also called for Fink’s removal from his position, according to Bloomberg.
Cropin, an agritech venture in Bengaluru, is raising a new round of funding and has garnered $14 million or Rs 113.4 crore from Google, Singapore-based Impact Assets, and existing investors, Entrackr reported on Dec. 9, citing the company’s filings with the government’s Registrar of Companies.
Fintrackr estimates the company has been valued at around Rs 740 crore or $91.3 million after the latest investment. That compares with $67.5 million in April, according to private markets insights provider Tracxn. Cropin has raised $50.5 million in funding so far.
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Einride, a freight mobility technology company, said yesterday it has raised $500 million in financing, comprising $200 million in Series C equity investment and a $300 million debt facility. Blume Ventures has announced the close of its Fund IV at more than $250 million, bringing its assets under management to more than $600 million. Apple has delayed the launch of its EV, and separately, is being sued over AirTags. And Microsoft offers a 10-year deal to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo.
Notes:
Einride, a freight mobility technology company, said yesterday it has raised $500 million in financing, comprising $200 million in Series C equity investment and a $300 million debt facility.
The debt financing, which is the largest asset-backed facility to date for heavy-duty electric vehicles, will provide transformative funding for Einride’s fleet of electric vehicles across the world, the Sweden-headquartered company said in a press release.
The Series C provides the next step in the funding of new developments and deployments across Einride’s autonomous and digital products, as well as expansion to new markets and clients.
Meanwhile, Apple has scaled back its ambitious self-driving electric vehicle plans and postponed the target launch date for what is being widely called Apple Car by about a year to 2026, according to a Bloomberg report that is behind a paywall but was widely syndicated.
The car project, called Titan inside the company, has been in limbo, according to the Bloomberg report, for the past several months as Apple executives grappled with the reality that its vision for a fully autonomous vehicle — without a steering wheel or pedals — isn’t feasible with current technology.
The company is now planning a less-ambitious design that will include a steering wheel and pedals and only support fully autonomous capabilities on highways, according to Bloomberg.
In more disturbing Apple news, the iPhone maker has been sued by two women who said its AirTag devices have made it easier for their former partners and other stalkers to track down victims, Reuters reports.
In a proposed class action filed on Dec. 4 in a San Francisco federal court, the women said Apple has been unable to protect people from unwanted trafficking through AirTag since launching what it called the “stalker proof” device in April 2021.
In gaming news, Microsoft has entered a 10-year agreement with Japanese gaming giant Nintendo to bring Call Of Duty games to Nintendo consoles if the Activision Blizzard acquisition closes, India Abroad News Service reports.
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer announced on Twitter yesterday. “Microsoft is committed to helping bring more games to more people, however, they choose to play,” he said.
Blume Ventures has announced the close of its Fund IV at more than $250 million, bringing its assets under management to more than $600 million, the well-known Indian VC firm, said in a press release yesterday.
Blume focuses on early-stage, innovative technology-led startups. Its areas of interest include edtech, fintech, health, commerce and consumer internet, robotics, AI and SaaS and enterprise software, the 12-year-old firm said.
The latest fund has investors including family offices in India and overseas, sovereign wealth funds, and emerging market Fund of Funds.
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Sorrento Therapeutics has received clearance from the US FDA to initiate clinical trials with its new mRNA vaccine against Omicron variants of the Coronavirus. One Peak, an investor in growth-stage B2B software companies in Europe and Israel, has closed its latest fund at $1 billion, Private Equity Wire reported yesterday. Israeli AI inference chip venture NeuReality has raised $35 million in series A funding. Apple added 700 new price points to the App Store. And Amazon may be close to launching Prime Gaming in India.
Notes:
Apple yesterday announced an upgrade to pricing tiers, adding 700 more price points, and new pricing tools that developers can use to set prices per App Store country or region and manage foreign exchange rate changes. Apple didn’t say anything about the commission it charges, which currently can be up to 30 percent on in-app sales.
These new features will be available for apps offering auto-renewable subscriptions starting Dec. 6.
Amazon may be close to launching Prime Gaming, its subscription service that offers free access to game titles bundled with Amazon Prime and Video plans, in India, TechCrunch reports.
A support page on the Prime Gaming website also mentions India as an operational market for the service, TechCrunch notes. However, users who’re currently attempting to access Prime Gaming will find a message that says they are in a country where the gaming service is not available.
Sorrento Therapeutics has received clearance from the US FDA to initiate clinical trials with STI-1557, its next-generation mRNA vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variants, the Silicon Valley biopharma company said in a press release yesterday.
This mRNA vaccine incorporates a modification that prevents certain unwanted side effects in vital organ tissues following the administration of the current FDA-approved mRNA vaccines. The mRNA is encapsulated in a Sorrento proprietary lipid nanoparticle formulation to protect mRNAs from degradation, which helps the vaccine retain its effectiveness, the company said in the release.
In biotech venture capital news, Avalon BioVentures, a venture capital firm dedicated to early-stage biomedical innovation, yesterday announced the closing of its first venture fund, ABV1, with $135 million in funding from new and existing institutional investors.
One Peak, an investor in growth stage B2B software companies in Europe and Israel, has closed the One Peak Growth III fund at its hard cap of $1 billion, Private Equity Wire reported yesterday.
One Peak, which was founded by David Klein and Humbert de Liedekerke Beaufort, is the largest fund in Europe dedicated to backing fast-growing B2B software companies in the $15 million to $100 million investment range, according to the report.
NeuReality, an AI hardware startup, which specializes in the next generation of AI inferencing platforms, has raised $35 million in Series A funding, the Israeli company said in a post on its website.
The round was led by Samsung Ventures, Cardumen Capital, Varana Capital, OurCrowd and XT Hitech. The round brings NeuReality’s total funding to $48 million.
The money will support NeuReality’s plans to start deploying its Inference solutions in 2023, the company said.
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Apple may bring some of its iPad production to India from China if talks with the Indian government are successful, CNBC reported yesterday, citing two sources close to the government. Microsoft has hiked prices in India by up to 11 percent to match prevailing dollar-based pricing in Asia, the company said in a post. And nutritional supplements seller HealthKart has raised more money in a funding round led by Singapore’s Temasek, TechCrunch reports.
Notes:
Apple may bring some of its iPad production to India from China if talks with the Indian government are successful, CNBC reported yesterday, citing two sources close to the government.
The tech giant is said to be holding ongoing discussions with officials. No concrete plans have been made, but if the effort is successful, it will expand Apple’s footprint in the country.
Apple announced earlier this year it had begun assembling its flagship iPhone 14 in India, where it was already producing its older models.
Microsoft has announced a price hike for its software in India. Due to currency fluctuations, Microsoft India is announcing Indian rupee pricelist changes to harmonize its prices for commercial on-premises software and online services between India and the Asian region, effective February 1, 2023, the company said in a post on its website.
Starting Feb. 1, 2023, Indian rupee prices for commercial on-premises software will increase by 4.5 percent, online services will increase by 9 percent, and Windows GGWA (get genuine windows agreement) will increase by 11 percent to match prevailing prices in US dollar terms in Asia, the company said.
The new prices will show up starting Feb. 1, 2023, if you’re looking to buy a Microsoft 365 subscription, for example.
This announcement does not cover Microsoft’s hardware products, according to the company.
Salesforce is seeing some top-level exits. Yesterday, the company announced the departure of Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield, who joined Salesforce last year as part of its biggest acquisition.
The company’s co-CEO Bret Taylor, who orchestrated the Slack deal, is also leaving, a year after getting promoted to share the top job with founder Marc Benioff, CNBC reports.
In the three trading days since Taylor announced his departure, alongside Salesforce’s third-quarter earnings report, the company’s stock has had two of its three worst days of the year, losing 8.3 percent and 7.4 percent, respectively, CNBC notes.
Salesforce has now lost 47 percent of its value for the year, compared with the Nasdaq’s 28 percent drop, and is trading at its lowest since March 2020, the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to CNBC.
HealthKart, a nutrition supplements provider, has raised $135 million in series H funding, to expand overseas and for acquisitions, TechCrunch reports.
The funding was concluded last month and took the 11-year-old Gurugram company’s total funding to $224 million, according to private markets intelligence provider Tracxn, and investors include Temasek, A91 Partners and Kae Capital. The investment valued the company at $350 million, according to TechCrunch.
HealthKart is currently on track to generate about $122 million in annual revenue, according to TechCrunch.
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India’s Department of Telecommunications has told the country’s top telcos to stop setting up 5G networks close to airports, over concerns that they could interfere with airplane instruments, Press Trust of India reports. India’s EV scooter sales continue to grow as established players raise their game. And in agri tech, DeHaat, one of the biggest startups in the sector, has raised series E funding from Temasek, Sofina and existing investors.
Notes
Apple has rolled out an incremental update to its iPhone software, fixing some security issues and improving crash detection in iPhone 14 and 14 Pro models. The update also improves compatibility with network providers, according to Apple.
Germany's federal and state data protection authorities have raised concerns about the compatibility of Microsoft 365 with data protection laws in Germany and the wider European Union, The Register reports.
According to the German watchdog's report, which was written after two years of negotiations with Microsoft, the body says that the product “remains in breach” of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Hundreds of CNN employees were notified of layoffs yesterday as part of CEO Chris Licht’s efforts to cut costs, CNBC reports.
CNN had about 4,400 employees. The layoffs affected hundreds of staffers but amounted to a “single-digit percentage” of staff, according to CNBC, which cited a person familiar with the matter. That would mean no more than about 400 staffers were let go.
The layoffs are part of a broader effort at Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of CNN, to cut costs heading into 2023, according to CNBC.
India’s Department of Telecommunications has told the country’s top telcos to stop setting up 5G networks close to airports, over concerns that they could interfere with airplane instruments, according to Times of India which cites a Press Trust of India report.
The telecom department has said that there should be no 5G wireless 2,100 metres (2.1 km) from both ends of the runway and 910 metres from the centre line of the runway of Indian Airports. Specifically, 5G gears that operate in the frequency range of 3300-3670 MHz have been barred from near the airports, according to the report.
While startups led India’s EV foray, to begin with, established two-wheeler makers are raising their game. TVS Motors, with 7,735 registrations of electric scooters in November, and Bajaj Auto with more than 2,800 scooters, now account for 15 percent of registrations for the month, Business Standard reports, citing data from Vahan, the website of the ministry of road transport and highways.
Hero MotoCorp is expected to ramp up its efforts, with its Vida range of electric scooters, according to Business Standard.
DeHaat, one of India’s biggest agritech startups, has raised $60 million in series E funding, from investors including Temasek and Sofina, and existing investors RTP Global, Prosus and Lightrock, according to private markets intelligence provider Tracxn.
This brings the company’s total funding to $265 million, according to Tracxn. This investment privately valued DeHaat at between $700 million and $800 million, TechCrunch reported yesterday, citing a person aware of the terms. In November 2021, the company was valued at $520 million, according to Tracxn.
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Google will face damages claims for up to 25 billion euros ($25.4 billion) over its digital advertising practices in two lawsuits to be filed in British and Dutch courts in the coming weeks by a law firm on behalf of publishers, Reuters reports. Tata Group is looking to buy a facility in Bangalore, from Apple contract manufacturer Wistron, Economic Times reports. And San Francisco’s board of supervisors voted in an 8-3 majority in favour of a proposal to allow the city’s police to use robots to kill, in extreme circumstances, TechCrunch reports
India will conduct the first pilot of the e-rupee for retail digital currency on December 1, Reserve Bank of India, the country’s central bank said yesterday in a statement. Meanwhile, the central bank has rejected the NBFC licence applications of some well-known fintech startups, The Hindu Businessline reports. And Vikram Kirloskar, the well-known industrialist, widely seen as being responsible for bringing Toyota to India, died yesterday, reportedly of a heart attack. He was 64.
Notes:
India will conduct the first pilot of the e-rupee for retail digital currency on December 1, Reserve Bank of India, the country’s central bank said yesterday in a statement.
Four banks — State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and IDFC — will participate in the initial phase of the pilot in four cities (Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Bhubaneswar). Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank will join the pilot subsequently, the Reserve Bank of India said.
In more digital finance news, the Reserve Bank has rejected the NBFC licence applications of some well-known fintech companies in India, The Hindu Businessline reports, citing “highly placed sources” that the paper didn’t name.
Among the companies that have had their applications turned down are PhonePe, Razorpay, BharatPe, OkCredit and NiYo which operates as a neo-bank, according to Businessline.
The central bank is concerned about the sources of the money flowing into these startups, seen as coming in through tax havens, according to Businessline. The likelihood of fintech companies charging high-interest rates on their loans is also a concern for the central bank, according to the paper.
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding is looking to sell a three percent stake in food delivery services provider Zomato as part of a $200 million block deal today CNBC-TV18 reports.
Shares of the loss-making Indian company ended yesterday’s trading in Mumbai at Rs. 63.35, down more than 55 percent from the beginning of this year. The company went public in July last year with a listing price of Rs. 76.
Biocon Biologics, a subsidiary of Bengaluru’s biopharma company Biocon, said yesterday it has successfully completed its multi-billion-dollar acquisition of the global biosimilars business of its partner Viatris.
Biocon Biologics and Viatris have obtained all applicable approvals from key global regulators and investors.
The acquisition provides Biocon Biologics with direct commercial capabilities and supporting infrastructure in the advanced markets and several emerging markets, the company said.
Vikram S. Kirloskar, Vice Chairman, Toyota Kirloskar Motor, died yesterday, according to a brief company statement. He was 64, and multiple media reports state the cause of death as a heart attack.
Vikram Kirloskar was a pioneer of India's automotive industry and played a key role in bringing Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp to India in the late 1990s, according to Business Standard. He had a degree in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in the US.
Kirloskar is survived by his wife Geetanjali and daughter Manasi, according to Business Standard.
Last respects can be paid today at the Hebbal crematorium in Bengaluru at 1 pm, according to the company’s statement.
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Amazon Web Services at its annual re:Invent conference, which began yesterday, said it will be water positive by 2030, returning more water to communities than it uses in its direct operations, according to a press release. Table Space, a co-working space provider, has raised $300 million in fresh funding, Economic Times reports. And the high-end versions of next year’s iPhones may not have physical buttons and use haptic tech, according to some of the latest rumours.
Notes:
Amazon Web Services at its annual re:Invent conference, which began yesterday, said it will be water positive by 2030, returning more water to communities than it uses in its direct operations, according to a press release.
In India, AWS supports water replenishment projects with the non-profit organisation WaterAid that include rainwater harvesting, groundwater recharge, and piped water installations in communities in Andhra Pradesh and Hyderabad, Telangana.
In more AWS news, Tata Consultancy Services has opened a quantum computing lab on AWS to help customers explore, develop, and test business solutions and accelerate the adoption of quantum computing, considered one of the most promising technologies of the decade, the Indian IT services company said in a press release.
The new TCS Quantum Computing Lab on AWS will offer a virtual research and development environment using Amazon Braket, a fully managed quantum computing service from AWS.
On the ecommerce front, Amazon is shutting down its wholesale distribution business in India, the latest in a series of closures as a tough 2023 is anticipated with a global economic slowdown.
Amazon said Monday that it is discontinuing Amazon Distribution, its wholesale ecommerce website available in small neighbourhood stores in Bengaluru, Mysore and Hubli, TechCrunch reports.
Amazon Distribution was designed to help kiranas, the neighbourhood stores in India, pharmacies and department stores secure inventory from the e-commerce giant, according to TechCrunch.
Table Space, a co-working space provider, has secured nearly $300 million from private equity fund Hill House Capital to expand its operations across India, Economic Times reports.
The deal was closed in October this year and the funding will be received in two tranches, according to the report.
Simplilearn, an up-skilling edtech platform provider, has acquired US-based bootcamp education company Fullstack Academy, as it looks to expand into the US, Economic Times reports.
Simplilearn acquired Fullstack from publicly traded US edtech company Zovio, which has over the past few months been taking steps to dissolve the company, according to ET.
The latest rumours about Apple’s next iPhones have the company ditching physical buttons in favour of haptic feedback. The iPhone 15 will also likely have USB-C charging ports.
There could be a periscope zoom camera for at least one iPhone 15 model, Dynamic Island for all four 2023 iPhones, and a new 3nm chip for the Pro models, Phone Arena reports.
And Tom’s Guide, a popular tech news and analysis site, pointed out that the well-known Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo’s prediction last month that Apple would abandon physical buttons for two high-end iPhones seems to have been validated by an investor note from analysts at investment bank Barclays.
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The Reserve Bank of India has asked Paytm Payments Services Limited to resubmit the application to operate a payments aggregator business, barring it from adding online merchants while the approvals remain pending, Mint reports. Satellite ventures in India step up their efforts in India. Pixxel in Bengaluru and Dhruva in Hyderabad together sent three more satellites on an ISRO rocket last week, adding capabilities from amateur radio to hyperspectral earth imaging for climate change mitigation.
Notes:
The US is banning the sale of communications equipment made by Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE and restricting the use of some China-made video surveillance systems, citing an “unacceptable risk” to national security, Associated Press reports.
The five-member Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously to adopt new rules that will block the importation or sale of certain technology products that pose security risks to America’s critical infrastructure.
Tesla is recalling more than 80,000 cars in China over software and seatbelt issues, CNBC reports, citing the Chinese market regulator.
The recall of these models is due to a software issue that affects the battery management system of the cars. Tesla will upgrade the software on these vehicles free of charge.
Amazon will shut down its food delivery business in India by the end of the year, leaving a $20 billion vertical it entered less than three years ago, TechCrunch reports.
Amazon will shut down the food delivery business, called Amazon Food, on December 29 in India. It launched this service in India in May 2020 in parts of Bengaluru and later expanded it.
The closure announcement is part of Amazon’s broader restructuring in India, according to TechCrunch. Amazon announced earlier this week that it will be shutting down its edtech service, Amazon Academy in the country next year.
The Reserve Bank of India has asked Paytm Payments Services Limited to resubmit the application to operate a payments aggregator business, Mint reports. The banking regulator has barred Paytm from adding more online merchants while the approvals remain pending.
One97 Communications, which operates under the Paytm brand, had proposed to transfer the payment aggregator services business undertaken by it to Paytm Payments Services in December 2020 to comply with payment aggregator guidelines of the Reserve Bank of India but the banking regulator rejected its application, according to Mint.
Pixxel, a Bengaluru startup building an earth imaging satellite constellation, launched its hyperspectral imaging technology-demonstrator satellite, named Anand, on November 26 on a rocket made by the Indian Space Research Organisation, or ISRO.
The PSLV C54 mission was launched from the Sriharikota Launch Complex in Andhra Pradesh. Anand has been built for earth observation applications, primarily in the agriculture, energy and climate sectors, Pixxel said in a press release.
Two nanosatellites, built by Dhruva Space, called Thybolt-1 and Thybolt-2, were also sent to space onboard ISRO’s PSLV C54, Dhruva, a Hyderabad-based space tech venture, said in its press release.
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Amazon will be shutting down Amazon Academy, an online learning platform it launched in India for high-school students last year, TechCrunch reports. Ultraviolette Automotive, an EV technologies company, yesterday announced the commercial launch of its first product, a high-performance motorcycle called F77, starting at an ex-showroom price of Rs. 3.8 lakh. And Transition VC plans to raise Rs. 400 crore for its first fund.
Notes:
Amazon will be shutting down Amazon Academy, an online learning platform it launched in India for high school students last year, TechCrunch reports.
Amazon will wind down the edtech service in a phased manner starting August 2023. Those who signed up for the current academic batch will receive a full refund, according to TechCrunch.
India’s first roundtable on the changing dynamics between big tech and digital media starts online today, with the Digital News Publishers Association as the event host, The Hindu reports.
During the webinar, the event’s keynote speaker will be Rod Sims, an economist and former chair of the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission. The session will largely cover antitrust issues concerning the world’s biggest tech companies, and explore how they affect digital media professionals.
The Dialogues aim to bring together stakeholders from diverse sectors to help Indian news publishers understand how other governments have addressed the market dominance of big tech companies in their jurisdictions, according to The Hindu.
Ultraviolette Automotive, an EV technologies company in Bengaluru, yesterday announced the commercial launch of its first product, a high-performance motorcycle called F77, starting at an ex-showroom price of Rs. 3.8 lakh.
The bike is powered by an integrated 10.3 kWh Lithium-ion battery architecture in the top variant, the F77 Recon, that produces 95 Nm of peak torque and 29 kW (38.9 HP) of peak power, the startup said in a press release.
The bike offers a range of 307 km per charge under test conditions, currently the highest for any electric two-wheeler in India, according to Ultraviolette.
The bike is on offer in three colours and detailing, Airstrike, Shadow, and Laser. Deliveries of the F77 will start in January 2023, starting with Bengaluru.
Earlier this week, the company also announced that it was expanding its series D funding round to include investments from Qualcomm Ventures and Lingotto. The money will help Ultraviolette ramp up its presence in India, develop its tech further and expand into international markets, the company said in a press release.
Transition VC, an energy transition-focused venture capital firm has launched its first fund with a target corpus of Rs. 400 crore, including a green shoe option of Rs 200 crore, the firm said in a press release.
Transition VC will make seed investments in startups in sectors such as e-mobility, green hydrogen, energy storage, net zero solutions for buildings, and climate tech.
Founded last year by a group of entrepreneurs and professionals in Bengaluru, Transition VC will make investments ranging from $500,000 to $1 million to support up to 40 early-stage startups over the next three years.
Before launching Transition VC, these investors have backed startups including Charge+Zone, a charging point network provider, and Exponent Energy, which is making EV batteries.
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Amazon Web Services yesterday announced the launch of its second Indian data centre facility in Hyderabad, called the AWS Asia Pacific (Hyderabad) Region. The first was opened in Mumbai in 2016. Britain’s top competition authority will launch an investigation into the Apple-Google duopoly in the web browser market after many developers and businesses in the country complained of harmful restrictions imposed by the tech giants. And SaaS broadcast tech provider Amagi has acquired Streamwise, a company in the US.
Notes:
Amazon Web Services yesterday announced the launch of its second Indian data centre facility, which it calls an infrastructure region, in Hyderabad.
The new data centre facility, AWS Asia Pacific (Hyderabad) Region, “is part of our long-term investment in the country since opening our first office in 2011,” Prasad Kalyanaraman, vice president of Infrastructure Services at Amazon Data Services, said in a press release.
Amazon established its first Indian data centre facility in Mumbai, in 2016.
AWS plans to invest an estimated $4.4 billion (about Rs. 36,300 crore) in India by 2030 through the new Hyderabad facility.
Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority said in a statement yesterday that it will launch an investigation into what it called the “stranglehold” that Apple and Google have on the internet browser market.
The UK’s top competition authority consulted on launching a market investigation alongside its Mobile Ecosystem Market Study report, which found that Apple and Google have an effective duopoly on mobile ecosystems that allows them to exercise a stranglehold over operating systems, app stores and web browsers on mobile devices, according to the statement.
Responses to the consultation, which were published yesterday, reveal substantial support for a fuller investigation into the way that Apple and Google dominate the mobile browser market and how Apple restricts cloud gaming through its App Store, according to the statement.
Web developers have complained that Apple’s restrictions, combined with suggested underinvestment in its browser technology, lead to added costs and frustration as they have to deal with bugs and glitches when building web pages, and have no choice but to create bespoke mobile apps when a website might be sufficient.
Sarah Cardell, interim Chief Executive of the CMA, said in the statement: “Many UK businesses and web developers tell us they feel that they are being held back by restrictions set by Apple and Google.”
“When the new Digital Markets regime is in place, it’s likely to address these sorts of issues. In the meantime, we are using our existing powers to tackle problems where we can. We plan to investigate whether the concerns we have heard are justified and if so, identify steps to improve competition and innovation in these sectors,” she added.
Amagi, a SaaS technology provider for the broadcast and connected TV businesses, has acquired Streamwise, an early-stage data aggregation and reporting platform for content distributors, the company said in a press release.
Streamwise specializes in automating and standardizing data collection for streaming platforms. The acquisition will help Amagi enhance its data solutions capabilities with comprehensive reporting and dashboards, it said in the release.
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India has released a framework to curb fake and misleading reviews on ecommerce platforms and portals offering tour and travel services, restaurants, eateries and consumer durables, TechCrunch reports. HCL Technologies is launching a climate change course to get its 220,000-strong workforce to reduce its carbon footprint. And hyperspectral imaging satellites company Pixxel plans to send its next satellite up on an ISRO PSLV later this week.
Notes:
India has released a framework to curb fake and misleading reviews on e-commerce sites offering tour and travel services, restaurants, eateries and consumer durables, TechCrunch reports.
The government announced these new guidelines will come into force from November 25. The Department of Consumer Affairs has created a standard titled “IS 19000:2022” that will be managed by the Bureau of Indian Standards.
HCL Technologies has launched a Sustainability School and a climate literacy learning series, developed by Axa Climate, to raise awareness of the impact of climate change among the IT services company’s 220,000 employees.
The learning series will educate employees on how each of them can contribute to the efforts of governments, NGOs and enterprises to address the causes of climate change, the Noida-based company, India’s third biggest IT services provider, said in a press release.
Pixxel, a Bengaluru startup that is building a constellation of earth imaging satellites, expects to launch its third hyperspectral imaging satellite, named Anand, on an ISRO PSLV on November 26 from the Sriharikota Launch Complex in Andhra Pradesh.
Anand is a hyperspectral microsatellite which weighs <15 kg and has a total of 150+ wavelengths to see our planet in a lot more detail than today’s non-hyperspectral satellites with not more than 10 wavelengths, Pixxel said in a press release.
ReshaMandi, which operates a farm-to-fashion online commerce platform for natural fibres in India, has launched an app for iOS devices. Presently, 34,000 users have installed the app with 40 percent of them using the app’s payment system and receiving payment acknowledgements on the app.
The iOS app is available in five Indian languages – Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Marathi, besides English, the Bengaluru company said in a press release.
Bonatra, a doctor-led IoMT (Internet of Medical Things) startup for men’s health issues, has raised Rs. 5.5 crore in a pre-seed round led by ITI Growth Opportunities Fund and several angel investors.
The money will be used to expand technology and product offerings, build the company’s team and grow its customer base, according to a press release.
ProcMart, a B2B procurement marketplace, has raised $10 million in series A funding, led by Sixth Sense Ventures, the company said in a press release.
ProcMart was started in 2015 by Anish Popli, a first-generation entrepreneur with experience in procurement and project management from BHEL and Energo Engineering. The company is an enterprise-focused maintenance, repair and operations aggregator with a tech-enabled digital platform. Its customers include Colgate, Mondelez, Harman, Dana, and Vedanta.
The company will use the money for international expansion, strengthening vendor partnerships and upgrading technology and warehousing capabilities.
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India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has released a draft bill, titled ‘The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022’ for public feedback. The last date to provide feedback, via the ministry’s website, is Dec. 17. This brings India a step closer to formulating rules that will govern the individual rights of the ‘digital citizen’ and the need to process data for lawful purposes. And deep tech startups in the country need much more money at various levels to thrive, Debjani Ghosh, president of Nasscom, India’s main tech lobby, said last week.
Notes:
India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has released a draft Bill, titled ‘The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022’ for public feedback, the ministry said in a statement last week.
The purpose of the draft Bill is to provide for the processing of digital personal data in a manner that recognizes both the right of individuals to protect their data and the need to process personal data for lawful purposes, according to the statement.
The feedback on the draft bill in a chapter-wise manner can be submitted at https://innovateindia.mygov.in/digital-data-protection/ by December 17, 2022.
India’s Central Depository Services Limited, or CDSL, the country’s leading central securities depository, said its systems have been compromised by malware, TechCrunch reported on Friday.
The securities depository said in a filing with India’s National Stock Exchange that it detected malware affecting “a few of its internal machines.”
“As a matter of abundant caution, the company immediately isolated the machines and disconnected itself from other constituents of the capital market,” the filing said.
CDSL said it continues to investigate the breach and that it has so far “no reason to believe that any confidential information or the investor data has been compromised” due to the incident, according to TechCrunch.
Mohit Gupta, a top executive at Zomato, who was elevated to the status of co-founder in 2020, has quit, Economic Times reports. Mohit held various positions at Zomato including being the chief executive of its food delivery unit and head of its new initiatives, according to ET.
That makes for the third top-level exit in the Mumbai-listed loss-making food delivery services provider, according to ET. Rahul Ganjoo, head of new initiatives, resigned earlier this week while Siddharth Jhawar quit the company as vice president and head of intercity legends service earlier this month.
Lenskart, the online retailer of eyewear, has raised $39.6 million in Series I funding from Chiratae, DSP Mutual Fund and Axis Growth, according to data sourced from private markets intelligence provider Tracxn.
This takes Lenskart’s total funding to $1.05 billion and post-money valuation to $4.26 billion, according to Tracxn data.
India's deep tech startups need higher levels of seed and early-stage funding to grow faster, but currently, only 11 per cent of technology-related funds reach this ecosystem, Debjani Ghosh, president of Nasscom, said on Friday, Press Trust of India reports.
Speaking at a workshop on ‘Startups and Entrepreneurship: Vision India@2047,’ Ghosh called for encouraging 10,000 deep tech startups in India by 2030.
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India ranked eighth on the annual climate change performance index, jumping two positions since last year, Carbon Copy reports. India is among the high-performing countries in the index, preceded by Denmark, Sweden, Chile, and Morocco, while the first three positions for “very high” performance remained empty, according to the report. And Meta Platforms is appointing Sandhya Devanathan – with 22 years in the industry with multinational experience from finance to gaming – as the Vice President of Meta India.
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India ranked eighth on the annual climate change performance index, jumping two positions since last year, Carbon Copy reports. India is among the high-performing countries in the index, preceded by Denmark, Sweden, Chile, and Morocco, while the first three positions for “very high” performance remained empty, according to the report.
Released by Germanwatch, NewClimate Institute and Climate Action Network, the Climate Change Performance Index 2023 (CCPI), evaluated and compared the climate protection performance of 59 countries and of the European Union (EU), which together are responsible for more than 90 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
The CCPI assessed countries’ performance in four categories: GHG emissions, renewable energy, energy use, and climate policy. India earned a high rating in the GHG emissions and energy use categories and a medium one for climate policy and renewable energy.
The index said that the country is on track to meet its 2030 emissions targets, compatible with a well-below-2°C scenario. However, the renewable energy pathway is not on track for the 2030 target.
Meta Platforms is appointing Sandhya Devanathan as the Vice President of Meta India. Devanthan will focus on bringing the organisation’s business and revenue priorities together and supporting the long-term growth of Meta’s business in India, the company said in a post yesterday.
Sandhya, who will move back to India, will transition to her new role on January 1, 2023, and will report to Dan Neary, Vice President, Meta APAC and will be a part of the APAC leadership team.
The traditional PC market in India, including desktops, notebooks, and workstations declined by 11.7 percent year-over-year in Q3 2022 after eight consecutive quarters of growth despite strong shipments of 3.9 million units, according to new data from the International Data Corporation’s Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker.
Amadeus, the largest technology provider for the travel industry, is expanding its operations with the opening of a new Engineering and R&D centre in Pune. The launch in Pune will be Amadeus’ second R&D and engineering site after Amadeus Labs in Bengaluru, which is the second largest engineering site for Amadeus worldwide.
Gallabox, a conversational commerce platform provider, which helps Small and Medium Businesses increase their sales through WhatsApp has raised $1.2 million in seed funding. The funding was led by Prime Venture Partners with participation from 100x Entrepreneur Fund, the company said in a press release.
Founded in 2021 by Karthik Jagannathan, Yogesh Narayanan and Yathin Panchanathan, Gallabox has more than 500 paying customers including PVR, ShipRocket, Pickyourtrail, Credit Mantri, and Goireland. Its customers come from areas including D2C, Education, Health & Wellness, and Financial and Travel services in India and 20 other countries.
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Tata group’s iPhone components factory in Hosur, near Bengaluru, is set to employ 60,000 workers, with a large proportion being women, Press Trust of India reports, citing Telecom and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw. SoftBank Group is set to sell part of its 12.9 percent stake in Paytm in a transaction that will fetch the Japanese telecom and internet investor at least $200 million, Mint reports. And Microsoft and NVIDIA have teamed up to build a supercomputer to train AI models.
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The biggest factory to manufacture Apple iPhones in India is coming up at Hosur near Bengaluru, which will employ around 60,000 people, Telecom and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Tuesday, Press Trust of India reports.
The minister was speaking at a ceremony that was part of India’s ongoing celebrations of tribals, the Janjatiya Gaurav Divas.
“Apple's iPhone is now getting made in India and it's the biggest plant in India, being set up at Hosur near Bengaluru. 60,000 people work in a single factory. The first 6,000 employees of these 60,000 employees are our tribal sisters from places nearby Ranchi and Hazaribagh. Tribal sisters have been trained to make Apple iPhone,” the minister said, according to the report.
Apple has outsourced the manufacturing of iPhone enclosures to Tata group, which has a plant at Hosur, where the Indian conglomerate was previously reported to be hiring 40,000 workers.
SoftBank Group will sell a third of its stake in One97 Communications Ltd, the owner of the Paytm payments app, through a $200 million block deal, Mint reports, citing deal terms it has reviewed.
SoftBank, the Japanese internet and telecom investor that owns 12.9 percent of Paytm, plans to sell 29 million shares or 4.5 percent of the fintech company on Thursday, according to Mint.
The shares are being offered to institutional investors at ₹555-601.45. At the lower end of the band, it is a 7.7 percent discount to the closing price of ₹601.3 on Wednesday. If completed, the sale will fetch SoftBank at least ₹1,628.9 crore or $200 million.
Microsoft and NVIDIA yesterday announced a multi-year collaboration to build one of the most powerful AI supercomputers in the world, combining Azure’s advanced supercomputing infrastructure and NVIDIA GPUs, networking and AI software.
These new computers will help enterprises train, deploy and scale AI, including large, state-of-the-art models, NVIDIA said in a press release.
As part of the collaboration, NVIDIA will use Azure’s scalable virtual machine instances to research and further advance generative AI, an emerging area of AI related to foundational models involving unsupervised, self-learning algorithms to create new text, code, digital images, video or audio.
Evernote, the notetaking and task management app founded over 20 years ago, whose elephant icon was familiar to millions of users, has been acquired by Milan-based app developer Bending Spoons.
In a post on Evernote’s newsroom, Evernote CEO Ian Small said that Bending Spoons will take ownership of Evernote in a transaction expected to close in early 2023, TechCrunch reports. For Evernote, the acquisition — the terms of which weren’t made public — marks the end of a roller coaster of a journey, TechCrunch notes.
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Tata Consultancy Services has won a contract from TAP Air Portugal to modernise the airline’s IT systems and business processes to improve customer experience, as part of which it will establish a digital centre for innovation that will eventually serve other airlines in the region as well. Google has added UPI Autopay as a payments option for subscriptions on its Play app store. And content management system provider ContentStack nearly doubles its funding.
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Google has added Unified Payments Interface, or UPI — India’s most popular payments method – in its Google Play app store. Users can now use UPI Autopay to pay for subscriptions on Google Play, Google said in a post on Tuesday.
UPI Autopay helps people make recurring payments using any UPI application that supports the feature. To use this method on Google Play, after selecting a subscription plan for purchase, tap on the payment method in the cart, select “Pay with UPI”, and then approve the purchase in your supported UPI app.
WhatsApp’s India head Abhijit Bose and Meta’s public policy head for the country Rajiv Aggarwal have both quit — just days after Meta’s India head Ajit Mohan left the company to join rival Snap, TechCrunch reports.
Meta confirmed the departure of both executives yesterday, according to TechCrunch. The company also announced the appointment of Shivnath Thukral as its director of public policy in the country — replacing Aggarwal, who joined the company only last year from Uber.
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s company Berkshire Hathaway disclosed yesterday that it had purchased a $4.1 billion stake in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, one of the world’s largest chipmakers, CNN reports.
TSMC accounts for an estimated 90 percent of the world’s super-advanced computer chips, supplying tech giants including Apple and Qualcomm.
Tata Consultancy Services has won a contract from TAP Air Portugal to modernise the airline’s IT systems and business processes to improve customer experience.
TCS will establish an Airline Digital Centre (ADC) in Portugal, staffed with consultants with deep domain knowledge of the airline industry, solution architects and technology experts, the Mumbai company said in a press release.
ReNew Power, a subsidiary of ReNew Energy Global, yesterday, signed a Framework Agreement with the Government of Egypt to set up a Green Hydrogen plant in the Suez Canal Economic Zone with an investment of $8 billion and a targeted annual production of 220,000 tons of green hydrogen.
The Framework Agreement follows a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in July, the company said in a press release.
Contentstack, a Silicon Valley and Mumbai SaaS company, which says it’s India’s biggest content management system provider, yesterday announced $80 million in Series C funding.
Georgian and Insight Partners co-led the round with participation from Illuminate Ventures, according to a press release. All three firms continue to grow their investment with Contentstack, contributing to a $169 million total raised thus far.
Contentstack’s customers include global brands like Chase, Holiday Inn, Levi’s, Mattel, McDonald's, Mitsubishi, and Shell. The Company will use the money to add people in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune and Virar-Mumbai, as it expands its operations, according to its press release.
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Amazon plans to lay off approximately 10,000 people in corporate and technology jobs starting as early as this week, in what would be the largest job cut in the company’s history, New York Times reports, citing people who know about the plan. Billionaire Gautam Adani’s conglomerate has received the go-ahead for an open offer for broadcaster NDTV’s shares. And LTI and Mindtree became LTIMindtree, India’s fifth biggest IT company by market cap, yesterday.
Notes:
Amazon plans to lay off approximately 10,000 people in corporate and technology jobs starting as early as this week, in what would be the largest job cut in the company’s history, New York Times reports, citing people who know about the plan.
Separately, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos plans to give away the bulk of his wealth, currently at $124 billion, during his lifetime, he told CNN in an exclusive interview. Bezos will devote much of his wealth to fighting climate change and supporting people who can unify humanity in the face of deep social and political divisions, he said.
Bezos and his partner Lauren Sánchez also announced a $100 million grant to American country music singer Dolly Parton as part of her Courage and Civility Award.
In more billionaire news, India’s Gautam Adani’s conglomerate Adani group received regulatory approval to float an open offer for a further 26 percent stake in New Delhi Television, or NDTV, Bloomberg reports.
This is a crucial milestone in a takeover battle between Adani, Asia’s richest person, and NDTV’s founders Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy, according to the report.
Adani group triggered a hostile takeover bid for NDTV after it acquired an indirect 29.18 percent stake in August.
Samsung is planning to reduce its smartphone shipments by 13 per cent next year IANS reports, citing news from Gizmochina.
The Korean tech giant was not able to sell as many smartphone units as it had expected because of multiple reasons, including supply-chain disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Although Samsung was able to raise its market share in terms of shipments during the third quarter of this year compared with the second quarter, the company had an overall decline of about 8 per cent year over year, according to Gizmochina, IANS reports.
L&T group’s IT services companies Larsen & Toubro Infotech and Mindtree will now operate as one company, LTIMindtree, effective Nov. 14, after receiving regulatory approvals, the company said in a press release yesterday. The Mumbai and Bengaluru benches of the National Company Law Tribunal have approved the merger, according to the press release.
LTIMindtree has a client portfolio of more than 750 leading global enterprises from all the important industry verticals, and nearly 90,000 employees, operating in more than 30 countries, although the bulk of the IT services outsourcing provider’s workforce is in India.
The company will become the fifth-largest IT services company in India in terms of current market capitalization.
As part of the merger, all shareholders of Mindtree will be issued shares of LTI in the ratio of 73 shares of LTI for every 100 shares of Mindtree. The parent company, L&T, will hold 68.73 percent of the merged entity.
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Crypto startups in India are not barred from any innovation but must adhere to the country’s laws on foreign exchange, IT Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar told Inc42 in an interview, according to a report from the startup news and analysis site. And SaaS action continues in India, with Lentra raising $60 million in Series B funding that includes Citi Ventures’s first investment in an Indian fintech company, valuing the Mumbai startup developing AI-based embedded finance solutions at more than $400 million, TechCrunch reports.
Notes:
Crypto startups in India are not barred from any innovation but must adhere to the country’s laws on foreign exchange, IT Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar told Inc42 in an interview, according to a report.
For a startup, whether you are innovating for crypto or blockchain or Web3, there is absolutely nothing in the law that prevents you from doing it. There is nothing in the IT Act that stops you from doing it. We welcome any investor or startup to innovate in crypto or Web3, the minister said, according to Inc42.
The restrictions involve exchange control. Some startups have made the mistake of becoming full-blown crypto brokerages and exchanges without getting the required permissions from the RBI and SEBI, he said, according to the report.
Australia is considering banning the payment of ransoms to hackers, following recent cyberattacks affecting millions of Australians, Reuters reports, citing the country's Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil.
Australia's biggest health insurer, Medibank and Optus, Australia's second-largest telco, owned by Singapore Telecommunications, and at least eight other companies, have been breached since September, according to Reuters.
The country has also bolstered its cyber police, with a new joint task force, according to Reuters.
Apple is facing a class action lawsuit for allegedly harvesting iPhone user data even when the company’s own privacy settings promise not to, Gizmodo reports.
The suit, filed on Nov. 10 in a California federal court, comes days after Gizmodo exclusively reported on research into how multiple iPhone apps send Apple analytics data, regardless of whether the iPhone Analytics privacy setting is turned on or off, according to the report.
The problem was spotted by two independent researchers at the software company Mysk, who found that the Apple App Store sends the company exhaustive information about nearly everything a user does in the app, despite a privacy setting, iPhone Analytics, which claims to “disable the sharing of Device Analytics altogether” when switched off.
Lentra, a Mumbai startup developing AI-based fintech solutions, has raised $60 million in Series B funding, TechCrunch reports. The investment values the startup at “over $400 million,” D Venkatesh, the founder and CEO of the startup, told TechCrunch in an interview.
Existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners and Susquehanna International Group led the round with participation from Citi Ventures, a subsidiary of Citigroup, according to TechCrunch.
This is Citi Ventures’ first investment in a fintech from India. Lentra, founded in 2018, is profitable and offers tech solutions to commercial banks for their digital loan services. HDFC Bank, Federal Bank, Standard Chartered and IDFC First Bank are some of its customers.
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Netcore Cloud, a marketing technologies provider and one of India’s biggest SaaS companies, has put off its initial public offering, Economic Times reports, citing founder and group managing director Rajesh Jain. Amagi, a media tech SaaS company in Bengaluru, shows that an ‘up round’ is possible even in current macro conditions. And Sequoia burns but the tip of its pinkie as another high-flying crypto company comes crashing down.
India’s first privately developed rocket (Vikram-S) is undergoing final preparations at the ISRO’s launchpad in Sriharikota, ahead of a launch likely as early as this weekend. The mission named ‘Prarambh’ (beginning) was unveiled by ISRO Chairman, S. Somanath in Bengaluru on Nov. 7, after the technical launch clearance from the Space regulator IN-SPACe. The rocket is set to carry two payloads from India, and one from an overseas customer. And Facebook parent Meta Platforms is laying off 13 percent of its staff worldwide.
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Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg yesterday announced the company is laying off 11,000 employees, accounting for about 13 percent of its workforce, in a cost-cutting measure.
This “last-resort” measure has become necessary because the prediction, at the beginning of Covid, that the accelerated shift to online would be permanent, has turned out to be wrong, Zuckerberg said in a blog post.
“Not only has online commerce returned to prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I’d expected. I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that,” he said.
National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has announced the launch of the BHIM App open-source license model under which the source code of BHIM App will be licensed to regulated entities participating in the UPI ecosystem, who do not have a UPI app of their own, to help them launch their own UPI app, according to a press release.
India’s first privately developed rocket, Vikram-S, is poised to create history as it undergoes final launch preparations at the ISRO’s launchpad in Sriharikota, ahead of a launch likely as early as this weekend.
The mission named ‘Prarambh’, meaning ‘the beginning’, signifying a new era for the private space sector in India and the first mission for Skyroot Aerospace, was unveiled by ISRO Chairman, S. Somanath in Bangalore on November 7, 2022, after the technical launch clearance from the Space regulator IN-SPACe.
A launch window between November 12 and 16 has been notified by authorities, the final date will be confirmed based on weather conditions, Skyroot said in a press release.
“We could build and get our Vikram-S rocket mission-ready in such a short time only because of the invaluable support we received from ISRO and IN-SPACe,” and the technology talent the space tech venture has developed, co-founder and CEO, Pawan Kumar Chandana, said in the release.
Skyroot’s launch vehicles are named ‘Vikram’ as a tribute to the founder of the Indian Space programme and renowned scientist Vikram Sarabhai.
Naga Bharath Daka, COO and Co-Founder of Skyroot Aerospace said “The Vikram-S rocket getting launched is a single-stage sub-orbital launch vehicle which would carry three customer payloads and help test and validate the majority of the technologies in the Vikram series of space launch vehicles.”
The rocket is carrying two Indian and one foreign payload, Press Trust of India reports.
Spacekidz, a Chennai-based aerospace startup, will fly Fun-Sat, a 2.5 kg satellite developed by students from India, the US, Singapore and Indonesia on the sub-orbital flight onboard Vikram-S, according to PTI.
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One of the latest climate finance initiatives in India comes from Merak Ventures, a venture capital firm, and Huddle, an accelerator-led fund that have teamed up to launch ClimAct – a Climate Tech accelerator programme for startups in India. The programme will back startups in India in agriculture wastage and supply chain efficiency, mobility and transport, climate finance, carbon accounting and sequestration, and digital solutions. And Indian SaaS icon Zoho announces expansion plans, crossing $1 billion in annual revenue.
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Snap, maker of photo and video sharing app Snapchat, yesterday announced the India launch of the Snapchat Sounds Creator Fund - a grant program designed to recognize emerging, independent artists in India.
Starting mid-November, Snap has partnered DistroKid to facilitate and distribute $50,000 divided into payments of $2,500 to up to 20 artists per month.
Amazon yesterday got the go-ahead from a South African court to build its planned offices in Cape Town, on a plot that is considered a heritage site, in a setback for the indigenous people attempting to stop the development, Bloomberg reports.
As world leaders meet in Egypt for the COP 27 annual summit on climate change, John Kerry, the US climate envoy and Democratic Party stalwart, said a Republican win in today’s midterm election in America would cut the flow of climate finance to poorer countries, Bloomberg reports.
Speaking at a panel discussion on climate adaptation, Kerry delivered a stark warning about the potential for the US to deliver billions in its share of international climate finance. “If what I think will happen in today’s elections happens and the House is gone, you’re not going to see that money,” he said, according to the report.
Merak Ventures, a sector-agnostic, early-stage venture capital firm, and Huddle, an accelerator-led fund for India's early-stage ventures, yesterday announced the launch of ClimAct – a Climate Tech accelerator program for startups in India.
The program aims to accelerate and fund early-stage Climate Tech start-ups in India working in areas such as agriculture-wastage and supply chain efficiency, mobility and transport, climate finance, carbon accounting and sequestration, and digital solutions.
ClimAct is open for applications, and the first cohort will kick off in February 2023, Merak and Huddle said in a press release. The program will run for four months through June 2023.
The selected companies will gain access to an upfront Pre-Seed capital of $200,000 per startup, with the potential for follow-on investment of up to $1.5 million post the 4-month program.
Zoho, India’s best-known and biggest software company, has hit $1 billion in annual revenue, seeing more uptake for its unified approach to business software with products such as Zoho One.
“Fundamentals matter now more than ever, and our industry has to learn to lower the friction of technology so that technology becomes far more affordable,” Sridhar Vembu, co-founder and CEO of the Chennai company said in a press release.
“We have also crossed an important milestone of $1 billion in annual revenue. While growth has slowed down quite a bit in 2022 over 2021, our diversified product portfolio and the fact that we save money for customers has helped us so far.”
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United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has warned world leaders at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt that humanity will have to urgently work together or face annihilation, in the fight against global warming. In particular, the US and China must join forces to make a “historic” pact happen between rich emitters and emerging to hold the rise in temperatures to the Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial era that most experts believe today is a lost cause without drastic action.
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Facebook’s parent Meta Platforms is planning to begin large-scale layoffs this week, in the first broad headcount reduction in the company’s 18-year history, Wall Street Journal reports, citing people aware of the plans.
The layoffs are expected to affect many thousands of employees and an announcement is expected as early as Wednesday, according to the Journal.
Meanwhile, Twitter is now reaching out to dozens of employees who lost their jobs and asking them to return as they are needed for crucial jobs, Bloomberg reports.
Apple is telling customers they’ll have to wait longer to get its latest iPhone models after anti-virus restrictions were imposed on a factory run by Foxconn, a major contractor, in central China, Associated Press reports.
“We now expect lower iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max shipments than we previously anticipated. Customers will experience longer wait times to receive their new products,” according to AP.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has warned world leaders gathered at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt that humanity will have to urgently work together or face annihilation, in the fight against global warming.
He called for a “historic” pact between rich emitters and emerging economies that would see countries double down on cutting emissions, holding the rise in temperatures to the more ambitious Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial era.
Current trends would see carbon pollution increase by 10 percent by the end of the decade and Earth’s surface heats up by 2.8C.
“Greenhouse gas emissions keep growing. Global temperatures keep rising. And our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible,” he said. “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator.”
The UN chief asked countries to agree to phase out the use of fossil fuels and coal, the most carbon-intense fuels, by 2040 globally, with members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) hitting that mark by 2030.
The world must resist the temptation to put climate change on the backburner because of the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the global economic slowdown and inflation, the UN Chief said.
The science is clear: any hope of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees means achieving global net zero emissions by 2050. But that 1.5-degree goal is on life support – and the machines are rattling. We are getting dangerously close to the point of no return, Guterres said.
In particular, the US and China must join forces, he said. “Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish. It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact – or a Collective Suicide Pact.”
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Apple will continue to source modem chips from Qualcomm for the 2023 iPhone 15 lineup, MacRumors reports, citing Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Meta Platforms’s India chief Ajit Mohan has stepped down and will join rival social networking company Snap, Economic Times reports. Wipro yesterday named Amit Choudhary, a former Capgemini executive, as a chief operating officer and member of the Bengaluru IT services company’s executive board.
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Apple will continue to source modem chips from Qualcomm for the 2023 iPhone 15 lineup, MacRumors reports, citing Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Qualcomm said it is set to provide the "vast majority" of modem chips for Apple's devices, despite earlier expectations that it would provide just a fraction of modem chips.
Qualcomm in November 2021 said that it expected to supply 20 percent of Apple's modem chips in 2023, signalling a potential shift to Apple's modem chips. Apple has been working on its modems and purchased Intel's modem chip business to get a head start.
Initial rumours pointed to 2023 as the year Apple would be ready to transition, but it looks like it will take a bit longer for Apple to end its reliance on Qualcomm, according to the report.
WhatsApp yesterday announced that its communities feature will start rolling out to users globally and will be available to everyone over the next few months.
The new feature, touted as a major update, allows the creation of sub-groups, multiple threads, and announcement channels. WhatsApp is also rolling out polls and video calling for up to 32 people at a time, according to a press release.
To get started, users can tap on the new communities tab at the top of their chats on Android and the bottom on iOS. From there, users will be able to start a new Community or add existing groups. Once in a community, users can easily switch between available groups to get the information they need, and admins can send important updates to everyone in the community.
In more news about Meta Platforms, the parent company of WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook, the company’s India chief Ajit Mohan has stepped down and will join rival social networking company Snap, Economic Times reports.
Mohan joined Meta in 2019, then Facebook, from Hotstar, and served as a vice president and managing director of the India business for the social media company.
Wipro yesterday named Amit Choudhary, a former Capgemini executive, as a chief operating officer and member of the Wipro Executive Board.
Amit will be responsible for improving organizational operational efficiency, helping drive sustainable growth, the Bengaluru IT services company, India’s fourth biggest, said in a press release.
At Capgemini, Amit was the Chief Operating Officer for the Financial Services Business Unit, as well as a member of their Executive Committee. Before Capgemini, Amit held various leadership positions at Boston Consulting Group and Cadence Design Systems and consulted with Boards and CXOs in industries including financial services, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, and industrial goods.
Amit is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology – Kanpur, and the Indian Institute of Management – Calcutta. He is based in New York.
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India’s Tata Group is planning to multiply the number of employees at its electronics factory in southern India that makes iPhone components, adding tens of thousands of workers as part of a push to win more business from Apple, Bloomberg reports. And India’s SaaS darling Freshworks is facing a class action lawsuit in the US, for allegedly withholding information about obstacles to its business in the lead-up to its IPO last year.
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India’s Tata Group is planning to add tens of thousands of women employees at its factory in southern India that makes iPhone components, as part of its efforts to win more business from Apple, according to a Bloomberg report that was carried in Business Standard yesterday.
The plant, in the industrial town of Hosur, in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, will hire as many as 45,000 women workers within 18 to 24 months as it sets up new production lines, according to the report. The factory, which produces iPhone housings, currently employs about 10,000 workers, most of them women, according to the report.
A senior Microsoft executive said yesterday that thousands of businesses will fail to meet pledges to combat climate change unless they start training employees on sustainability.
"We have to move very quickly to start to bring our emissions down, and the ultimate bottleneck is the supply of skilled people," Microsoft’s President Brad Smith told Reuters, ahead of a report the company released.
The report is based on a study by Microsoft and Boston Consulting Group, which found that many corporate environmental leaders, about 68 percent, in fact, were internal hires whose team members lacked sustainability-related degrees more often than not. The findings primarily stemmed from interviews and surveys with Microsoft and eight other large companies in sectors such as finance and consumer goods, according to Reuters.
Freshworks, India’s first SaaS company to list on the Nasdaq, is facing a class action lawsuit in the US that says the company knew its business was facing “obstacles” but withheld that information leading up to its IPO last year.
Scott+Scott, which describes itself as an international shareholder and consumer rights litigation firm, has filed a securities class action lawsuit against Freshworks and some of its directors and officers, and the underwriters of the company’s September 2021 listing, according to a press release on Nov. 1.
The firm is asking people who purchased Freshworks’ common stock to get in touch and join the class action.
According to the complaint filed in the US District of California, Northern District and captioned Sundaram v. Freshworks, the company’s IPO documents were false and misleading and omitted to state that, at the time of the offering, the Company’s business had encountered obstacles.
Byju’s, India’s most valued unicorn that is haemorrhaging money and sacking staff, has initiated discussions to raise $250-300 million from private equity group TPG to capitalise the business further, Economic Times reports, citing people aware of the discussions.
The company recently raised $250 million from existing investors, including Qatar Investment Authority and Tiger Global.
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Google has temporarily halted enforcing its Google Play app store rule that developers use its proprietary billing system in India after the country’s Competition Commission ruled the practice anti-competitive, last month. Freshworks beat its guidance for fiscal Q3 revenue with a 37 percent increase in constant currency. The company raised its full-year projection, although the December quarter growth is expected at a slower, 27-28 percent range.
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Google has temporarily halted enforcing its Google Play app store rule that developers use its proprietary billing system in India after the country’s Competition Commission ruled the practice illegal, last month.
“Following the Competition Commission of India's recent ruling, we are pausing enforcement of the requirement for developers to use Google Play's billing system for the purchase of digital goods and services for transactions by users in India while we review our legal options,” Google said in an update on its support page.
Elon Musk said he will give “power to the people” by offering verification through Twitter Blue for $8 a month, CNBC reports, citing a thread of tweets by the world’s richest person, who bought the microblogging platform provider last month.
Musk said participants will get priority in mentions, replies and search, receive half as many ads and will be able to tweet long videos and audio, according to CNBC.
Freshworks, a Silicon Valley and Chennai-based cloud software provider for customer support, beat its guidance for its fiscal Q3 revenue which rose 37 percent in constant currency. The company raised its full-year projection, although the December quarter growth is expected at a slower, 27-28 percent range, according to a company press release.
Sales for the three months ended Sep. 30 rose to $128.8 million, a 33 percent increase in reported terms, year-on-year, and 37 percent growth in constant currency terms, which eliminates the effect of fluctuating currency rates. Freshworks had projected an increase of 31-33 percent in August.
The company is projecting a slower 27-28 percent growth for the current quarter but still expects to grow 36-37 percent for the full year, which is a 100-basis-point higher than its August projection of 35-36 percent.
Volocopter, a German startup building electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles, has secured $182 million for the second signing of its Series E round. That’s on top of the $170 million Volocopter raised for the same round in March at a $1.87 billion post-money valuation, TechCrunch reports.
Volocopter is currently testing its two-seater VoloCity air taxi based on the requirements set by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency. The fresh funds will help the company accelerate testing and get closer to certification and commercialisation, TechCrunch reports.
Modl.ai, a Danish startup building automated testing software for game developers, has raised $8.4 million in a series A funding, in a round led by Griffin Gaming Partners and Microsoft’s M12 venture fund, VentureBeat reports.
Modl.ai seeks to automate processes like debugging and quality assurance testing for game developers.
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India will set up multiple grievance appellate committees to oversee content moderation decisions of social media platform providers in the country, as the government looks to reign in content it deems unlawful. At Twitter, which is in a legal battle with the Indian government over orders to take down various accounts and tweets, new owner Elon Musk has plans to form a council to oversee content moderation, CNBC reports. Twitter may also charge a fee for user verification, according to the tech newsletter Platformer.
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India will set up multiple grievance appellate committees to oversee content moderation decisions of social media platform providers in the country, as the government looks to reign in content it deems unlawful.
This change was inserted into the country’s rules on internet intermediaries that were published in February last year, according to a notification in the government’s official gazette, on Oct. 28.
These committees will have the power to overturn the decisions made by grievance officers appointed by the social media platforms. Each committee will comprise a chairperson and two whole-time members appointed by the government.
The rules on intermediaries that came into effect last year required the social media platforms to name local nodal contact persons – to be available round the clock – and local grievance officers in India to hear feedback and complaints from users.
Individuals will be allowed to file their appeal within 30 days from the date of receipt of communication from the grievance officer. The designated committees will also be required to deal with such appeals expeditiously, within 30 days, according to the government’s notification.
“We are doing this very reluctantly and because we have an obligation and duty to the digital citizens that their grievances should be heard by someone,” India’s information technology minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar told reporters in a conference on Oct. 29, Economic Times reports.
Meanwhile, at Twitter, one of the biggest social media platforms that sees India as its third largest market by users, new owner Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is planning to form a “content moderation council,” CNBC reports.
Musk – who has previously said he would reinstate former US president Donald Trump’s Twitter account – now says he will not make any “major content decisions” or reinstate any accounts that were previously banned before the council convenes, according to CNBC.
Musk, the world’s richest person, bought Twitter last week after months of wrangling. For now, he is short on details about how his content moderation council will work and how much power it will have, according to CNBC.
In India, Twitter is fighting a legal battle with the government over orders to take down several accounts and tweets.
Twitter will also revise its user verification process, Musk said in a tweet yesterday.
"Whole verification process is being revamped right now", Musk said in his tweet.
Twitter is considering charging for the coveted blue check mark verifying the identity of its account holder, Reuters reports, citing a technology newsletter, Platformer.
Users would have to subscribe to Twitter Blue at $4.99 a month or lose their "verified" badges if the project moves forward.
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Apple’s restrictive app store rules might be the reason that audiobooks are no longer available for purchase on Spotify’s iOS app, a month after the music streaming company launched them in the US, The Verge reports. Meanwhile, European anti-trust regulators are investigating Google's Play Store, Reuters reports. And Meta has lost more than two-thirds of its value this year, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg chases the Metaverse, Bloomberg points out.
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Apple reported its fiscal fourth quarter results yesterday, beating analysts’ estimates and avoiding a slowdown that other big tech companies including Google and Meta Platforms are seeing as the global economy begins to stall.
Overall sales were up 8 percent for the three months ended Sep. 30, from the prior year at $90.1 billion, a record, Apple said in a press release.
Apple saw “very strong double-digit growth in India, Southeast Asia and Latin America,” CEO Tim Cook said in a statement.
Investors are pleasantly surprised, but not everyone is cheering. Apple’s app store rules might be the reason that audiobooks are no longer available for purchase on Spotify’s iOS app, a month after the music streaming company launched them in the US, The Verge reports, after an update for Spotify’s iOS app released yesterday.
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek accused Apple of “doing serious harm to the internet economy, choking competition and the imagination of app developers” at every turn, in a blog post on Oct. 25.
Apple enforces its proprietary billing system on which it levies a 30 percent cut on in-app sales of digital goods, such as audiobooks, for example. Last year, South Korea became the first country to ban this via legislation that extended to other app store providers as well, including Google, which charges a similar fee.
It is worth noting that Apple also sells individual audiobooks within its own Books app which doesn’t face the 30 percent cut, The Verge Points out.
Meanwhile, European anti-trust regulators are investigating Google's Play Store, the company said in a regulatory filing, a move that could expose the internet search giant to another billion euro fine, Reuters reports.
India’s Competition Commission is also investigating these practices by Apple and Google. On Oct. 25, the country’s competition authority fined Google Rs. 936.44 crore for its anti-competitive behaviour concerning the Play store in India, it said in a statement.
For investors, Facebook’s parent company Meta Platforms may have the worst problems. Meta’s shares are down about 25 percent, Bloomberg reported yesterday, after the company’s disappointing results came out on Oct. 26, and Zuckerberg called for patience from investors. The shares have plunged $677 billion this year, according to Bloomberg.
SiMa Technologies, a fabless semiconductor startup focused on machine learning at the embedded edge, has extended its Series B1 round to $67 million with new participation from MSD Partners, the Silicon Valley company said in a press release.
The company had previously raised $30 million, and the $37 million extension includes participation from existing investors as well.
The money will help SiMa expand “more aggressively than we originally planned,” including in locations outside the US, founder and CEO Krishna Rangasayee said.
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UK’s new prime minister Indian-born Rishi Sunak reimposed the government’s ban on fracking, which had been lifted by his predecessor, Liz Truss, in her short-lived premiership, The Guardian reports. Apple has confirmed future iPhones will be equipped with USB-C charging ports after the EU made it a common standard, Wall Street Journal reports. And IBM’s India head has warned staff against moonlighting, according to Economic Times.
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UK’s new prime minister Rishi Sunak reimposed the government’s ban on fracking, which had been lifted by his predecessor, Liz Truss, in her short-lived premiership, The Guardian reports.
Fracking will, in effect, remain banned under Rishi Sunak’s government, as the new prime minister was committed to the policy in the ruling conservative party’s 2019 manifesto.
Apple has confirmed it will follow European Union legislation that sets a common charging standard for mobile phones and other portable electronic devices, the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Obviously, we’ll have to comply,” Greg Joswiak, Apple senior vice president of worldwide marketing, said on Oct. 25 while speaking at The Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live conference, the paper reports.
Separately, Apple, yesterday, asked its global supply chain partners to take more steps to address their greenhouse gas emissions and take a comprehensive approach to decarbonisation, the company said in a press release.
IBM’s India head has warned its Indian employees against moonlighting, saying critical client data and commercial assets could be at risk, Economic Times reports.
“While an IBMer's time outside of work is their own, it also requires them to avoid engaging in activities that create a conflict of interest,” read an internal note from India managing director Sandip Patel sent to the employees, according to ET.
Walmart’s Indian ecommerce company Flipkart is considering raising $2 billion to $3 billion at a valuation of more than $40 billion to expand its product range in India and challenge rivals, the Mint reported on Tuesday, citing two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
The world's biggest retailer is keen to bring in strategic investors for the Indian company but is also open to selling to large pure-play investment firms, according to the report which is behind a paywall but was picked up by Reuters.
WATI (WhatsApp Team Inbox), a Hong Kong startup offering a customer and sales engagement tool, has raised $23 million in series B funding, led by Tiger Global, the company said in a press release. Existing investors Sequoia Capital India & Southeast Asia, and new investors DST Global Partners and Shopify joined in.
Devtron, a startup that provides an open-source internal DevOps platform for Kubernetes adoption, has raised $12 million in new funding led by global software investor Insight Partners, according to a press release. Devtron will use the new capital to scale its team, drive adoption of its platform and expand into new markets.
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The Competition Commission of India has imposed a penalty of a little under Rs. 1338 crore on Google for abusing its dominant position in multiple markets in the Android mobile device ecosystem, apart from issuing a cease-and-desist order. The Commission, which has been investigating Google’s market practices since 2019, also directed Google to modify its conduct within a defined timeline, according to a statement on the competition authority’s website. Google cannot restrict consumers from uninstalling its apps, the authority noted.
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The Competition Commission of India has imposed a penalty of Rs. 1337.76 crore ($161.4 million) on Google for abusing its dominant position in multiple markets in the Android Mobile device ecosystem, apart from issuing a cease-and-desist order.
The Commission, which has been investigating Google’s market practices since 2019, also directed Google to modify its conduct within a defined timeline, according to a statement on the competition authority’s website.
The Commission found that Google enforced multiple restrictive agreements with mobile device manufacturers that “guaranteed that distribution channels for competing search services is altogether eliminated by prohibiting OEMs from offering devices based on Android forks.”
“It ensured that OEMs are not able to develop and/ or offer devices based on forks, which are outside the control of Google.”
“With these agreements in place, the competitors never stood a chance to compete effectively with Google and ultimately
these agreements resulted in foreclosing the market for them as well as eliminating choice for users.”
The Commission noted that “Apple’s business is primarily based on a vertically integrated smart device ecosystem which focuses on sale of high-end smart devices with state-of-the-art software components. Whereas Google’s business was found to be driven by the ultimate intent of increasing users on its platforms so that they interact with its revenue earning service i.e., online search which directly affects sale of online advertising services by Google.”
The value of the fine is provisional and based on data including Google’s revenue in the Indian market, the Competition Commission said in its statement. However, the fine is a landmark decision that puts India alongside the EU in finding that Google has consistently tried and succeeded in eliminating competition using its market dominance.
Earlier this week, more than 40 European rivals to Google's shopping service urged EU antitrust regulators to use newly adopted tech rules to ensure that the internet search giant complies with a 2017 EU order to allow more competition on its search page, Reuters reported.
In India, the Competition Commission has ordered Google to comply with 10 different measures. Among them, Google must ensure that OEMs are not restricted from developing and selling their own version of Android on their devices. And Google must ensure that consumers are easily able to uninstall its pre-installed apps.
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IBM yesterday beat analysts’ estimates for its fiscal third quarter across software, consulting and infrastructure segments, and raised its growth projection for the full year, CNBC reports. The Competition Commission of India has pulled up MakeMyTrip, Goibibo and Oyo for anti-competitive behaviour, fining them $47 million in total; and mid-sized Indian IT services companies are reporting strong growth.
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IBM yesterday beat analysts’ estimates for its fiscal third quarter across software, consulting and infrastructure segments, and raised its growth projection for the full year, CNBC reports.
Earnings were $1.81 per share, adjusted, vs. $1.77 per share as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv. Revenue was $14.11 billion, vs. $13.51 billion as expected by analysts.
Revenue increased 6.5 percent from a year earlier, according to a statement, CNBC reports.
“With our year-to-date performance, we now expect full-year revenue growth above our mid-single digit model,” CEO Arvind Krishna said in the statement. In July the company said it had expected growth at the high end of the estimate.
India's competition regulator said on Wednesday that it had fined online hotel-booking companies MakeMyTrip and Goibibo and IPO-bound hotel chain Oyo a combined $47 million for anti-competitive behaviour, Economic Times reports.
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has been investigating the companies since 2019 following allegations by a hotel industry lobby that MakeMyTrip gave special treatment to SoftBank-backed Oyo on its platform.
The CCI has directed MakeMyTrip and Goibibo to amend their market behaviour, fining them about $27 million. Oyo was fined $20 million, according to ET.
Indian Web3 startups have grown to a 450+ community, with 4 unicorns, raising $1.3 billion in total investments, until April 2022, with 170 new Web3 startups registered in 2021-22, according to a press release from India’s software industry lobby Nasscom.
Currently, India is home to about 11 percent of the global Web3 talent, making the country the third largest Web3 talent pool in the world, according to Nasscom.
Persistent Systems, Pune based Indian IT services company, hit the $1 billion annual revenue run rate in the September quarter, the company said in a press release yesterday.
Persistent reported fiscal second-quarter revenues rose 40.2 percent year-on-year to $255.56 million. Revenue increased by 5.8 percent from the first quarter.
Meanwhile, KPIT Technologies, a software engineering services specialist in the automotive sector raised its forecast for the full fiscal year that ends on March 31, 2023.
“Q2FY23 performance has been better than expectations. We have a healthy pipeline with a couple of mega engagements expected to close in the coming 3-4 months,” Kishor Patil, co-founder, CEO and MD of the Pune-based company said in a statement.
“We have thus raised our FY23 growth outlook to 31-32 percent. The organic growth outlook is 200+ bps higher than the higher end of the 18-21 percent outlook at the beginning of the year,” Patil said.
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Apple yesterday released a new iPad with its A14 chip, and an iPad Pro running on its M2 processor. Microsoft is laying off some staff, Wall Street Journal reports, and the company is planning a new data centre in India, according to Economic Times. Cloud startup funding in Europe, the US and Israel fell significantly in the September quarter, global VC firm Accel said in a report. And electric scooter maker Ather Energy has raised more money.
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Apple yesterday introduced a new iPad with an all-screen design featuring a 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display. The new iPad runs on Apple’s A14 Bionic chip, and the company promises all-day battery life.
Apple yesterday also launched its new iPad Pro which is equipped with its most powerful processor, the M2 chip. The new iPads are available to order now, with availability in stores beginning Wednesday, Oct. 26.
Microsoft laid off more employees this week, becoming the latest tech company to show signs of concern about future demand amid a global economic slowdown, Wall Street Journal reports.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is planning to build a hyper scale data centre near the western Indian city of Pune, Economic Times reports.
Facebook’s parent Meta admitted defeat on Tuesday after Britain’s competition regulators issued a final verdict ordering the company to sell Giphy, the animated image-making company it had acquired, CNBC reports.
More than 40 European rivals to Google's shopping service urged EU antitrust regulators this week to use newly adopted tech rules to ensure that the internet search giant complies with a 2017 EU order to allow more competition on its search page, Reuters reports exclusively.
Ather Energy, an electric scooter maker in Bangalore, has raised $50 million in a funding round led by its existing investor Caladium Investment, Economic Times reports, citing a company filing with the Registrar of Companies.
Cloud startup funding in Europe, the US and Israel fell significantly in the September quarter, global VC firm Accel said in a report on its website yesterday.
“If you look at the total capital raised by cloud companies in Europe, Israel and the US this year to date, there’s not been a drastic change with total funding reaching $74 billion, just 12 percent lower than last year,” Accel’s Philippe Botteri, Will Sheldon and Richard Kotite, said the report.
“However, if you zoom in on Q3, the numbers show a very different picture with a sharp 42 percent decline,” they write, in the post, titled Accel 2022 Euroscape: Reset.
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Reliance Jio Infocomm, the wireless business of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries and the country’s biggest mobile carrier, has chosen Nokia as a major 5G supplier, the Finnish telecom equipment maker said yesterday, Reuters reports. Biocon is looking to tap a $700 million market via a Japanese alliance for two of its biosimilar products. And Flipkart is launching a metaverse space called Flipverse in partnership with Polygon-incubated eDAO.
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Reliance Jio Infocomm, the wireless business of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, has chosen Nokia as a major 5G supplier, the Finnish telecom equipment maker said yesterday, Reuters reports.
Reliance Jio, India's biggest mobile carrier with more than 420 million customers, announced the launch of its 5G services on Oct. 4, starting with four cities.
Nokia will supply 5G radio access network equipment in a multi-year deal, according to Reuters.
Cognizant Technology Solutions has named two new executives to its leadership team, one from Infosys and the other who previously did much of his work at Accenture, according to an SEC filing from the US-based IT services company.
Ravi Kumar S, who until recently was president at Infosys, will join Cognizant on Jan. 16, 2023, as president, Cognizant Americas. Prasad Sankaran, a former Accenture executive, will start at Cognizant on Nov. 1, 2022, as the company’s new head of the software and platform engineering practice.
Biocon Biologics, a subsidiary of Bangalore-based biopharma company Biocon, has entered into an out-licensing agreement with Japanese pharmaceuticals company Yoshindo for commercializing two of its pipeline biosimilar assets, bUstekinumab and bDenosumab in the Japanese market, according to a company press release.
Flipkart, Walmart’s Indian e-commerce business, yesterday announced the launch of Flipverse—a metaverse space where consumers can discover products in a photorealistic virtual destination and shop on the Flipkart app.
Flipverse will offer an interactive shopping experience for consumers, giving them access to brands, supercoins—loyalty points—and digital collectibles.
Byju’s, India’s most valued startup which is under the scanner for its long delay in declaring its financials to the government, has $250 million from its existing investors, the ed-tech company said in a press release.
The loss-making company aims to achieve group-level profitability by March 2023, according to the press release.
Fitbit, which Google acquired in January 2021, is getting more closely integrated with the internet search giant, 9to5 Google reports.
A minor update to Fitbit for iPhone rolled out yesterday, but the bigger change is that the smartwatch and fitness tracker companion app is now published under Google’s App Store account, according to 9to5 Google.
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India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, yesterday, launched 75 Digital Banking Units (DBUs) in 75 different districts across the nation, as the government moves to bring banks to the doorsteps of citizens in far-flung areas. These units are brick-and-mortar outlets that will offer a variety of services to customers—all digitally. They will also inculcate digital financial literacy and awareness of cyber security in digital financial transactions. A self-service mode will be available round the clock at these outlets.
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India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, yesterday, launched 75 Digital Banking Units (DBUs) in 75 different districts across the nation, to boost financial inclusion in the country.
“We have given top priority to ensure that banking services reach the last mile,” he said. “We not only removed the physical distance but, most importantly, we removed the psychological distance,” Modi said, according to a government press release.
Prosus, a Dutch-listed technology investor, said on Friday it has agreed to sell its Russian online marketplace Avito for 151 billion roubles ($2.46 billion), to Kismet Capital Group, Reuters reports.
Horizon Worlds, Facebook parent Meta’s flagship metaverse for consumers, is failing to meet internal performance expectations, according to The Wall Street Journal, which has reviewed company documents including internal memos by employees.
Meta initially aimed to reach 500,000 monthly active users in Horizon Worlds by the end of the year, but the current figure is less than 200,000, according to the Journal.
Netflix will introduce its ad-supported plan called Basic with Ads in the US on Nov. 3, for about $7, and the plan isn’t available in India, Mint reports.
Workers at a second Apple store in the US have voted to unionise, The Verge reports. At the Penn Square store in Oklahoma City, 56 workers voted for and 32 against unionising with the Communications Workers of America.
In June, workers in Maryland voted to unionize in association with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
Avataar Venture Partners, which has backed unicorn software startups such as Amagi and Zenoti, has launched its second fund with a corpus of $350 million, three years after the firm launched its first fund, Economic Times reports.
Meanwhile, venture debt provider Alteria Capital, which has backed Mensa Brands and Dunzo, has launched its third fund with a first close of Rs. 1,000 crore ($125 million), largely from domestic investors and soft commitments from institutions.
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Infosys, yesterday, raised the lower end of its revenue projection band for the current fiscal year, but lowered the upper bound of its operating margins – capturing an industry-wide trend amid a potential recession in the Indian IT services companies’ biggest markets. Overall digital technologies related services continued to grow strongly, but the company also saw strong demand for its core IT outsourcing services, CEO Salil Parekh said yesterday.
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Infosys, yesterday, raised the lower end of its revenue projection band for the current fiscal year, but lowered the upper bound of its operating margins estimate – capturing an industry-wide trend amid a potential recession in the Indian IT services companies’ biggest markets.
India’s second biggest IT services company reported revenues rose 4 percent for the three months ended Sep. 30 from the previous quarter and 18.8 percent from a year earlier, in constant currency terms. The Bangalore company said it had won $2.7 billion in large contracts, the biggest haul in seven quarters. More than half of this was “net new,” according to Infosys.
Infosys defines a large deal as any order worth $50 million or more in value over the life of the contract.
“While concerns around the economic outlook persist, our demand pipeline is strong as clients remain confident in our ability to deliver the value they seek, both on the growth and efficiency of their businesses. This is reflected in our revised revenue guidance of 15-16 percent for FY23,” Infosys CEO Salil Parekh said in a statement.
In July, Infosys had forecast revenue growth in the range of 14-16 percent for the year that ends March 31, 2023.
Parekh, yesterday, also signalled the sustained shift to the cloud that started picking up during the Covid pandemic. During Q2, the company saw more than $1 billion in cloud services revenues, he said.
Overall, Q2 revenues rose 13.9 percent in reported terms to $4.6 billion from the year earlier period. Revenues attributed to digital services accounted for 61.8 percent of overall sales and those grew at 31 percent during the quarter in constant currency terms, Parekh said.
Q2 operating margins expanded by 150 basis points sequentially as the company saw strong demand for its core IT outsourcing business as well, and attrition – meaning staff churn – trended downward for the third quarter in a row, on an annualised basis. Margins were lower by 2.1 percent in comparison with Q2 of FY22.
Infosys continues to have the highest attrition rates among the top Indian IT companies. Q2 attrition was 27.1 percent versus 28.4 percent at the end of the previous quarter and 20.4 percent a year earlier. The company ended Q2 with 345,218 employees, reflecting a net addition of about 10,000 recruits.
And in the backdrop of the overall macroeconomic environment and operations seeing an increasing proportion of staff returning to the office, Infosys changed its margin projection for the fiscal year to 21-22 percent from its July estimate of 21-23 percent. CFO Nilanjan Roy expects the company to end the year with margins closer to the lower end of the range.
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HCL Technologies, yesterday, beat fiscal second-quarter revenue expectations and increased its guidance for the full fiscal year, signalling demand remains strong for its services in cloud, engineering, and digital technologies amid a global economic slowdown. At Wipro, Q2 revenues matched street expectations, but profits for the September quarter fell nearly 10 percent versus the same period a year ago.
Notes:
HCL Technologies, yesterday, beat revenue expectations and increased its guidance for the fiscal year, signalling demand remains strong for its services in cloud, engineering, and digital technologies amid a global economic slowdown.
The company’s shares were higher by more than 2 percent in early Mumbai trading. Shares at Wipro, however, fell as much as 5.4 percent after the company reported a 10 percent decline in profits.
HCL Tech’s revenue for its fiscal second quarter rose 3.8 percent in constant currency terms, versus the first quarter and 15.8 percent from the year-earlier period. Revenues rose 1.9 percent in reported terms to $3,082 million from $3,025 million, India’s third-biggest IT services company said in an investor release.
Analysts at Kotak Securities, for example, were expecting HCL Tech to report a 2.9 percent increase in revenues in constant currency, on a sequential basis.
“Our bookings and pipeline continue to be very strong,” chief executive C Vijayakumar said. The company added $2.4 billion in new contracts in Q2, a six percent increase over the previous quarter and 16 percent from a year earlier.
Revenues for the full fiscal year that ends March 31, 2023, are now expected to be in the range of 13.5 percent to 14.5 percent, HCL Tech said, surprising analysts who were expecting it to retain its July projection of a 12-14 percent increase over FY22.
At fourth-ranked Wipro, revenues were in line with analyst expectations, increasing 4.1 percent quarter on quarter to $2.8 billion for Q2 and 12.9 percent from a year earlier, in constant currency.
India’s top IT companies continue to be highly profitable, but margins are under pressure across the sector due to attrition rates that are twice as high as last year. HCL Tech reported operating margins of 18 percent for Q2, compared with 19 percent a year earlier, but higher than the previous quarter’s 17 percent.
Profits, for the Noida headquartered company, for the three months ended Sep. 30 rose to 7 percent to Rs. 34.89 billion from the year-earlier period. At Wipro, the Q2 operating margin was 15.1 percent versus 17.8 percent a year earlier. And profits fell nearly 10 percent to Rs. 26.5 billion rupees for Q2 from Rs. 29.3 billion a year earlier.
Attrition, or staff churn, remains high at both companies, at 23.8 percent at HCL Tech and 23 percent at Wipro, on a 12-months basis, reflecting the trend in the industry. Top-ranked TCS, on Monday, reported attrition of 21.5 percent. Infosys, India’s second-biggest IT company reports its earnings after markets today.
Apple and Samsung Electronics are among the companies that will upgrade software for their 5G-enabled smartphones in India by December, Reuters reports.
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The International Monetary Fund is downgrading its outlook for the world economy for 2023, citing multiple factors including Russia’s war against Ukraine, chronic inflation pressures, punishing interest rates and the lingering consequences of the Covid pandemic. Indian American entrepreneur-led Icertis, a contract LCM SaaS specialist, has tapped Infor’s Deanna Lanier as chief strategy officer. And early-stage investor Nisarg Shah is seeking tech-led startups at Kettleborough VC.
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The International Monetary Fund is downgrading its outlook for the world economy for 2023, citing multiple factors including Russia’s war against Ukraine, chronic inflation pressures, punishing interest rates and the lingering consequences of the Covid pandemic, Associated Press reports.
The 190-country lending agency on Tuesday pared its July estimate of 2.9 percent by 20 basis points to 2.7 percent. The IMF left unchanged its forecast for international growth this year — at 3.2 percent, almost at the half of last year’s 6 percent expansion, according to AP.
“The worst is yet to come,″ IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said. Three major economies — the United States, China and Europe — are stalling. Countries accounting for a third of global economic output will contract next year, and therefore 2023 “will feel like a recession″ to many around the world, he said, according to AP.
India’s IT services industry, one of the country’s biggest exports sectors, sees the US, Britain and Europe as its biggest markets and top executives such as Rajesh Gopinathan, CEO of Tata Consultancy Services are seeing clients engaging in scenario modelling more on the downside than on the upside, while demand currently remains strong.
TCS yesterday missed some analyst estimates for its fiscal second-quarter revenue growth on a sequential basis.
Icertis, a contract intelligence and management platform provider, has recruited Deanna Lanier as chief strategy officer, reporting to Chairman and CEO Samir Bodas.
Lanier will help Icertis expand into new geographies, customer types, and industry verticals, according to a press release.
Lanier joins Icertis from Infor, a leading provider of industry-specific cloud software, where she was most recently senior vice president of strategy, growth, and partnerships. Before Infor, Lanier held leadership roles at Adobe, McKinsey, Microsoft, and KMPG. She will be based at Icertis headquarters in Bellevue, Washington.
Kettleborough VC, an early-stage venture capital firm led by seed investor, Nisarg Shah, has launched its first fund at $5 million to invest in technology-centric startups specifically led by serial entrepreneurs and domain experts, according to a press release.
The firm was launched as a solo general partner fund by Shah in late 2021, according to the press release, but he has been active as an investor since 2018, according to his LinkedIn profile.
So far, Kettleborough has backed five companies via this fund including Zippmat with Matrix Partners India and Zephyr Peacock, Zocket with Kalaari Capital, and Bytelearn with Leo and Chiratae, and is closing two more transactions with Infoedge Ventures and Kae Capital in the coming month.
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Tata Consultancy Services reported quarterly earnings yesterday that show India’s biggest IT services company is still seeing strong demand for its services with an order book of more than $8 billion garnered during its fiscal second quarter. The rate of growth, however, seems to have moderated, with the more than 600,000-strong company growing at less than half the pace at which it grew last year from one quarter to the next. Shares were little changed in early Mumbai trading.
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Tata Consultancy Services reported quarterly earnings yesterday that show India’s biggest IT services company is still seeing strong demand for its services with an order book of more than $8 billion garnered during its fiscal second quarter.
The rate of growth, however, seems to have moderated, with the more than 600,000-strong company growing at less than half the pace at which it grew last year, from one quarter to the next.
Shares were little changed in early Mumbai trading.
TCS reported its fiscal second quarter revenues rose to $6.877 billion for the three months ended Sep. 30, which is a 1.43 percent increase over the April-June period, missing estimates at some top brokerages in Mumbai.
Analysts at ICICI Securities were expecting a 1.5 percent increase for TCS, while those at Kotak Securities had projected a 2.5-3.5 percent sequential increase for India’s top IT companies. In Q1, TCS had sequential growth of 1.25 percent, the lowest in at least six quarters.
In comparison, the Mumbai headquartered crown jewel of the Tata Group grew revenues at an average quarter-on-quarter rate of 2.8 percent in the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2022.
Demand for cloud services which had shot up last year, following the Covid pandemic, could now be growing at a slightly slower rate as businesses around the world are returning pre-Covid ways of work, including asking employees to get back to the office.
Clients are “preparing for a more challenging environment ahead,” TCS CEO and MD Rajesh Gopinathan said in a press release yesterday. Demand remains “very strong,” he said.
Revenues for Q2 rose 15.4 percent in constant currency from the same period a year earlier. Profits for the quarter were at $1.3 billion, which was the same as for the year-ago period. Operating margins narrowed by 160 basis points to 24 percent from Q2 of FY22.
During the quarter, TCS booked orders worth more than $8 billion, which is the same as the value of contracts won in Q2 last year. Some of the contracts it won came from customers such as Sainsbury’s, Catalent, PostNord, Bane Nor, Northern Powergrid, Prorail, Tap Air Portugal, and Boots.
The company added close to 10,000 recruits to end the September quarter with 616,171 employees. In comparison, the company added close to 20,000 recruits during the same quarter last year.
Attrition, or staff churn, was at 21.5 percent at the end of Q2 on a 12-months basis, compared with 11.9 percent a year earlier. “Attrition has peaked in Q2, and we should see it taper down from this point, while compensation expectations of experienced professionals moderate,” Milind Lakkad, TCS’s chief human resources officer, said in the press release.
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Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest IT services company, will be first off the block in reporting fiscal second-quarter earnings results when it reports its numbers after markets in Mumbai today. Analysts at brokerages in India expect growth to continue, and the high staff churn too in the sector. The rate of growth, however, definitely seems to be headed for a slowdown. Infosys, India’s second-biggest IT company, will report its earnings on Oct. 13.
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Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest IT services company, will be first off the block in reporting fiscal second-quarter earnings results when it reports its numbers after markets in Mumbai today.
While TCS offers no projections, the numbers and the top executives’ commentary should indicate the impact of the ongoing global economic slowdown. Analysts at brokerages in India expect growth to continue, and the high staff churn too. The rate of growth, however, definitely seems to be slowing down.
“The revenue growth of Indian IT companies is expected to continue in Q2,” Research Analysts Sameer Pardikar and Sujay Chavan write to clients in a note on Oct. 4.
Concerns about the slowdown – and a possible slackening of the demand that had jumped because of the Covid pandemic – have already sent the shares of the top Indian IT companies lower by more than 25 percent this year, as part of a global tech-led selloff.
The S&P BSE Information Technology Index – which includes companies such as TCS, Infosys and Wipro as well as smaller companies such as Mindtree and KPIT Technologies – is down 26.2 percent since the beginning of 2022.
“The demand environment is expected to be strong in the second half of the current calendar year due to continued deal momentum led by sectors like BFSI, insurance, and retail, but we need to be watchful on how macro, as well as geopolitical risks, play out,” in the second half of the current fiscal year that ends March 31, 2023, the analysts write.
They expect Bengaluru’s Infosys, the second largest Indian IT company, to report the most growth among the top five leaders, at a 3.5 percent quarter-on-quarter increase in revenues in dollar terms. The ICICI analysts expect TCS to report 1.5 percent sequential growth and 1.2 percent for HCL Technologies and 2.5 percent for Wipro.
The outsourcing business at Accenture, the world’s biggest professional services and consulting company, is often seen as a proxy by analysts for how demand is shaping up for companies like TCS and Infosys.
Accenture’s outsourcing business, which was 46 percent of its revenues in its fiscal fourth quarter that ended Aug. 31, rose 16 percent year on year in dollar terms, and 23 percent in local currency, according to the company’s press release on Sep. 22.
For its fiscal year 2023, Accenture expects revenue growth in the range of 8 percent to 11 percent in local currency. In comparison, revenues rose a record 26 percent in local currency and 22 percent in dollar terms for FY22. The company’s forecast factors in a negative 6 percent foreign exchange impact on its US dollar numbers in its current fiscal year.
Among India’s top IT companies, one data point of interest will be Infosys’s forecast for its full fiscal year. Most analysts are expecting the company to maintain the 14-16 percent projection the company made in July. Infosys will report its second-quarter results on Oct. 13.
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Apple is asking suppliers to move some AirPods and Beats headphone production to India for the first time, as it attempts to step up the diversification of its global supply chain that is currently almost entirely dependent on China, Nikkei reports. Wipro has asked staff to turn up for work at the office at least three times a week, Business Standard reports. NetSPI, with $410 million from KKR, plans to set up a base in India.
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Apple is asking suppliers to move some AirPods and Beats headphone production to India for the first time, as it attempts to step up the diversification of its global supply chain that is currently almost entirely dependent on China.
Apple’s top contract manufacturers are already expanding their production of iPhones, iPads, and MacBook series laptops in India and Vietnam.
Meanwhile, the European Parliament voted to confirm an earlier agreement to standardise the USB type C charging port for mobile phones, tablets and cameras by 2024 – a move that is likely to affect Apple the most, whose iPhones use the company’s proprietary lightning connector, The Guardian reports.
Wipro has asked employees to be in the office at least three days a week, joining larger rival TCS in getting staff to return to the office, Business Standard reports.
India’s top IT services companies are seeking to get staff to spend more time in the office as concerns mount over moonlighting, high staff churn, and the global economic slowdown.
In an e-mail to its employees, the Bangalore-based company said “Starting October 10, Wipro’s office will be open Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, & Fridays. We will not be open on Wednesdays,” according to Business Standard.
“We encourage you to work from the office on at least three of these four days,” the email reads.
Last month, TCS, India’s biggest IT services company, installed a mandatory rostering system to ensure that employees worked from the office at least three days a week, according to Business Standard.
As concerns about the trustworthiness and ethical use of AI rise with its growing capabilities, the US government, this week, released a Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, following the EU and joining a growing international movement to counter the impact of AI on human rights and values.
The blueprint outlines five principles that should guide the design, use and deployment of automated systems, VentureBeat reports.
NetSPI, a provider of enterprise penetration testing and attack surface management technologies, yesterday announced that private equity firm KKR is increasing its investment in the company with $410 million in new funding.
This investment will help NetSPI deepen and expand its products, and establish strong teams in Canada, EMEA, and India, the Minneapolis-based company said in a press release.
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Prosus, the Dutch-listed global consumer and technology investor, has terminated its agreement to buy India’s BillDesk, ending a deal worth $4.7 billion. Google yesterday announced a list of 20 startups with women founders or co-founders for the first batch of an accelerator programme in India, specifically aimed at encouraging women entrepreneurs. And Svante Pääbo, a Swedish geneticist is this year’s winner of the Nobel Prize for medicine.
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Prosus, the Dutch-listed global consumer and technology investor, has terminated its agreement to buy India’s BillDesk, ending a deal worth $4.7 billion.
Prosus, controlled by South African media and consumer internet company Naspers, had announced the deal in August last year, that an agreement had been reached between PayU Payments Private Limited, a subsidiary, and the shareholders of the Indian digital payments provider BillDesk.
Closing of the transaction was subject to the fulfilment of various conditions precedent, including approval by the Competition Commission of India. PayU secured CCI approval on Sep. 5, this year. However, “certain conditions precedent were not fulfilled by the Sep. 30 long stop date, and the agreement has terminated automatically,” Prosus said in a statement on its website.
Google yesterday announced a list of 20 startups with women founders or co-founders for the first batch of an accelerator programme in India, specifically aimed at encouraging women entrepreneurs.
The programme will place special emphasis on areas that “for a variety of social reasons and low representation, prove challenging for female founders,” Google said in a blog post yesterday.
Accenture has completed the acquisition of a training and consulting centre of excellence from Stellantis, the world’s fifth biggest automaker. The centre is called World Class Manufacturing Training & Consulting. It supports process optimization in manufacturing and the supply chain.
The deal was announced on Sep. 13 and financial terms are not public.
Svante Pääbo, a Swedish geneticist, has won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2022, the Nobel Foundation announced on its website yesterday.
The 67-year-old scientist was selected “for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution,” the foundation said in the announcement.
Pääbo’s work includes a discovery that proved modern humans share DNA with extinct relatives Neanderthals and a previously unknown hominin, which was named Denisova. The Swedish scientist provided key insights into our immune system and what makes us unique compared with our extinct cousins, the Nobel Prize committee said, India Today reports.
Pääbo is the son of Sune Bergstrom, who won the Nobel prize for medicine in 1982.
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Reliance Jio will launch a budget laptop, called JioBook, priced at Rs. 15,000 (about $184) with an embedded 4G sim card, Reuters reports. The Indian conglomerate has partnered with Qualcomm and Microsoft for this project. Tesla CEO Elon Musk showed off the latest version of the company’s humanoid robot, named Optimus, last week. And Tulsi Tanti, an Indian entrepreneur best known for his wind energy company Suzlon Energy, passed away on Saturday, Business Standard reports.
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Reliance Jio will launch a budget laptop priced at Rs. 15,000 ($184) with an embedded 4G sim card, Reuters reports, citing two sources aware of the plan. Reliance Jio already sells one of the most affordable Android smartphones in India, in collaboration with Google.
Reliance has partnered with mobile chip leader Qualcomm and Microsoft for the laptop, to be called JioBook, with the former powering its computing chips based on technology from the UK semiconductor company Arm, and Microsoft, whose Windows software runs on the biggest share of computers worldwide, providing support for some apps, according to Reuters.
Telegram has cut the monthly subscription fee for its premium tier by more than half in India, TechCrunch reports. The monthly subscription now costs Rs. 179 ($2.2), compared with Rs. 469 earlier. The app’s monthly subscription, called Telegram Premium, costs between $4.99 and $6 in other markets.
HFCL, a telecom equipment maker, has launched a 5G lab-as-a-service, offering an automated test environment to enterprise customers as well as academia and the government sector.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed a prototype of a humanoid robot, named Optimus that shares some AI software and sensors with the Autopilot driver assistance features found on the company’s popular electric cars, The Verge reports.
Musk predicted it could hit a price of "probably less than $20,000.”
Tulsi Tanti, an Indian entrepreneur best known for his wind energy company Suzlon Energy, died on Saturday evening in Pune due to cardiac arrest, Business Standard reports. He was 64.
Tanti, who studied commerce at Gujarat University, started as a textile trader. He diversified into renewable energy after rising electricity costs hit his main business. In 1995, Tanti started a wind power venture and later listed Suzlon, according to Business Standard.
“Tulsi Tanti was a pioneering business leader who contributed to India’s economic progress and strengthened our nation’s efforts to further sustainable development,” India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Twitter.
For his efforts to fight climate change, Tanti received several awards, including ‘Champion of the Earth’ by the United Nations, ‘Entrepreneur of the Year 2006’ by Ernst & Young, and ‘Hero of the Environment’ by TIME magazine, according to Business Standard.
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Apple is gearing up to make India and Vietnam global manufacturing hubs for its products, with India contributing 25 percent of all iPhones by 2025, according to analysts at JP Morgan, TechCrunch reports. Wipro terminated the services of 300 staff members who were found to be working for its competitors while still being on the company’s payroll, Economic Times reports. And KPIT Technologies takes a big stride in software-defined vehicles with a German acquisition.
Apple is gearing up to make India and Vietnam global manufacturing hubs for its products, according to analysts at JP Morgan, TechCrunch reports.
In a report to clients Wednesday, JP Morgan analysts estimate Apple will move 5 percent of global iPhone 14 production to India by late 2022 and expand its manufacturing capacity in the country to produce 25 percent of all iPhones by 2025.
Vietnam will contribute 20 percent of all iPad and Apple Watch production, 5 percent of MacBook and 65 percent of AirPods by 2025, the report said, which was reviewed by TechCrunch.
Wipro terminated the services of 300 staff members who were found to be working for its competitors while still being on the company’s payroll, Executive Chairman Rishad Premji said on Wednesday, Economic Times reports.
"It is very simple. It is an act of integrity violation. We terminated the services of those people,” Premji said, in reply to a question from ET on the side lines of the 49th All India Management Association’s convention in New Delhi.
India’s cabinet of ministers, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, yesterday unanimously approved modifications in the programme for development of semiconductors and display manufacturing ecosystem in India, paving the way for providing fiscal support of 50 percent of project costs for all technology nodes under the government’s scheme for setting up of semiconductor fabs in India.
Based on discussions with potential investors, it is expected that work on setting up of the first semiconductor facility will commence soon, according to the statement.
KPIT Technologies, a software integration partner for the automotive and mobility industry in Pune, has acquired Germany’s Technica Engineering that will add significant softwared-defined vehicle capabilities to the Mumbai-listed company.
Under the terms of the all-cash deal, KPIT will pay 80 million euros ($78.5 million) over the next six months and an additional maximum of 30 million euros over the following two and half years, the company said in a filing with the Bombay Stock Exchange.
Technica Engineering specializes in production-ready system prototyping, automotive ethernet products, and tools for validation.
The Munich-headquartered company has a presence in Spain, Tunisia, and the US, with a team of about 600 engineers. The deal is expected to be closed by the end of October.
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KKR, a global investment firm, and Hero Future Energies, the renewable energy arm of the Hero Group, yesterday announced the signing of definitive agreements under which KKR and the Hero Group will invest $450 million in the Company. OneWeb, the Bharti Enterprises-backed UK company building a LEO satellite constellation, yesterday announced the arrival of 36 satellites at an ISRO launch facility. And Nandan Nilekani says offline UPI can touch half a billion people
European customers of India’s IT services providers in multiple sectors are taking longer to finalise outsourcing contracts because of the energy crisis in the region and the global economic slowdown, Economic Times reports. Starlink now covers every continent, billionaire Elon Musk, who is building the LEO satellite constellation-based internet service, said in a tweet yesterday. And Ola has fired another 200 staff, ET reports
Adobe shares fell 17 percent yesterday, its biggest fall in 12 years, after it said it will buy design software rival Figma for $20 billion in cash and stock, CNBC reports. Investors are concerned that Adobe is paying too much, according to CNBC. DotPe, a payments service provider and commerce platform backed by Google, has raised about $54.5 million in a new funding round led by Temasek, Inc42 reports.
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Adobe shares fell 17 percent yesterday, its biggest fall in 12 years, after it said it will buy design software rival Figma for $20 billion in cash and stock, CNBC reports. Investors are concerned that Adobe is paying too much, according to CNBC.
Figma, founded in 2012, creates cloud-based design software that allows teams to collaborate in real-time, directly competing with Adobe’s XD program.
“Adobe’s greatness has been rooted in our ability to create new categories and deliver cutting-edge technologies through organic innovation and inorganic acquisitions,” said Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen. “The combination of Adobe and Figma is transformational and will accelerate our vision for collaborative creativity.”
A Microsoft Outlook bug sends users to 1930 if they try to look for dates beyond December 31, 2029, The Register reports, citing a cyber security expert who spotted the glitch first and wrote about it on LinkedIn.
The application won't let users navigate to a date after December 31, 2029, using the date field [Ctrl + G] and abbreviating the year. If they key in the 01/01/30, Outlook takes them back to 1930, according to The Register, which has replicated it on a desktop-bound Office 365 Outlook app linked to an online account, the tech site reports.
DotPe, a payments service provider and commerce platform backed by Google, has raised about $54.5 million in a new funding round led by Temasek, Inc42 reports. The round also saw participation from PayU, Japan’s MUFG Bank, Naya Global Investments, and Info Edge Ventures.
The Gurugram venture had previously raised $27.5 million in its Series A round, which was led by Google.
DotPe was founded in 2020 by Anurag Gupta, Gyanesh Sharma and Shailaz Nag. It provides omnichannel access to single-point stores, expanding its target audience from being hyper-local to pan-India. It has various partnerships for deliveries, and also with payment vendors such as Google Pay, Paytm, and PhonePe, to support higher-order volumes.
Ximkart, a cross-border raw material sourcing startup, has raised $2.4 million in seed funding led by Matrix Partners India, with participation from Multiply Ventures, Better Capital and Citius Ventures and various angel investors, the company said yesterday in a press release.
Ximkart was founded in 2022 by Sharan Urubail and Ankush Mittal. The entrepreneurs aim to make importing raw materials easy by providing better discovery, quality, transparency, and accountability and eliminating multiple middlemen in the supply chain.
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By fiscal year 2026, at least 12 percent of the free-on-board value of Apple’s global iPhone shipments could be made in India, Inc42 reports, citing a report by Business Standard that is behind a paywall. Byju’s, India’s most-valued startup, yesterday, reported losses of Rs. 4,589 crore for the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2021, which is close to a 20-fold increase over the Rs. 231.69 crore adjusted loss for the previous fiscal year, Moneycontrol reports. And SoftBank Group could be planning another Vision Fund, Wall Street Journal reports.
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Byju’s, India’s most-valued startup, yesterday, reported losses of Rs. 4,589 crore for the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2021, which is close to a 20-fold increase over the Rs. 231.69 crore losses for the previous fiscal year, Moneycontrol reports.
The company's revenue for FY21 fell 3 percent year on year to Rs. 2,428 crore on a consolidated basis, down from Rs. 2,511 crore the previous year, according to Moneycontrol.
By the fiscal year 2026, at least 12 percent of the free-on-board value of Apple’s global iPhone shipments could be made in India, Inc42 reports, citing a report by Business Standard on Sep. 12 that is behind a paywall.
Apple has been stepping up efforts to boost production in India to reduce its dependence on China, where currently almost all its iPhones are made.
According to numbers submitted to the government by Foxconn, Wistron and Pegatron, India might account for at least 12 percent of the free-on-board value of Apple iPhones manufactured by its vendors worldwide. Free-on-board value typically refers to the cost of the goods being shipped including transportation to specific destinations, insurance, loading and unloading and so on.
The total value of iPhones sold worldwide could reach $250 billion in FY26 and the total free-on-board of iPhones made in India would be around 12 percent of that, according to the Business Standard repot, as cited by Inc42.
SoftBank Group, one of the world’s biggest investors in tech startups, is considering the launch of a new giant fund even though its first and second Vision Funds have been hit with big losses owing to the global tech route, Wall Street Journal reports.
The Tokyo-based tech conglomerate, by far the world’s largest startup investor in recent years, would likely use its own cash for what would be the third SoftBank Vision Fund if it moves ahead with the plan, according to the Journal.
Sigmoid, a data engineering, analytics and AI solutions company in Silicon Valley, has closed $12 million in Series B funding, in a mix of primary and secondary investments from Sequoia Capital India.
Founded in 2013 by IIT alumni Lokesh Anand, Mayur Rustagi and Rahul Kumar Singh, Sigmoid has a team of about 500 data professionals, who offer deep expertise in data engineering, cloud data modernization, artificial intelligence, and DataOps, according to the release.
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India’s finance ministry has formed an expert panel, led by former SEBI boss M Damodaran, to suggest ways to increase the inflow of venture capital and private equity investments into the country. Apple plans to sell more ads. And data analytics cloud company Thoughtspot plans to invest $150 million in expanding its Indian operations over the next five years.
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India’s finance ministry has formed an expert panel to suggest ways to increase the inflow of venture capital and private equity investments into the country, Inc42 reports.
The six-member committee – first announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget speech in February -- will be headed by Meleveetil Damadoran, former chairman of India’s capital markets regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board, according to an order by the ministry dated September 9, Inc42 reports.
The expert committee will also suggest “forward-looking measures and future-ready regulatory practices” to the government, studying global best practices in the investment space, to boost investments into startups and sunrise sectors, according to Inc42.
Apple – which has been stepping up its own ad business in recent times – plans to release new ad placements as soon as the holiday season, according to a message sent to developers on Tuesday inviting them to an online session to encourage them to buy ads, CNBC reports.
The new spots represent a significant expansion in Apple’s advertising inventory, which is focused on its App Store. In recent years, Apple’s advertising inventory has been limited to one unit in the Search tab on the App Store and one on the search results page, according to CNBC.
Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan estimated in July that Apple could generate $5 billion of advertising revenue from Apple Search Ads alone in 2022, according to CNBC.
ThoughtSpot, an analytics cloud provider, plans to invest $150 million in its operations in India over the next five years, the US company said in a press release yesterday.
ThoughtSpot, founded by Indian American entrepreneurs Ajeet Singh and Amit Prakash, also opened a new office in Trivandrum, the company’s third R&D centre in India. The new investment will go towards continued product innovation to support customers to take greater advantage of data.
NeuroPixel.AI has raised $825,000 in a seed round led by Inflection Point Ventures, one of India’s largest angel investment platforms. Other investors in the round include Entrepreneur First, Huddle, Dexter Angels, and Rishaad Currimjee.
Flipkart, Walmart’s Indian ecommerce business, has invested about $300,000 in the venture’s pre-series-A round, Inc42 reported yesterday. Two weeks ago, Flipkart had said it had picked six startups – including NeuroPixel – among the first set of investments from its new $100 million venture arm.
NeuroPixel was founded in late 2020 by Arvind Nair and Amritendu Mukherjee, originating at Entrepreneur First. The vision for the company is to solve challenging problems at the intersection of AI and E-Commerce which promises to be an action-packed space over the next few years.
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Google is looking to move some Pixel phone production out of China and into India, The Information reports. The company is seeking bids from contract manufacturers for production in India. Apple has already stepped up its efforts to make more of its iPhones in India as geopolitical tensions between the US and China rise. Sachin Bansal’s Navi Technologies gets its IPO go-ahead. And Peer Robotics, a Delhi startup, raises $2.3 milllion
India’s finance ministry has decided that loan apps need to get government approval to be listed on online app stores, predominantly those operated by Google and Apple. The ministry’s officials and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman met last week to discuss rising concerns over loan apps running rampant and the illegal practices adopted by some of the outfits providing loans. Central banker Reserve Bank of India will now make a list of legal apps that are permitted on the stores.
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India’s finance ministry has decided that loan apps need to get government approval to be listed on online stores, predominantly those operated by Google and Apple. The ministry’s officials and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman met last week to discuss rising concerns over loan apps running rampant and the illegal practices adopted by some of the outfits providing loans.
Harassment by such outfits is said to have led to several suicides already, according to multiple media reports.
The finance minister expressed concern on increasing instances of illegal loan apps offering loans/micro credits, especially to vulnerable and low-income group people at exorbitantly high-interest rates and processing/hidden charges, and predatory recovery practices involving blackmailing, criminal intimidation etc, the ministry said in a statement on Sep. 9.
Minister Sitharaman also noted the possibility of money laundering, tax evasion, breach/privacy of data, and misuse of unregulated payment aggregators, shell companies, defunct NBFCs and so on for perpetrating such actions, according to the statement.
The ministry has decided that a ‘whitelist’ of legal apps will be created by the country’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, and will collaborate with the ministry of electronics and information technology to ensure that only such apps are allowed on the app stores.
Bessemer Venture Partners has raised $4.6 billion across two funds — $3.85 billion for its twelfth flagship fund, BVP XII, and $780 million for its inaugural BVP Forge fund, the VC firm said in a press release on Sep. 9.
These two new funds allow the firm to back entrepreneurs and management teams across all stages of growth, regardless of maturity or structure, according to the release.
Naffa Innovations, a Bengaluru startup better known for its sound technology and products under the brand name ToneTag, is expanding its VoiceSe solution to help even basic feature phone users make digital payments.
ToneTag is partnering with NSDL Payments Bank and NPCI to offer this service to some 400 million feature phone users in India. Users can simply call the IVR number 6366 200 200 and select their transaction in their preferred language.
People can make fund transfers, and get voice assistance for paying utility bills, balance enquiries, and FASTag activation or recharge using only their voice.
“We are looking at voice technology that goes beyond Siri and Alexa to enable digital payment solutions that aren't necessarily dependent on 100 percent digital literacy or smartphone penetration,” Vivek Singh, who co-founded Naffa Innovations with Kumar Abhishek, in 2013, said in a press release.
ToneTag has been pilot testing this service in Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, and Jharkhand, and VoiceSe has seen traction, adding 100,000 users and twice as many transactions in the first two months of the launch, according to the release.
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Apple yesterday announced the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max smartphones, featuring a pill-shaped cutout that shows useful information and can be used to bring up apps quickly. Apple calls the cutout, Dynamic Island. It can show important alerts, notifications, and activities. It maintains an active state to allow users easier access to controls with a simple tap-and-hold. Apple also released the iPhone 14 and 14 Max, which retain the older notch for the selfie camera.
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Apple yesterday announced the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max smartphones, featuring a pill-shaped cutout that shows useful information and can be used to bring up apps quickly.
Apple calls the cutout, Dynamic Island. It can show important alerts, notifications, and activities.
The new phones also have an always-on display. They run on Apple’s A16 Bionic chip and are equipped with a 48MP Main camera with a quad-pixel sensor, and Photonic Engine, an enhanced image pipeline that improves low-light photos, Apple said in a press release yesterday.
New features also include an emergency SOS via satellite and crash detection. The phones will be available with storage ranging from 128GB to 1TB and in colours of deep purple, silver, gold, and space black. Pre-orders begin tomorrow, with availability beginning September 16.
Samsung Electronics has started operations of its newest chip plant at its massive manufacturing complex in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi, in South Korea, to produce advanced memory chips and processors, Korea JongHang Daily reported yesterday.
One of the initial products from the Pyeongtaek Line 3 or P3 factory will be NAND flash chips. The range will later extend to include advanced dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips and other processors made using a 5-nanometer manufacturing process or lower, according to the chipmaker on Wednesday.
Foundation work for the next factory, P4, also began, according to the daily.
ZippMat, a construction supply chain startup, has raised $10 million in seed funding comprising equity and debt in a round led by Matrix Partners India, according to a press release today. Existing investor Zephyr Peacock joined the equity portion and loans came from HDFC bank and TradeCred.
ZippMat, founded in 2021 by Abhijeet Kudva and Nandeesh Hasbi, is a Bengaluru-based supply chain as a service venture that aims to simplify material procurement for engineering and construction companies by using its curated supplier and logistics network with technology-led services.
Daalchini, a Noida venture, has raised $4 million in funding to expand its smart vending machines business, TechCrunch reported yesterday.
Daalchini offers a range of food and beverage options from some 160 brands through its smart vending machines. Founded in 2017 by Prerna Kalra and Vidya Bhushan, Daalchini – the name means cinnamon in various Indian languages – runs a network of about 850 stores in 23 cities in 11 states in India. It plans to expand to 50 cities and 5,000 smart retail points in the next 12–18 months.
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India and China have cleared separate needle-free Covid vaccines, one a spray in the nose and the other inhaled through the mouth, Associated Press reported yesterday. Regulators in India have authorized Bharat Biotech’s nasal version as an option for people who haven’t yet been vaccinated. Apple’s September iPhone event is later today and its priciest smartphone yet is expected.
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India and China have cleared separate needle-free Covid vaccines, one a spray in the nose and the other inhaled through the mouth, Associated Press reported yesterday.
Regulators in India authorized Bharat Biotech’s nasal version on Tuesday as an option for people who haven’t yet been vaccinated.
“This step will further strengthen our collective fight against the pandemic,” India’s health minister Mansukh Mandaviya said on Twitter.
Bharat Biotech hasn’t yet released the results of its studies or details on when the vaccine will be available on the market, according to AP.
Meanwhile, in China, CanSino Biologics announced on Sunday last that Chinese regulators have approved an inhalable version of the company’s vaccine – to be used as a booster dose. The company pointed to preliminary results of studies suggesting the inhaled version improved immune protection after one puff, but it’s not clear if it also increases effectiveness, according to AP.
Apple’s annual September iPhone event – which the company has tagged with the phrase ‘far out’ – is expected later today. Four new iPhones, three new Apple Watches, and a new AirPods Pro model are expected, according to various media reports.
Apple is likely to raise the price of the high-end iPhone Pro that Apple trackers are expecting to arrive with a major camera upgrade and an ‘always on’ display.
The company’s latest software, iOS 16, is also expected soon. On the services front, Apple is jumping into the buy-now-pay-later market, with its Apple Pay Later product. Apple is also doubling its ad business team, according to the Financial Times.
China aims to accelerate the autonomous cars ecosystem in the country. The port city of Shanghai, one of China’s biggest industrial and commercial centres, estimates that autonomous cars and related technologies can produce 500 billion yuan ($72 billion) in economic value by 2025, South China Morning Post reported yesterday.
A new plan, released by the General Office of Shanghai Municipal People’s Government, on Monday, calls for establishing an ecosystem that is self-reliant concerning R&D and core technologies related to autonomous vehicles, according to SCMP.
Reliance Industries has entered into definitive agreements for acquiring a 79.4 percent stake of SenseHawk, through primary infusion and secondary purchase, for a total consideration of $32 million, the Indian conglomerate told the stock exchanges in Mumbai in a filing yesterday.
SenseHawk, founded in 2018, is an early-stage California-based developer of software-based management tools for the solar energy generation industry.
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Google has started a “user choice billing” pilot of alternative payment systems in its Play store, in some markets, including India, as pressure mounts on the search giant over the fees it takes for in-app sales by developers. India’s Competition Commission has approved PayU’s proposed acquisition of payments gateway BillDesk, paving the way for the Prosus-controlled fintech operator to become one of the country’s biggest payments processors.
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Instagram is being slapped with a fine of €405 million after European Union privacy regulators decided on a long-running complaint related to how the social media platform handles children’s data, TechCrunch reported on September 5, citing Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, the company’s lead data supervisor in the EU.
The penalty is for a breach of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Full details of the decision will be published next week, according to TechCrunch.
India’s antitrust watchdog has approved PayU’s proposed acquisition of payments gateway BillDesk, according to a tweet by the country’s Competition Commission on September 5.
The decision on the deal, the second largest internet M&A transaction in India, comes more than a year after the two companies announced their plan, TechCrunch reported on September 5.
The deal will help PayU, controlled by the Dutch-listed tech investor Prosus, get a clear lead in the payments processing segment in India, according to TechCrunch.
The Competition Commission of India evaluated the scope of the deal extensively, including consultations with competitors and other businesses in the industry that had expressed concerns about a potential monopoly in the country, according to TechCrunch.
CCI asked the two companies to submit a fresh application in April this year, addressing several concerns. In the newer filing, PayU assured the watchdog that the “proposed transaction will not cause any appreciable adverse effect on competition,” according to TechCrunch.
Google has started a “user choice billing” pilot of alternative payment systems in its Play store, in some markets, including India, The Register reported on September 5, citing a support document from Google.
The move comes in response to growing pressure on app store operators – mainly Google and Apple – to give developers independent options. Last year, the government of South Korea became the first to ban the commissions – which are as high as 30 percent – that Apple and Google charge on their app stores.
Google’s pilot will see the search giant offer developers the option to offer users payment systems other than its own. The trial covers digital content and services, such as in-app purchases and subscriptions.
According to Google’s support document, the programme will run in the European Economic Area countries, Australia, India, Indonesia, and Japan.
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For the first time, there are more iPhones in use in the US than Android-based smartphones. Apple has overtaken Android devices to account for more than half of smartphones used in the US. And Amazon is lagging rival Flipkart in India on several important metrics, according to investment firm Sanford C. Bernstein.
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For the first time, there are more iPhones in use in the US than Android-based smartphones. Apple has overtaken Android devices to account for more than half of smartphones used in the US, Financial Times reported on September 2, citing data on the installed user base of iPhones from market researcher Counterpoint.
The increased market share gives Apple an edge over Google as it pushes into sectors including finance and healthcare, according to the Times.
“Over the past four years the flow has consistently been Android to iOS,” Jeff Fieldhack, Counterpoint’s research director, told Financial Times. “This is a big milestone that we could see replicated in other affluent countries across the globe,” Fieldhack added.
Amazon is lagging rival Flipkart in India on several important metrics and struggling to make inroads in smaller Indian cities and towns, according to a report by investment firm Sanford C. Bernstein, TechCrunch reported on September 2.
Amazon’s 2021 gross merchandise value in the country, where it has invested over $6.5 billion, stood between $18 billion and $20 billion, compared with Flipkart’s $23 billion, the analysts said in a report on August 30 that was obtained by TechCrunch.
India’s ecommerce market is expected to double in size to more than $130 billion by 2025.
Amazon has more than 85 percent of its customers from Tier 2/3 cities/towns, shopping India’s largest selection across electronics, grocery, fashion and beauty, everyday essentials, and more, the e-commerce giant told TechCrunch in a statement. A large number of small businesses and local stores rely on it to go online, Amazon said.
Around 50 percent of Amazon’s one million sellers come from Tier 2/3 cities/towns, and more than 100,000 exporters sell to its customers worldwide. And the company is committed to digitising 10 million MSMEs, generating 2 million jobs and enabling $20 billion in cumulative exports by 2025, Amazon said, according to TechCrunch.
After calling off its Artemis I launch attempt on September 3 when engineers could not overcome a hydrogen leak, the US space agency NASA has decided to not try again, for now, it said in a blog post. This was the second time NASA scrubbed the launch.
The leak was detected in an interface between the liquid hydrogen fuel feed line and the Space Launch System rocket, developed by Boeing. Mission managers met and decided they will forego additional launch attempts in early September.
Artemis is Nasa’s attempt to return humans to Moon and then establish a sustainable presence there to prepare for missions to Mars.
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One 97 Communications, one of India’s biggest digital payments companies, which operates under the brand name Paytm, has appointed GS Sundararajan, former group director of Shriram group as an independent director on its board, the company told the stock exchanges on Aug.27. Byju’s, after 17-month delay is set to report FY21 financials on Sep. 6. And some details may have emerged about Apple’s long-rumoured mixed reality headset.
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One 97 Communications, one of India’s biggest digital payments companies, which operates under the brand name Paytm, has appointed GS Sundararajan, former group director of Shriram group as an independent director on its board, the company told the stock exchanges on Aug.27.
The company also announced the retirement of independent director Mark Schwartz, upon completion of his tenure. Previously, Schwartz had served as chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia Pacific.
Paytm is “confident that with continued revenue growth, an increasing mix of higher margin businesses such as loan distribution, and better operating leverage, it is firmly on track to achieve operating EBITDA profitability by the quarter ending September 2023,” the company said in its filing.
Byju’s, India’s biggest ed-tech company and its most valued startup, has informed its debt investors that it is likely to finalise its audited financial results for FY21, approved by auditor Deloitte, by September 6, Economic Times reports, citing people briefed on the matter.
India’s Ministry of Corporate Affairs has asked Byju’s parent Think & Learn to explain the 17-month delay in filing its audited accounts, Bloomberg reported on Aug. 25.
Byju’s investors include Sequoia Capital, Bond, Tiger Global, BlacRrock, Silver Lake, Naspers, and Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative. It is privately valued at $22 billion, according to the Bloomberg report, which cites market researcher CB Insights.
Flipkart will invest more than Rs. 3,600 crores in the next three years to set up three new giant automated fulfilment centres, Economic Times reports. This includes one in Manesar which is under construction and two new ones, which would come up in South and West Bengal respectively, Flipkart Group’s senior vice president and head of supply chain Hemant Badri, told ET.
Some details may have emerged about Apple’s rumoured virtual reality headsets, in trademark filings spotted by Bloomberg, The Verge reports, citing a Bloomberg report that is behind a paywall. The filings suggest Apple might incorporate “Reality” in the name and branding of its long-rumoured mixed reality headset.
Three separate filings show trademarks for “Reality One,” “Reality Pro,” and “Reality Processor,” matching the realityOS name that shows up in Apple’s code and a trademark application that potentially refers to the headset’s operating system, according to The Verge.
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Tinder-owner Match Group has filed an antitrust case against Apple with the competition regulator in India, accusing the iPhone maker of "monopolistic conduct" that forces developers to pay high commissions for in-app purchases. And OmniX Bio, an initiative from VC firm Omnivore to fund early-stage agri-science startups has picked its second venture in Loopworm.
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Tinder-owner Match Group has filed an antitrust case against Apple with the competition regulator in India, accusing the iPhone maker of "monopolistic conduct" that forces developers to pay high commissions for in-app purchases, Reuters reported yesterday, citing a legal filing it has seen.
Tinder’s complaint with India’s Competition Commission comes at a time when Apple is stepping up both its efforts to expand market share and local production of its iPhones and other products as it tries to reduce dependence on China.
Match argues Apple's conduct restricts innovation and development of app developers that offer digital services by enforcing the use of its proprietary in-app purchase system and "excessive" 30 percent commission, according to Reuters.
A similar dispute in the Netherlands resulted in a 50 million euro fine for Apple and an agreement to allow different payment methods in Dutch dating apps. South Korea has also banned the 30 percent commission charged by Apple and Google.
The Delhi government plans to introduce a time-of-day tariff system for charging electric vehicles (EVs) to incentivize users to charge their vehicles during off-peak hours, Mint reported yesterday.
Consultations are currently in an initial stage, and the system may be introduced in a year, Jasmine Shah, vice-chairperson of the Dialogue and Development Commission of Delhi, told Mint in an interview. The idea behind this move is that as the number of EVs increases, grid stability needs to be maintained.
Loopworm, an insect biotech startup in Bengaluru, has raised $3.4 million in seed funding from Omnivore and WaterBridge Ventures, with participation from Titan Capital and angel investors including Nadir Godrej, Sanjiv Rangrass, and Akshay Singhal.
Loopworm, founded in 2019 by IIT Roorkee graduates Ankit Alok Bagaria and Abhi Gawri, is optimizing insect farming for smallholders while producing value-added nutrients and ingredients for B2B customers, the company said in a press release. Loopworm is Omnivore’s second investment under its OmniX Bio initiative, which backs early-stage agri-food life science startups.
With Loopworm, Ankit and Abhi aim to tackle food waste and increase the incomes of smallholder farmers. Using multi-species insect biotechnology, Loopworm is upcycling food waste into protein-rich nutrients and value-added ingredients with applications in aquaculture, pet food, and nutraceuticals.
OmniX Bio’s first investment was in BioPrime, which is developing biological crop inputs that improve yields without causing unintended environmental consequences, Inc42 reported in December last year.
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Apple will make and release its latest smartphone, the iPhone 14, in India two months after it comes out in China, narrowing the gap between its main production facility and the small but growing one in India. Meta is rolling out its metaverse accounts and profiles. And Fidelity International has picked up a 5 percent stake in Zomato, the global investment firm told stock exchanges in Mumbai.
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Apple will make and release its latest smartphone, the iPhone 14, in India two months after it comes out in China, narrowing the gap between its main production facility and the small but growing one in India, Bloomberg reported on Aug. 23.
In the past, the India release would be at least a quarter later, but in recent times, Apple has incrementally stepped up its efforts to make all its phones in India as geopolitical tensions between the US and China remain, and supply chain hurdles rose after the Covid pandemic.
Analysts who track Apple closely, such as Ming-Chi Kuo, had predicted a simultaneous China-India release, but Apple, and its main iPhone contract manufacturer, Foxconn Technology Group, have concluded that that won’t be feasible this year, after a study, according to Bloomberg.
Still, an ambitious target could be to release the new iPhone—slated for a US release on Sep. 7, according to Bloomberg—in time for India’s countrywide festival of lights, Diwali, which falls on Oct. 24.
Facebook, now known as Meta, yesterday, began to roll out its metaverse accounts and profiles. Users of the company’s Oculus VR devices will now no longer be required to log in with a Facebook account, the company said in a post yesterday.
New users of Meta VR devices can create an account using an email address, Facebook, or Instagram account. When they first put on their headsets, they’ll get a code to pair with the Oculus mobile app. From there, they can continue with Facebook or Instagram or use the email address to create a Meta account.
Zomato shares rose yesterday, closing at Rs. 64.65 in Mumbai, after news that global investment firm Fidelity International had bought a stake in it.
Funds under the management of Fidelity’s FMR LLC and its direct and indirect subsidiaries and FIL Ltd and its direct and indirect subsidiaries acquired more than 40 crore shares or a 5.06 percent stake in Zomato on August 18 from the open market, the investment firm said in a filing with the Bombay Stock Exchange.
Genpact, a global professional services provider, and Climate Vault, a non-profit organisation founded at the University of Chicago, yesterday, announced they are combining Genpact’s technology and digital transformation expertise with Climate Vault’s quantifiable, integrated approach to carbon reduction and removal.
Climate Vault will embed Genpact’s digital technologies and process expertise to boost its carbon reduction and removal solution, according to a press release. Companies will gain wider access to carbon reduction from regulated carbon compliance markets with accurate, real-time pricing, with more access to independently verified carbon removal programmes, according to the release.
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Sequoia Capital, yesterday, named the next batch of its accelerator programme Surge, in India and Southeast Asia, picking entrepreneurs who are finding opportunities in tackling a range of problems from climate change and agritech to Web3. Many of the founders are women, and several have rich prior experience in their sectors – from finance to aerospace. Some have started straight out of college as well.
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Sequoia Capital, yesterday, named 37 entrepreneurs from 15 startups for the seventh batch of its accelerator programme Surge, in India and Southeast Asia.
These founders include those who are tackling climate change with the first AI-powered decarbonisation platform in the Asia Pacific; helping people with no design experience create 3D animation anywhere in the world; allowing startups to build machine learning projects in minutes and days versus months; facilitating one-click checkouts in SEA; building Indonesia’s first fintech company for teenagers; building a full-stack agritech venture, also in Indonesia; and helping developers tap Web3, the venture capital firm said in a post on its website.
A third of the startups in this batch have at least one woman among their founders. The startups are, Attentive, Beam, Boxs, BuyerAssist, ClearFeed, Gan, Hatica, Metaschool, Pixcap, Pratech Brands, Semaai, TrueFoundry, Unravel Carbon, Whiz and one venture in stealth mode.
US Senator Joe Manchin, an influential lawmaker in America, is pushing the country’s auto companies to kill their dependence on Chinese-made lithium-ion batteries, as the world moves towards electric vehicles, Bloomberg reported on Aug. 19.
Manchin, who was originally opposed to a $7500 tax credit on EVs, changed his mind to support it and gave a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum to the industry that finally pushed through an agreement on greater local sourcing of components, according to Bloomberg.
The agreement – seen as a win for US President Joe Biden’s climate agenda – allows US carmakers to continue offering $7,500 in tax credits for the purchase of new “clean cars” with some conditions, according to Bloomberg: the cars will need to be built with minerals that are extracted or processed in a country with which the US has a free trade agreement, and have a battery that includes a large percentage of components that were manufactured or assembled in North America.
India’s minister for science Jitendra Singh, yesterday, announced 75 grants to encourage collaboration between biotech startups, industry, academia and research institutions, according to a government press statement.
The grants, named ‘Amrit’ (nectar in Hindi) will be administered by the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council, part of the government’s Department of Biotechnology.
Each grant will offer Rs. 10-15 crore for inter-disciplinary, multi-institutional work to support high-risk, ambitious research ideas, and milestones-driven collaborative research in all domain-specific areas of the biotech sector, according to the statement.
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Shareholders of One97 Communications, which operates the fintech platform Paytm, voted almost unanimously for founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s reappointment as managing director and CEO for another five years, at the company’s annual general meeting last week. Nandan Nilekani’s VC firm Fundamentum has raised $227 million for its second fund. And some Tesla drivers tested the ‘self-driving’ feature on their own children.
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Shareholders of One97 Communications, which operates the fintech platform Paytm, voted almost unanimously for founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s reappointment as managing director and CEO for another five years, at the company’s annual general meeting last week.
In a filing with the stock exchanges in Mumbai, Paytm reported that 99.67 percent of the shareholders voted in favour of the resolution. The matter of his pay faced only a little bit more resistance, but 94.48 percent of the shareholders still voted in favour.
In the run-up to the AGM, which was held on Aug. 19, some proxy advisory firms opposed Sharma’s reappointment and his pay. Institutional Investor Advisory Services India, one such firm, estimated Sharma’s compensation at Rs. 796 crores for the current fiscal year, including stock options, according to a report in the Economic Times.
Sharma has promised to get the loss-making company to break even by the end of the current fiscal year, but many remain sceptical.
Nandan Nilekani and Sanjeev Aggarwal have raised $227 million for the second fund at their VC firm Fundamentum Partnership, TechCrunch reported on Aug. 19.
The fund plans to use the money to invest in four to five startups each year. Fundamentum, which typically backs startups in the Series B stage and beyond, will look to lead or co-lead $25 million to $40 million rounds, Aggarwal told TechCrunch in an interview.
Nilekani is the co-founder of IT services giant Infosys and one of the central figures behind several of India’s digital initiatives, including Aadhaar, UPI and ONDC. Aggarwal founded the BPO services provider Daksh which was acquired by IBM.
The duo launched Fundamentum in 2019 to back consumer and software-focused startups, according to TechCrunch.
YouTube has removed two videos from its platform which showed Tesla drivers conducting amateur vehicle safety tests using their own children in place of mannequins on the road or the driveway, CNBC reported on Aug. 19.
The tests were to determine if a slow-moving Tesla equipped with the company’s latest driver assistance systems would automatically avoid colliding with pedestrians — in this case, children — walking or standing still on the road, according to CNBC.
CNBC points out that none of the driver assistance systems offered by Tesla today makes the car fully autonomous and that Tesla makes this clear as well in its manual. Tesla is being investigated in the US for multiple accidents, including some which involved fatalities, where the driver-assistance systems were said to be in use.
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Apple released software updates for iPhones, iPads and Macs on Wednesday that fix two security vulnerabilities known by Apple to be actively exploited by attackers, TechCrunch reports. Google also released a security update, to the Stable channel of its Chrome browser. And Flipkart Ventures has picked six startups for the second batch of its 16-week accelerator programme.
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Apple released software updates for iPhones, iPads and Macs on Wednesday that fix two security vulnerabilities known by Apple to be actively exploited by attackers, TechCrunch reports.
The two vulnerabilities were found in WebKit, the browser engine that powers Safari and other apps, and the kernel, essentially the core of the operating system. The two flaws affect both iOS and iPadOS, and macOS Monterey.
Apple said the WebKit bug could be exploited if a vulnerable device accessed or processed “maliciously crafted web content [that] may lead to arbitrary code execution,” while the second bug allowed a malicious application “to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges,” which means full access to the device. The two flaws are believed to be related, according to TechCrunch.
Meanwhile, in more incremental news about Apple’s new iOS 16 iPhone software, expected in September, a new feature will be the ability to edit and unsend text messages.
That means you’ll be able to go back and correct a typo or delete a message if you sent it to the wrong person. And the person you’re texting will see the updated text, or that you’ve deleted a message — so long as they’re also running iOS 16, according to CNBC.
The feature is already available in public beta but otherwise, iPhone users will see it once the software is released to everyone next month. This feature will work on iPhones released in 2017 or later. Apple’s iPhone 14 is also expected next month.
Google also released a security update on Wednesday. The company announced an update to the Stable channel of its Chrome browser that includes a fix for an exploit that exists in the wild, as Ars Technica put it.
The exploit was reported by Ashley Shen and Christian Resell of the Google Threat Analysis Group.
Google says the update will "roll out over the coming days/weeks," but you can (and should) manually update Chrome now, Ars Technica recommends, by checking the "About" section of your settings.
Google’s Android 13 software is also rolling out this week.
Flipkart Ventures, a $100 million venture fund set up by Walmart company Flipkart, yesterday named six startups as part of its accelerator programme - Flipkart Leap Ahead.
The six startups will receive an equity investment of up to $500,000 from Flipkart and will undergo a mentorship program delivered through a customized curriculum, which has been designed by Bain & Company, Flipkart said in a press release.
At the end of the 16-week programme, the startups will present their ideas to potential investors and industry leaders on a Demo Day. The six startups are Dopplr, Livwell, LogisticsNow, NeuroPixel.AI, Rightbot Technologies, and Sellerapp.
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Facial recognition tech, as part of India’s Digi Yatra Central ecosystem, has been rolled out at the airports in Delhi and Bengaluru that will allow passenger identities to be verified in a matter of seconds. A corresponding mobile app is now available on Google’s Play store and an iOS version is expected soon. And India’s semiconductor chip component market is projected to touch $300 billion in cumulative sales in the five years through 2026.
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Facial recognition tech has been rolled out at the airports in Delhi and Bengaluru that will allow passenger identities to be verified in a matter of seconds.
This feature is part of the Digi Yatra Central Ecosystem being implemented in India by the Digi Yatra Foundation, a non-profit public-private organisation set up in 2019 by the Airports Authority of India and the companies that operate airports at Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Cochin.
The service will be available for domestic passengers at Delhi airport’s T3 terminal where AirAsia India, Air India, IndiGo, SpiceJet and Vistara operate, Inc42 reports. It has also been rolled out for domestic flyers at Bengaluru airport for AirAsia India and Vistara.
Based on the use of single token face biometrics, the system will use facial features to establish a traveller’s identity, which will then be linked to the boarding pass, according to Inc42. A passenger app—in beta version—has been rolled out on Google’s Play store, and an iOS version is expected soon.
India's semiconductor component market is likely to reach $300 billion in cumulative revenues from 2021 to 2026, as the Make-in-India and production-linked incentive schemes will boost local sourcing, Economic Times reports, citing the India Electronics and Semiconductor Association, an industry lobby.
Further policy reforms and the building of a semiconductor ecosystem will reduce reliance on imports, according to a report by the semiconductor lobby and Counterpoint Research, a tech market researcher and consultancy.
India’s end equipment market in 2021 stood at $119 billion by revenue and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 19 percent from 2021 to 2026. Currently, only 9 percent of India’s semiconductor requirement is met locally, according to the report.
A fund under the management of BlackRock Real Assets is set to acquire Akaysha Energy, an Australian firm that develops battery storage and renewable energy projects, CNBC reports.
In an announcement Tuesday, BlackRock, the world’s biggest investment company, with more than a trillion dollars under management, said it intended to commit more than 1 billion Australian dollars (around $700 million) to support the build-out of more than 1 gigawatt of battery storage assets.
BlackRock said Akaysha plans to develop energy storage projects in other Asia-Pacific markets as well, including Japan and Taiwan in the near term, according to CNBC.
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Inflation in Asia has peaked compared with other major economies such as the US and Europe, according to the chief Asia economist at Morgan Stanley. China’s tech giants, in an unprecedented move, have revealed details of their algorithms to the country’s government. And Bhavish Aggarwal aims to bring an Ola Electric car to market in 2024.
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Inflation in Asia has peaked compared with other major economies such as the US and Europe, according to the chief Asia economist at Morgan Stanley, CNBC reported yesterday.
“Absolutely, inflation has peaked if you look at the data that’s already indicative of that. More importantly, going forward, we think you should see downside risks to inflation,” Chetan Ahya, from the investment bank told CNBC’s Squawk Box Asia on Monday.
“Asia’s average inflation peaked at 5.5 percent and it’s already down” by about half a percentage point from there, Ahya told CNBC. The US peaked at 9 percent and Europe is also around 8.5 percent and 9 percent, he added.
Ola Electric’s founder Bhavish Aggarwal yesterday announced plans for the company to build its first electric car, scheduled for a 2024 launch. He also launched the Ola S1, a more affordable version of the company’s electric scooter, Ola S1 Pro.
Ola Electric will also expand its factories and mass-produce its lithium-ion cells.
The car will go from 0-100 kph in 4 seconds, with a range of more than 500 kilometres per charge, according to Aggarwal.
Ola will build three factories: a 40-acre two-wheeler facility, a 100-acre lithium-ion cell plant and a 200-acre four-wheeler factory, he said, in a live-streamed event.
China’s biggest tech giants have shared details of their proprietary algorithms – the software behind their massive consumer success – with the country’s regulators, in an unprecedented move, as Beijing looks for more oversight over its domestic internet sector, CNBC reported yesterday.
The Cyberspace Administration of China, one of the country’s most powerful regulators, released a list of 30 algorithms, with a brief description of their purpose, from companies including e-commerce behemoth Alibaba and internet giant Tencent, on Friday.
Zoom users on a Mac should immediately manually update the video conferencing software, Ars Technica recommends. Zoom’s latest update fixes an auto-update vulnerability that could have allowed malicious programs to use its elevated installing powers, granting escalated privileges and control of the system, according to Ars Technica.
The vulnerability was first discovered by Patrick Wardle, founder of the Objective-See Foundation, a non-profit Mac OS security group. Wardle detailed in a talk at Def Con – a well-known annual hacker conference – last week, how Zoom's installer asks for a user password when installing or uninstalling, but its auto-update function, enabled by default, didn’t need one.
Wardle found that Zoom's updater is owned by and runs as the root user, according to Ars Technica.
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Xiaomi showcased its humanoid robot prototype, called CyberOne, at an event yesterday, ahead of Tesla’s AI day. CyberOne is 5.8 feet tall, weighs 52kg, and is nicknamed “Metal Bro.” It has also been given a zodiac sign, Leo. In a video shared by Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun, on Twitter, one can see the robot walk up to him onstage, introduce itself, offer him a flower, and strike a kung fu pose.
Notes:
Xiaomi showcased its humanoid robot prototype, called CyberOne, at an event yesterday, ahead of Tesla’s AI day, Engadget reports.
CyberOne is 5.8 feet tall, weighs 52kg, and is nicknamed “Metal Bro.” It has also been given a zodiac sign, Leo, according to Engadget. In a video shared by Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun, one can see the robot walk up to him onstage, introduce itself, offer him a flower, and strike a kung fu pose.
Jun then proceeds to take a selfie with the robot before it walks off the stage saying it wants to check out more kung fu.
CyberOne, the second product from Xiaomi Robotics Lab, after the CyberDog from August 2021, has an OLED curved face, 3D vision, and two microphones. It can identify 45 types of emotions from a human voice, according to Engadget. Tesla’s AI Day is likely to be held on Sep. 30.
The 3rd edition of Climate Startup Week, organised by the Climate Collective Foundation, is planned for Sep 10 – 23, bringing together the fast-growing community of changemakers trying to fight climate change through innovation and entrepreneurship, the foundation said in a release.
Last year’s event drew about 900 participants. The upcoming edition includes more than 45 online and offline events, presented with more than 15 ecosystem partners, including global development agencies, corporate innovation networks, climate tech VCs and so on.
Climate Collective Foundation is an India-based non-profit organisation, focused on helping entrepreneurs addressing climate change and circular economy throughout the Global South. It was founded in 2016 by clean energy entrepreneurs Pratap Raju and Pramod Raju.
To register, keep track of Climate Collective’s website - https://climatecollective.typeform.com/to/yXQ7lO3u
Actis, a UK-based global investment firm in the areas of private equity, energy, infrastructure, and real estate, has signed an agreement to acquire a majority stake in Levanta Renewables, a Vietnam and Southeast Asia-focused renewables business, the company said in a press release.
Founded by Sudhir Nunes, who has significant experience in executing renewable power projects, Levanta has 300MW of onshore wind power projects in advanced development. With Vietnam as the anchor market, Actis will build on Levanta’s pipeline to expand the business into a 1.5GW renewable energy platform in Southeast Asia, according to the release.
The acquisition is Actis’s first energy infrastructure investment in Vietnam. It didn’t give financial details on the deal but added that the transaction will be funded via its $6 billion Energy 5 Fund.
The UK company also recently purchased the solar assets of Kolkata’s Atha Group, according to a report earlier this week by Mint.
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India’s fintech startups, yesterday, welcomed the comprehensive rules on digital lending released by the Reserve Bank. The rules provide clarity that only regulated entities can offer loans and stipulate that a consumer must be told upfront what the total cost of a digitally sourced loan will be. Explicit consent must also be sought to collect data, with the option to delete it.
Notes:
India’s fintech startups that had been in a bit of a quandary after the Reserve Bank of India’s diktat on prepaid instruments and loans earlier this year, yesterday, welcomed the comprehensive rules on digital lending released by the central banker.
Reserve Bank published the rules following the recommendations of a working committee on digital lending on its website, divided into those that have been accepted for immediate implementation and those that have been accepted “in principle, but require further examination.”
“The RBI has demonstrated consumer centricity … we welcome the regulation,” Gaurav Chopra, founder and CEO of IndiaLends, said in an email. “Most new customers today are borrowing for the first time and a growing share is coming through digital channels. That’s where we believe a framework ensures responsible players are rewarded for working in the interest of the consumer,” Chopra added.
India’s fintech revolution is widely seen as a success at the scale of a billion people. Starting with the Unified Payments Interface, India is adding financial infrastructure including the accounts aggregator platform, and, in the broader, online commerce market, the open network for digital commerce that has seen support from the world’s biggest tech companies, including Amazon and Microsoft.
The subcontinent is also seen as one of the most promising markets for financial products such as BNPL or ‘buy now pay later.’
Entrepreneurs like Chopra say that the RBI working committee’s recommendations are a step forward in addressing issues related to lack of transparency, data protection, and privacy, as well as user consent.
The clarity on rules will “only boost consumer confidence and trust in the credit system and will allow players like us to continue our business without any changes to the business model,” Chopra says.
Some of the highlights of the rules are as follows: All loan disbursals and repayments are required to be made only between the bank accounts of the borrower and the regulated entity (like a bank or an NBFC) without any pass-through/ pool account of the lending service provider (like a fintech startup) or any third party.
Any fees or charges payable to the lending services provider in the credit intermediation process must be paid directly by the regulated entity and not by the borrower.
A standardized Key Fact Statement (KFS) must be provided to the borrower before executing the loan contract.
An all-inclusive cost of digital loans in the form of an Annual Percentage Rate (APR) is required to be disclosed to the borrowers. APR shall also form part of KFS.
Data collected by digital lending apps should be need-based, should have clear audit trails and should be only done with the prior explicit consent of the borrower.
RBI note:
https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/BS_PressReleaseDisplay.aspx?prid=54187
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Working populations in the five largest economies in the Asia Pacific—India, China, South Korea, Australia, and Japan—are more at risk due to physical robot automation than in Europe and North America, according to a forecast by Forrester. India, which has a relatively young workforce, will add 160 million new workers over the next 20 years, reaching a working population of 1.1 billion by 2040, but 69 percent of India’s jobs are under threat from automation, according to the forecast.
Notes:
By 2040, 63 million jobs in India, China, South Korea, Australia, and Japan are expected to be lost to automation, with more than 247 million jobs expected to be in jeopardy, Forrester said in a press release.
According to Forrester’s Future of Jobs forecast (2020-2040)
APAC’s top 5 economies will create 28.5 million new jobs in renewable energy, green buildings, smart cities and smart infrastructure, and professional services by 2040.
However, 13.7 million jobs in the region will be lost to automation across wholesale, retail, transport, accommodation, and leisure sectors.
India, which has a relatively young workforce, will add 160 million new workers over the next 20 years, reaching a working population of 1.1 billion by 2040, but 69 percent of India’s jobs are under threat from automation, according to Forrester.
Qualcomm India is inviting applications via the Startup India portal for the inaugural edition of the Qualcomm Semiconductor Mentorship Programme 2022, the company said in a press release yesterday. The programme is being offered in collaboration with the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, which is part of India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
The last date for registration is Aug 21, after which Qualcomm will shortlist up to 10 startups.
Uravu Labs, which is developing a renewable-water-from-air device, has raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from Anicut Capital, Rocketship.vc, Speciale Invest and other investors.
The Bengaluru startup—founded in 2019 by Pardeep Garg, Swapnil Shrivastav, Venkatesh R, and Govinda Balaji—will use the money to scale up its 100 percent renewable water technology and commercialise it by next year, the company said in a press release.
ElectronEV, a US-based maker of commercial vehicles, plans to enter India, Southeast Asia, Australia and Europe, according to a company press release. ElectronEV’s product portfolio will consist of light, medium, and heavy-duty commercial vehicles like delivery vans, trucks, and buses.
Meanwhile, electric motorcycle maker Orxa Energies has closed an undisclosed amount in pre-series A funding from SAR Group’s electric mobility arm Lectrix E-Vehicles, Inc42 reports.
Founded by Sabnis and Ranjita Ravi in 2017, Orxa Energies is a high-performance EV and energy systems startup. According to the Inc42 report, the company plans to bring multiple performance EV products into the market and set up a new manufacturing unit on the outskirts of Bengaluru in the next three to four months.
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Cyberbullying among children in India is the highest and in multiple categories, double the rates reported by other countries, cybersecurity company McAfee said in a press release yesterday, as part of a global report, titled 'Cyberbullying in Plain Sight'. And racially motivated bullying online is on the rise worldwide, with India and the US topping the list, reporting the most such instances.
Notes:
Cyberbullying among children in India is the highest, and in multiple categories, double the rates reported by other countries, cybersecurity company McAfee said in a press release yesterday, as part of a global report, titled Cyberbullying in Plain Sight.
Indian children are also most likely to have bullied someone else, according to the survey’s findings, McAfee says in the report.
Leading all other nations, 85 percent of Indian children said they’ve been cyberbullied. And Indian children say that they’ve cyberbullied someone else at rates well over twice the international average.
Specifically, 45 percent said they cyberbullied a stranger, compared to 17 percent worldwide—and 48 percent said they cyberbullied someone they know, versus 21 percent of children in other countries.
Three out of four children in India admitted to at least
one activity that could be described as cyberbullying, compared to less than half of children elsewhere who admitted to such activities.
I was sent the report, press release and an India factsheet in an email, but I could not immediately find them on the company’s website, which currently has links to an earlier report, titled Global Connected Family Study that was released in May.
The survey showed that many children take part in cyberbullying, often without realizing their behaviour for what it is, while parents struggle to keep up, according to the release.
According to Indian parents, 42 percent of children have been the target of racist cyberbullying, compared with the 28 percent average for the rest of the world.
Extreme forms of cyberbullying reported besides racism include trolling (36 percent), personal attacks (29 percent), sexual harassment (30 percent), the threat of personal harm (28 percent) and doxing (23 percent), all of these India at almost double the global average. India also reported acts such as spreading false rumours at 39 percent, being excluded from groups and conversations at 35 percent and name calling at 34 percent.
The research was conducted between June 15 and July 5, 2022, by market research company MSI-ACI via email, inviting parents of children in the age group of 10 years to 18 years to complete an online questionnaire.
In total 11,687 parents and their children completed the survey from 10 countries including the US, UK, France, Germany, Australia, India, Canada, Japan, Brazil, and Mexico.
McAfee’s survey found that 28 percent of children worldwide have suffered racially motivated cyberbullying, according to their parents.
This threat presents itself most prominently in the US and India, with the reported rate of racially motivated cyberbullying at 34 percent in the US and 42 percent in India. UK (19 percent), France (17 percent), Japan (16 percent), and Mexico (14 percent) report rates well below the average.
Overall, Twenty-two percent of children as young as 10 years old report being the victim of racially motivated cyberbullying.
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India’s Competition (Amendment) Bill 2022 was introduced in the parliament on Aug 5 to give the competition regulator more power, including recruiting experts to help scrutinise tech mergers and acquisitions more closely. Intel achieved ‘net positive’ water status in India, meaning it returned more fresh water through recycling and conservation efforts than it consumed.
Notes:
India’s Competition (Amendment) Bill 2022 was introduced in parliament on Friday, to empower the competition regulator to scrutinise tech mergers and acquisitions more closely. The introduction was tracked by PRS Legislative Research.
One important aspect of the amendment is the expansion of the scope of the areas that the competitions authority will cover, giving it the power to recruit experts in the field of technology.
In recent years, the Competition Commission of India has taken up multiple investigations of big tech companies including Google, Apple and Amazon.
Intel achieved ‘net positive’ water status in India, meaning it returned more fresh water through recycling and conservation efforts, than it consumed, Economic Times reports, citing the semiconductor giant’s country head.
This makes India the third market where Intel has achieved this status, ahead of its 2030 deadline, according to ET.
Last week, Intel announced its first green bond to raise $1.25 billion for sustainability projects in six areas. These include green buildings, energy efficiency, circular economy and waste management, greenhouse gas emissions reductions, water stewardship, and renewable electricity.
Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, said on Friday it doesn’t own India-based platform WazirX, two and a half years after it said it had acquired WazirX, TechCrunch reports.
Changpeng Zhao, founder and chief executive of Binance, said in a series of tweets that the company has been “trying to conclude the deal for the past few years,” but hasn’t completed the transaction yet citing “a few issues” that he didn’t elaborate on, according to TechCrunch.
The clarification follows India’s Enforcement Directorate's freezing of WazirX’s assets worth over $8 million, citing suspected violation of foreign exchange rule. WazirX is the largest crypto exchange in India by volume, according to TechCrunch.
Amazon is acquiring iRobot, the maker of the Roomba vacuum cleaner, for $1.7 billion in an all-cash deal, the companies announced Friday, according to CNBC.
The deal will deepen Amazon’s presence in consumer robotics, where the ecommerce giant unveiled a home robot last year, called Astro. That robot, which costs about $1,450, is equipped with Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant and can follow people around their homes.
Amazon, Google, and Samsung are among the tech giants developing smart home technologies, while many startups are in the game as well.
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Y Combinator has cut the number of startups within its accelerator for the Summer 2022 batch by 40 percent, citing the global economic slowdown, TechCrunch reports. The cohort, currently on, has nearly 250 companies, while there were 414 companies in the previous batch, according to TechCrunch. AWS has launched new subscriptions to its cloud tech learning at attractive rates. And MIT researchers have built an artificial synapse that’s faster than those in the human brain.
Notes:
Y Combinator has cut the number of startups within its accelerator for the Summer 2022 batch by 40 percent, citing the global economic slowdown, TechCrunch reports. The cohort, currently on, has nearly 250 companies, while there were 414 companies in the previous batch, according to TechCrunch.
This latest move by YC illustrates that even early-stage companies are not immune to the effects of the downturn, and in May, the accelerator advised founders to “plan for the worst,” TechCrunch notes.
Amazon Web Services has launched Skill Builder Individual and Team subscriptions for as little as $29 in the US, a senior company executive announced in a blog post yesterday. “This is a new way for you to learn about cloud technologies and get practical experience with hands-on training,” Sebastien Stormacq, principal developer advocate at AWS, says in his post.
The foundations are available online for free, and the new subscriptions announced yesterday give users access to a range of exclusive content to advance their cloud skills and prepare for AWS Certification exams with self-paced, digital training. The subscriptions allow users to learn AWS services with hands-on activities, according to Stormacq.
Scientists and engineers in America’s Massachusetts Institute of Technology – or MIT as it’s known around the world – have developed a device that works like the synapses in the human brain, but a million times faster – which advances the field of analogue deep learning, the researchers said in a press release.
Programmable resistors are the key building blocks in analog deep learning, just like transistors are the core elements for digital processors, they said. By repeating arrays of programmable resistors in complex layers, researchers can create a network of analogue artificial neurons and synapses that execute computations just like a digital neural network. This network can then be trained to achieve complex AI tasks like image recognition and natural language processing, according to the release.
The MIT researchers set out to push the speed limits of a type of human-made analogue synapse that they had previously developed. They used a practical inorganic material in the fabrication process that enables their devices to run 1 million times faster than previous versions, which is also about 1 million times faster than the synapses in the human brain, they said in the release.
This inorganic material also makes the resistor extremely energy efficient. Unlike materials used in the earlier version of their device, the new material is compatible with silicon fabrication techniques, according to the engineers.
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Google is launching a new initiative called “Simplicity Sprint” to improve efficiency and focus as the global economic slowdown grinds on, after reporting back-to-back quarters of weaker-than-expected earnings. Linus Torvalds, the Finnish software developer who created Linux, yesterday, used an Apple MacBook running on an M1 chip to release the latest version of the open-source software.
Notes:
Google is launching an initiative called “Simplicity Sprint” to improve efficiency and focus within the company, as the global economic slowdown grinds on, after reporting back-to-back quarters of weaker-than-expected earnings, CNBC reported yesterday.
The internet giant, with 174,000 employees, had its regular all-hands last Wednesday, and CEO Sunder Pichai told staff that the company’s productivity isn’t where it needs to be even with the headcount it has, according to CNBC.
“There are real concerns that our productivity as a whole is not where it needs to be for the headcount we have,” he said, according to CNBC.
Sprint is a term often used by software teams and startups to talk about short pushes towards common goals, CNBC explains. Simplicity Sprint is an effort to crowdsource ideas from staff on how to do better overall as a company, according to CNBC, which has seen an internal Google survey being conducted as part of the exercise.
Based on some of the questions in the survey, there could be cutbacks in some areas, according to CNBC. While not looking at paring overall headcount, the company’s HR boss, who fielded a question on layoffs during the townhall, didn’t rule it out, according to CNBC.
Linux fans who also want the best hardware that lasts could be a step closer to using the open-source software on Apple silicon. Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, yesterday released the next version of the Linux kernel, called version 5.19, using an Apple MacBook laptop running on the M1 chip.
“On a personal note, the most interesting part here is that I did the release (and am writing this) on an arm64 laptop. It's something I've been waiting for for a _loong (sic)_ time, and it's finally a reality, thanks to the Asahi team,” Torvalds wrote in a post, announcing the new release.
Asahi Linux is a project among Linux developers to get the software running on Apple hardware.
“We've had arm64 hardware around running Linux for a long time, but none of it has really been usable as a development platform until now,” Torvalds wrote.
Indonesia has blocked search engine website Yahoo, payments company PayPal and several gaming websites for not complying with the country’s licensing rules, Reuters reported over the weekend, citing a government official. The ban sparked a backlash on social media, according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, India extended its ban of China-backed apps and games to include Battlegrounds Mobile India from Krafton, which counts China’s Tencent as a major investor, TechCrunch reports.
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Apple reported fiscal third-quarter earnings on Thursday that beat Wall Street expectations for sales and profit, but a slowdown in growth was clear. In India, the company doubled its revenue and said enterprises like Wipro were buying Apple products to attract and retain talent. And Paytm is on track to break even by September 2023, founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma told shareholders.
Notes:
Apple reported fiscal third-quarter earnings on Thursday that beat Wall Street expectations for sales and profit but a slowdown in growth was clear.
Apple’s revenue rose 2 percent to $83 billion during the quarter, compared with 36 percent for the same period last year and more than 8 percent in the March quarter. CEO Tim Cook said the results were better than expected while CFO Luca Maestri said it was a “challenging operating environment,” in a press release.
“In terms of an outlook in the aggregate, we expect revenue to accelerate in the September quarter despite seeing some pockets of softness,” Cook told CNBC.
Specific to operations in India, Cook said the company saw “a new doubling of revenue,” according to an email from the company, highlighting the comments specific to this market. CFO Maestri added that Apple was making inroads into the enterprise segment in markets including India, and provided the example of IT services company Wipro, which was buying MacBook Air laptops running on Apple’s M1 chips for recruits worldwide.
Meanwhile, Amazon executives told reporters at a conference yesterday that they were not seeing a slowdown. The ecommerce giant beat estimates on revenue for its fiscal second quarter, sending its shares higher by 13 percent, even though earnings missed expectations.
On the impact of inflation, Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky told reporters, “We have not seen anything yet,” CNBC reports. “We saw demand increase during the quarter, and we had a very strong June,” Olsavsky added, according to CNBC.
One97 Communications, one of India’s biggest payments companies that operates under the ubiquitous brand Paytm, is on track to breakeven by September 2023, founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma told shareholders in a letter, yesterday, published in the company’s first annual report after it went public last year.
“I believe that over the past year, our team has done a great job in massively improving our revenues and contribution profits,” Sharma said in the letter. This allows for investments in the company’s payments and credit businesses while at the same time reducing its EBITDA losses, he said.
For the fiscal year ended March 2022, One97 reported consolidated revenues of Rs. 5264 crores, an increase of 65 percent over the previous year. EBITDA level losses – excluding employee stock option plan expenses – came down to Rs. 1518 crore, from 1655 crore, according to the annual report.
“We are seeing excellent momentum in our businesses and are on track to achieve operating profitability (EBITDA before ESOP cost) by the quarter ending September 2023,” he said.
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CE Info Systems, better known as MapmyIndia, an advanced digital maps and location tech provider, yesterday announced the wider availability of its Mappls RealView, a made-in-India 360-degree panoramic street view and 3D metaverse maps service. This coincides with Google’s relaunch of Street View in India. Swiggy’s delivery agents are protesting pay-out cuts. And, in more Google news, the search giant will keep the cookies in Chrome, after all. At least until 2024, now.
Notes:
CE Info Systems, better known as MapmyIndia, an advanced digital maps and location tech provider, yesterday announced the wider release of its Mappls RealView, a made-in-India 360-degree panoramic street view and 3D metaverse maps service.
MapmyIndia’s announcement coincides with Google relaunching its Street View feature on Google Maps in India yesterday.
The service is available on the company’s free mapping portal, Mappls.com on the web for mobile and desktop and the Mappls App on Android and iOS, MapmyIndia said in a press release.
“Users can virtually explore India like never before and see and interact with full 360-degree panoramas of streets and roads looking out into various tourist, residential and commercial areas of cities and travel destinations as well as highways,” CEO Rohan Verma said in the release.
Users can also experience immersive 3D maps for pan India and detailed interactive 3D models of iconic tourist, commercial and residential landmarks across India. MapmyIndia has combined detailed house-address level 2D maps with ISRO’s rich catalogue of satellite imagery and Earth observation data, to provide an immersive 3D experience, according to the company.
Swiggy’s delivery agents have been striking in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi after the food delivery service provider cut their pay-outs, Economic Times reports. India’s food and groceries delivery businesses, including listed company Zomato, are operating at a loss, burning through venture capital funds.
Google, yesterday, said it will now hold off until 2024, in the latest update on its plans to replace third-party cookies for advertising, CNBC reports.
“The most consistent feedback we’ve received is the need for more time to evaluate and test the new Privacy Sandbox technologies before deprecating third-party cookies in Chrome,” Anthony Chavez, Google’s VP of privacy sandbox, wrote in a blog post. “As developers adopt these APIs, we now intend to begin phasing out third-party cookies in Chrome in the second half of 2024.”
Cookies are small pieces of code in websites, tracking people’s visits and clicks, and helping advertisers push targeted ads. Google had said last year it would end support for cookies in its Chrome browser by early 2022 once it figured out how to address the needs of users, publishers and advertisers and come up with tools to ease workarounds, according to CNBC.
Now Google won’t make the change for another two years.
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The auction for the 5G spectrum got underway yesterday in India and the government received bids worth $18 billion on the first day from conglomerates including the Reliance Group and Adani Group, TechCrunch reports. PhonePe, one of the largest fintech businesses in India, is seeking a massive valuation ahead of its separation from parent Flipkart, ET reports. And Google’s parent Alphabet missed earnings estimates yesterday and warned of uncertainty ahead.
Notes:
The auction for the 5G spectrum got underway yesterday in India and the government received bids worth $18 billion on the first day from conglomerates including the Reliance Group and Adani Group, TechCrunch reports.
Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told reporters on Tuesday evening that bids went “far beyond our expectations” and “it looks like [the bidding level] will be at the same level” on Wednesday, according to TechCrunch.
The high-speed networks are set to begin rolling out in September and “by the end of the year, residents of several Indian cities will be able to experience 5G,” the minister added.
PhonePe is seeking a valuation of more than $12 billion in new funding talks, Economic Times reports. That compares with its private valuation of $5.5 billion in 2020, when Walmart invested $700 million in the fintech company, according to ET.
The talks are at an early stage, while PhonePe moves forward with its ongoing separation from parent Flipkart that will allow it to eventually list on the Indian stock exchanges, according to ET.
PhonePe, founded by former Flipkart executives Sameer Nigam and Rahul Chari in 2015, was acquired by Flipkart the following year, which in turn was bought by the US retail giant Walmart. PhonePe is in the process of dissolving its Singapore holding company and moving to India, according to ET.
Google’s parent Alphabet, yesterday, reported weaker-than-expected earnings and revenue for the second quarter, CNBC reports.
Revenue growth slowed to 13 percent in the three months that ended June 30, from 62 percent a year earlier when the company was benefiting from the post-pandemic reopening and consumer spending was on the rise, according to CNBC.
Currency fluctuations from a strengthening dollar knocked 3.7 percentage points off revenue growth, CFO Ruth Porat told CNBC. Porat said the strength of the dollar will hit next quarter’s results even harder.
The CFO also characterized the current outlook as one of “uncertainty in the global economic environment.”
Advertising revenue increased 12 percent to $56.3 billion, as marketers cut spending. The most notable slowdown was in the YouTube division, where sales rose 5 percent compared with 84 percent in the same period a year ago, CNBC notes.
CEO Sundar Pichai said in a press release that growth was driven by search and Google Cloud. The enterprise cloud business, while still loss-making, rose 35.6 percent in the June quarter to become a $25 billion business on an annual basis.
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Zomato’s shares fell as much as 14 percent yesterday, after a post-IPO lock-in period ended for the loss-making food delivery service and tech platform company. Walmart issued an earnings warning, lowering its projections for the current quarter and the full year, signalling the deepening slowdown. Atlassian names Rajeev Rajan CTO. And the Kardashians don’t like where Instagram is headed.
Notes:
Zomato’s shares fell as much as 14 percent yesterday, after a post-IPO lock-in period ended for the loss-making food delivery service and tech platform company, Times of India reports. The stock ended the day 11 percent lower.
Zomato was listed on the stock exchanges in Mumbai with much fanfare a year ago, more than doubling from its listing price of Rs. 76 and then quickly plummeting to the 50s before the lock-in period ended yesterday.
Analysts told Times of India that the company has no clear path to profitability over the next few years and that recent bets on quick delivery are unlikely to pan out. Such ventures haven’t done well in other markets and make Zomato’s outlook “more speculative,” Richa Agarwal, senior research analyst at Equitymaster told Times of India.
Walmart, yesterday, issued an earnings warning, lowering its quarterly and full-year profit guidance, blaming inflation, and signalling a deepening slowdown. The announcement sent shares of Amazon down 4 percent as well, CNBC reports.
“The increasing levels of food and fuel inflation are affecting how customers spend, and while we’ve made good progress clearing hard-line categories, apparel in Walmart US is requiring more markdown dollars,” CEO Doug McMillon said in a news release.
Walmart now expects adjusted earnings per share for the second quarter and full year to be lower by 8-9 percent and 11-13 percent, respectively. Previously, it had forecast them to be flat to up slightly for the second quarter and to drop by 1 percent for the full year, according to CNBC.
Atlassian, a provider of team collaboration and productivity software, has appointed Rajeev Rajan as its new chief technology officer, the Nasdaq-listed Australian company said in a press release yesterday.
Rajeev, who’s previously worked at Meta and Microsoft, will lead all the engineering, IT and security teams at Atlassian worldwide.
In 2018, when Kylie Jenner criticised the redesign of Snapchat, its parent company Snap’s shares fell 7 percent. Now Jenner and her sister Kim Kardashian, influential social media celebrities, have taken issue with the direction Instagram is headed. Yesterday, they urged Instagram to stop mimicking rival TikTok, CNBC reports.
To their hundreds of millions of Instagram followers, Jenner and Kardashian posted a message that read, “Make Instagram Instagram Again.”
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has been pushing into short videos, a market that TikTok dominates in mobile. Meta shares, however, held their price, according to CNBC.
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Infosys reported its highest fiscal first-quarter revenue growth in more than 10 years, and its lowest Q1 operating margins of this century, so far, as the company joins rivals in prioritising growth amid another global economic slowdown. Revenue for the three months ended June 30 was $4.44 billion, a 21.4 percent increase over the year-earlier period, the highest since Q1 of FY12. Operating margins came in at 20 percent.
Notes:
Infosys reported its highest fiscal first-quarter revenue growth in more than 10 years, and its lowest Q1 operating margins of this century, so far, as the company joins rivals in prioritising growth amid another global economic slowdown.
Shares were down about 0.9 percent on the stock exchanges in Mumbai, at 10:10 a.m. local time. Revenue for the three months ended June 30 was $4.44 billion, a 21.4 percent increase over the year-earlier period, Bengaluru-based Infosys, India’s second-biggest IT services company, said in a press release. That is the highest first-quarter increase since Q1 of FY12.
The company’s Q1 performance was “strong overall,” CEO and MD Salil Parekh, who recently saw his tenure extended by another five years, said in the press release. “We continue to gain market share and see a significant pipeline driven by our Cobalt cloud capabilities and differentiated digital value proposition,” he added.
Cobalt refers to Infosys’s suite of cloud technologies and services. The company now attributes 61 percent of its revenues to digital-tech-based services, which grew 37.5 percent during Q1.
India’s biggest IT companies, which are now among the world’s biggest software services providers as well, are strategically giving up some profit margins to ensure that they win large contracts and market share, senior industry analysts say.
“Right now it’s a smart strategy to grow revenues to take market share and accept lower margins, for now,” Ray Wang, founder and principal analyst at Constellation Research told Forbes India in an email. “There is a labour market shortage and if you have the contracts, you have the work guaranteed to bring on new staff and train them so you can achieve a lower cost for delivery in the longer run,” Wang explains.
Infosys’s fiscal Q1 operating margin came in at 20 percent, as the company continues to grapple with high staff churn, while CEO Salil Parekh said it has begun to moderate over the last two quarters. The June quarter operating margin is the lowest Q1 figure up to at least FY 2000 for which data is immediately available in the investors' section of the company’s website.
Revenue growth, on a year-on-year basis, was in double digits across all business segments in constant currency terms, Infosys said in its press release. Net hiring was at 21,171 recruits for Q1. Infosys also increase its full-year revenue outlook to the range of 14-16 percent versus the previous 13-15 percent estimate from April.
The company has retained its margin projection of 21-23 percent, and CFO Nilanjan Roy expects to hit the lower end of the range.
Infosys press release
https://www.infosys.com/investors/reports-filings/quarterly-results/2022-2023/q1/documents/ifrs-usd-press-release.pdf
Wipro says its order pipeline is at an “all-time high” and expects to grow as much as 5 percent sequentially in the current quarter. Mojang Studios, the makers of the hugely popular online game and platform Minecraft, has banned any NFT implementation within the game, they said in a scathing post yesterday, criticising the culture of exclusion that NFTs promote. OnePlus fans in New York can buy tickets to attend an in-person launch of the OnePlus 10T 5G phone and get earbuds as goodies. Others can watch the live stream on August 3.
Notes:
Wipro expects to grow as much as 5 percent sequentially in the current quarter, the Bengaluru IT services company, India’s fourth biggest, said yesterday after markets. For its fiscal first quarter that ended June 30, Wipro’s revenues were $2.7 billion, a 2.1 percent increase from the previous quarter and 17.2 percent from the year-ago period, in constant currency, according to a press release.
The company expects revenue from its IT Services business – which contributes most of its revenues and profits – to be in the range of $2,817 million to $2,872 million. This translates to a sequential growth of 3 percent to 5 percent.
“Our order bookings grew 32 percent YoY in total contract value terms, powered by large transformational deals, and our pipeline today is at an all-time high,” Wipro’s Paris-based CEO Thierry Delaporte, said in the press release.
Mojang Studios, the makers of the hugely popular online game and platform Minecraft, has banned any NFT implementation within the game, they said in a scathing post, yesterday, criticising the culture of exclusion that NFTs promote.
“To ensure that Minecraft players have a safe and inclusive experience, blockchain technologies are not permitted to be integrated inside our client and server applications, nor may Minecraft in-game content such as worlds, skins, persona items, or other mods, be utilized by blockchain technology to create a scarce digital asset,” they said in the post.
"The speculative pricing and investment mentality around NFTs takes the focus away from playing the game and encourages profiteering, which we think is inconsistent with the long-term joy and success of our players."
OnePlus will launch its next hi-end phone, the OnePlus 10T at a physical event in the US on August 3, co-founder and CEO Pete Lau posted on the company’s community site. The phone is being promoted with the tagline ‘evolve beyond speed’ to highlight the idea that it will offer various smart features, taking advantage of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ chip the phone runs on.
The OnePlus 10T will launch at Gotham Hall in New York City, according to Lau’s post. “The return to an offline event also means the return of our launch event goodies. Those who purchase a ticket will get top-tier merchandise, topped with the critically acclaimed OnePlus Nord Buds,” he added.
Alongside the phone, OnePlus will also unveil the latest version of its Android-based software, OxygenOS 13. The software OxygenOS 13 will bring improvements to gaming, connectivity, and customisation, according to GSMArena. It will launch first on the OnePlus 10 Pro, and later in the year on the OnePlus 10T.
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Ather Energy, an electric scooter maker in Bengaluru, has released the next iteration of its popular 450X high-performance scooter. The Ather 450X-Gen3 has a bigger battery and more RAM. It will set you back by about Rs. 1,50,000. Shiprocket is expanding via Rs 200 crore stock-and-cash acquisition. And IIT Kanpur engineers have innovated a memory-muscle-based actuator that could improve India’s space robotics efforts.
Notes:
Ather Energy, an electric scooter maker in Bengaluru, has released the next iteration of its popular 450X high-performance scooter. The new scooter, called Ather 450X Generation 3, is equipped with a bigger, more powerful 3.7 kWh battery that is 25 percent larger than the previous generation, the company said in a press release.
The larger battery gives an ARAI-certified range of 146km and 105km based on Ather’s TrueRange measurements. The scooter also has an upgraded dashboard, and more memory, at 2GB RAM, for applications to run.
Showroom prices vary based on the city, from Rs. 1,37,612 in Ahmedabad to Rs. 1,57,402 in Hyderabad. The scooter is priced at Rs 1,55,657 in Bengaluru. The 450X-Gen3 is now in showrooms.
Engineers at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, have developed what they call a ‘bio-inspired artificial muscle’ for next-generation space robots and medical prostheses.
Encouraged by the industry demand and growth in the field of miniature, lightweight, non-magnetic gear-free actuators, shape memory alloy-based actuators have emerged with an excellent power-to-weight ratio as a suitable alternative to conventional actuators, the innovators, at the Smart Materials, Structures and Systems Lab, said in a press release.
However, existing SMA actuators have limited scope in terms of higher force or torque output due to the relatively simple architecture of the actuation mechanism. To address this limitation, the engineers found a way to increase muscle force output per unit weight by about 70 percent.
This will result in the creation of a new class of space robots which will help India’s space technology efforts, they say. The team is led by Professor Bishakh Bhattacharya at the institute’s department of mechanical engineering and includes Kanhaiya Lal Chaurasiya, senior project engineer, A Sri Harsha, and Yashaswi Sinha, project engineers.
Their effort was backed by Portescap CSR funding, according to the press release.
Shiprocket, which provides an online platform for SMEs and direct-to-consumer retailers to tap ecommerce channels, is acquiring Arvind Internet, better known for its brand Omuni, a similar business.
The Rs. 200 crore transaction will be a combination of stock and cash.
PharmEasy, an online pharmacy and medical services provider, is in talks to raise $200 million, but at a valuation that could be as much as 25 percent lower than last year's $5.1 billion, Reuters reports, citing two people with direct knowledge of the talks.
The company, which offers online medicine deliveries and diagnostic test services, is in talks for raising money at a 15 percent lower valuation but has told its bankers to consider even a 25 percent reduction, if needed, to close the deal, according to Reuters.
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Pratt & Whitney, an aerospace company that is part of the multinational defence conglomerate Raytheon Technologies, announced the establishment of a state-of-the-art India Engineering Center (IEC) in Bengaluru, which is planned to open in January 2023. Bharti Airtel tested a private 5G network at German automotive company Bosch’s centre in Bengaluru. And the RBI wants cryptos banned, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman reiterated in parliament yesterday.
Notes:
Reserve Bank of India, the country’s central bank, is of the view that cryptocurrencies should be banned, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told parliament yesterday in a statement, in reply to a question on virtual currencies.
Given the concerns expressed by RBI on the destabilising effect of cryptocurrencies on the monetary and fiscal stability of a country, RBI has recommended framing legislation on this sector. The central bank is of the view that cryptocurrencies should be prohibited, the minister said.
Cryptos are, by definition, borderless and require international collaboration to prevent regulatory arbitrage. Therefore, any legislation for regulation or banning can be effective only after significant international collaboration on evaluation of the risks and benefits and evolution of common taxonomy and standards, Sitharaman added.
Tata Consultancy Services is in the process of establishing eight large new offices – including some in non-metro cities -- each having the capacity to house more than 10,000 employees, Economic Times reports, citing CFO Samir Seksaria.
As part of the strategy, these new offices will be designed to facilitate easy collaboration, Seksaria told ET.
Pratt & Whitney, an aerospace company that is part of the multinational defence conglomerate Raytheon Technologies, yesterday, announced the establishment of a state-of-the-art India Engineering Center (IEC) in Bengaluru, which is planned to open in January 2023.
Pratt & Whitney’s aircraft engines are widely used in civilian and military aircraft. The company’s new India centre will focus on providing contract engineering services and is expected to employ 500 engineers and professionals when fully staffed, according to a press release.
The centre is “a first-of-its-kind investment for our company in India,” Geoff Hunt, senior VP of engineering, said in the press release.
America’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is opening one more special investigation into a Tesla vehicle crash, according to documents viewed by TechCrunch. This time it involves the crash of a 2021 Tesla Model Y that killed a motorcyclist in California earlier this month, TechCrunch reports.
Bharti Airtel, last week, announced the successful trial of India’s first 5G Private Network at Bosch Automotive Electronics India’s facility in Bengaluru. Airtel’s on-premises 5G Captive Private Network was built over the trial 5G spectrum allocated by India’s Department of Telecom, the wireless services provider said in a press release.
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India is working on a ‘Right to Repair’ framework aimed at serving the dual purpose of making it hassle-free for consumers to get their products repaired at a reasonable cost, and boosting the country’s circular economy, the central government said in a statement last week. IAMAI, one of the country’s biggest tech lobbies, is walking away from crypto. And Microsoft has emerged as Netflix’s exclusive partner to build its ad-supported service.
Notes:
India is working on a ‘Right to Repair’ framework aimed at making it hassle-free for consumers to get their products repaired at a reasonable cost, and boosting the country’s circular economy, the central government’s Department of Consumer Affairs said in a statement last week.
The aim of developing a framework on right to repair in India is to empower consumers and product buyers in the local market because manufacturers are promoting a culture of planned obsolescence, the department said. The framework will harmonize trade between the original equipment manufacturers and the third-party buyers and sellers, emphasize developing sustainable consumption of products and reduction of e-waste, the department said in the statement.
A committee that has been set up to put together the framework, has identified sectors including farming equipment, mobile phones and tablets, consumer durables and automobiles and automobile equipment.
Last month, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Lifestyle for Environment movement, which includes encouraging the reuse and recycling of various consumer products.
Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), an influential tech lobby backed by some of the biggest telecom and internet companies operating in the country, has decided to end its championing of the crypto industry.
The association said in a statement last week that it is dissolving the Blockchain and Crypto Assets Council (BACC), which it created four years ago. The decision was taken because a resolution of the regulatory environment for the crypto industry is still very uncertain in India, the association said in its statement.
Instead, IAMAI would like to utilise its resources for other emerging digital sectors, which make a more immediate and direct contribution to digital India, notably, deepening financial inclusion and promoting the Central Bank-issued Digital Currency, it said in the statement.
Microsoft has won the competition to become Netflix’s exclusive partner to build an ad-based service, beating out potential rivals such as Google and Comcast, Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
Netflix plans to launch an ad-supported service in at least 10 markets by the end of the year, including Canada and the UK, the Journal reports, citing people familiar with the plans. In an internal memo announcing the Microsoft partnership, Netflix senior leaders said they chose Microsoft because of its approach to data privacy, the technology platform it offered and its sales team, one of the people told the Journal.
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Infosys announced a definitive agreement to acquire BASE life science, a technology and consulting firm in the life sciences industry, in Europe, adding 200 multidisciplinary consultants. Agnikul Cosmos opened its first rocket factory in Chennai with the capacity to make two fully 3D-printed engines every week. And Truecaller gets into the audio social app space with Open Doors – think latest Clubhouse rival.
Notes:
Infosys, yesterday, said it is acquiring BASE life science, a technology and consulting firm in Europe. Bengaluru’s Infosys, India’s second-biggest IT services company, didn’t provide any details about the terms of the deal.
Headquartered in Denmark, BASE has about 200 multidisciplinary industry experts spread over Denmark, Switzerland, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and a nearshore technology hub in Spain. Together with Infosys, BASE will further expand its portfolio of expertise into Consumer Health, Animal Health, MedTech and Genomics segments.
Agnikul Cosmos, an Indian space startup, yesterday announced the opening of its first rocket factory to make 3D printed rocket engines. The factory can turn out two rocket engines a week, Agnikul said in a press release.
Chennai-based Agnikul was started in 2017 by entrepreneurs Srinath Ravichandran and Moin SPM and Satya Chakravarty, a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, where Agnikul was incubated, to make space rockets that can put satellites into low earth orbits.
Their first product, Agnibaan, is a customisable, 2-stage launch vehicle, capable of taking up to 100kg payload to orbits around 700km above the planet’s surface. The rocket will likely see its first space launch later this year or early next year.
The rocket engine is called Agnilet and is the world's first single-piece 3D printed engine fully designed and manufactured in India. It was successfully test-fired in early 2021.
Ola Electric, the electric vehicles business of ride-hailing service provider Ola, has invested $100 million in research and development, to make its own lithium-ion battery cells, Economic Times reports, citing reports from brokerages ICICI Securities and Edelweiss.
Ola Electric has put together a team of more than 200 people for this effort, according to ET. EV battery cells are currently fully imported in India, with no local capacity.
Ola Electric aims to develop its in-house capability by 2026, according to ET.
True Software Scandinavia, the maker of Truecaller, yesterday launched Open Doors, an audio-based social app similar to Clubhouse – where people can start conversations that others can join, from anywhere in the world, as long as you have an internet connection.
If you are already a Truecaller user, you can sign in with just one tap. If not, your phone number will be verified using a missed call or OTP. The app needs contacts and phone permissions, but participants in a conversation can’t see each other's phone numbers, the company said in a press release.
At launch, the app interface will be available in English, Hindi, Spanish, Latin and French, with more languages to be added later on user demand.
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Google’s parent Alphabet will slow the pace of hiring and investments through 2023, responding to the global economic slowdown, CEO Sundar Pichai said in an email to employees on Tuesday, CNBC reports. HCL Technologies reported its services business grew strongly in its fiscal first quarter, joining TCS in signalling customers continue to invest in the move to the cloud. And Lightspeed announced a half-a-billion-dollar fund close for India and south-east Asia.
Notes:
Google’s parent Alphabet will slow the pace of hiring and investments through 2023, CEO Sundar Pichai said in an email to employees on Tuesday, CNBC reports.
“Like all companies, we’re not immune to economic headwinds,” Pichai wrote in the memo, which was seen by CNBC. “We need to be more entrepreneurial working with greater urgency, sharper focus, and more hunger than we’ve shown on sunnier days,” Pichai wrote, according to CNBC.
Pichai said in the letter that the company hired 10,000 employees in the second quarter. And “because of the hiring progress achieved so far this year, we’ll be slowing the pace of hiring for the rest of the year, while still supporting our most important opportunities,” he wrote.
“For the balance of 2022 and 2023, the company will focus on hiring on engineering, technical and other critical roles,” Pichai wrote, according to CNBC.
HCL Technologies, yesterday, reported fiscal first-quarter revenues of $3.025 billion, a 15.6 percent increase year over year in constant currency, and 2.7 percent over the previous quarter.
Noida-based HCL Tech, India’s third-biggest IT services company, joins larger rival TCS in signalling customers are continuing to invest in moving more IT to the cloud, which is helping India’s biggest software services companies win larger orders. The company’s main services business, which contributes the bulk of its revenues and profits, rose strongly at 19 percent year over year.
“Our services business continues to have robust growth momentum … driven by our digital engineering and digital application services with cloud adoption being a horizontal theme across all services and verticals,” CEO C Vijayakumar said in a press release. The company’s new orders grew by 23.4 percent with a good mix of large and mid-sized deals and its pipeline remains near a record high, he added.
Lightspeed yesterday announced the closing of a $500 million early-stage fund, the LSIP Fund IV, for India and Southeast Asia as part of its global $7 billion fundraise bringing its total capital under management to about $18 billion.
Lightspeed has been investing in Indian startups since 2007, and in addition to the fourth fund, it invests in growth-stage companies from its Select and Opportunity funds.
Lightspeed’s investments in this region include Indian Energy Exchange, Oyo, Byju’s, Grab, Acko, Razorpay, Udaan, Sharechat and Innovaccer.
Wheelocity, a supply chain network provider for fresh produce, has raised $12 million in series A funding led by Lightspeed. The round, a mix of equity and venture debt, also saw participation from Anicut Capital and other investors, according to a press release.
Wheelocity was started in September 2021 by Selvam VMS, Senthil and Cdr. Amresh. Its customers include Swiggy’s Instamart, Ninjacart, Dunzo and Blinkit.
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MFine, a mobile health app and digital healthcare platform provider facing a money crunch in the slowdown, is merging with the diagnostics business of LifeCell International, a stem cell bank and reproductive genetic testing services company, to form a new entity called LifeWell. Vegrow, a fruits marketplace, has raised more money. And Apple slipped in Q2CY22 worldwide PC shipment rankings, IDC says.
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MFine, a mobile health app and digital healthcare platform provider that was facing a money crunch in the ongoing slowdown, is merging with the diagnostics business of LifeCell International, a stem cell bank and reproductive genetic testing services company, to form a new entity called LifeWell.
LifeWell has also secured $80 million in investment from OrbiMed, a healthcare investment firm with approximately $18 billion in assets under management.
MFine was founded in December 2017 by Ashutosh Lawania and Prasad Kompalli in Bengaluru. The company didn’t provide any details about the terms of the deal with LifeCell. However, MFine will continue to offer its app platform and consumer brand, delivering digital healthcare services and tools, according to its press release. Tele-consultations, care plans, diagnostic tests, IP concierge, e-pharmacy and corporate subscriptions will continue to be offered on the MFine app.
The money raised will also be used for strategic investments in MFine’s fast-growing corporate and insurance channels.
Vegrow, a B2B marketplace provider for fruits, has raised $25 million in series B funding, led by Prosus Ventures, the company said in a press release. Matrix Partners India, Elevation Capital, Lightspeed India and Ankur Capital also participated in the round.
Vegrow was founded in 2020 by Praneeth Kumar, Mrudhukar Batchu, Kiran Naik and Shobhit Jain. The company has built a network of local advisors to digitally engage with farmers in more than 400 production pockets – processing more than 200 tonnes of fruits daily.
The fresh funds will be used for expansion into more demand centres, going deep into supply micro pockets and building a strong talent pool in product, engineering, and other support function domains.
Aerem, a solar financing platform provider for MSMEs, has raised $2.5 million in pre-Series A funding led by Blume Ventures, the company said in a press release. The money will be used for growing the loan book, building out its tech platform and hiring teams including leadership in technology, product, finance, and operations.
Worldwide shipments of traditional PCs declined 15.3 percent year over year to 71.3 million units in the second quarter of the calendar year 2022, according to preliminary results from International Data Corporation’s Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker, the company said in a press release.
Despite the recent decline and weakening demand, the total PC volume is still comparable to the beginning of the pandemic when volumes reached 74.3 million in the second quarter of 2020. And the market is still well above pre-pandemic levels as volumes in the second quarter of 2018 and 2019 were 62.1 million and 65.1 million units, respectively.
While rankings among the top three companies did not change, Apple slipped into the fifth position, tying the company with Asus, as production dipped during the quarter, according to IDC.
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Rajesh Gopinathan, CEO and MD of Tata Consultancy Services, said on Friday the company continues to see strong deal prospects ahead, amid a global economic slowdown, as customers continue to invest in technology. Elon Musk wants to walk away from his proposed $44 billion Twitter deal. And Bengaluru biotech startup String Bio has raised more money, including from an Australian oil and gas company.
Notes:
Rajesh Gopinathan, CEO and MD of Tata Consultancy Services, said on Friday the company continues to see strong deal prospects ahead, amid a global economic slowdown, as customers continue to invest in technology.
TCS, India’s biggest IT services company, reported fiscal first-quarter revenue of $6.78 billion, a 10.2 percent increase from the same period last year, led by strong sales to customers in the retail sector and in America, the company’s biggest market. Revenue was higher by 15.5 percent in constant currency, TCS told the stock markets after Mumbai trading on Friday.
Profits for the three months ended June 30 were at Rs. 9,519 crore versus Rs 9,031 crore, a 5 percent increase.
“We are starting the new fiscal year on a strong note, with all-around growth and strong deal wins across all our segments. Pipeline velocity and deal closures continue to be strong, but we remain vigilant given the macro-level uncertainties,” Gopinathan said in a press release.
“Looking ahead, we remain confident in the resilience of technology spending and the secular tailwinds driving our growth,” Gopinathan added.
TCS ended the fiscal first quarter with 606,331 employees, reflecting a net addition of 14,136 during the quarter. Staff churn, or attrition, was at 19.7 percent on the last 12 months basis. During the quarter, the company gradually accelerated its return-to-office programme, with about 20 percent of the workforce now back in offices, according to the press release.
Elon Musk wants to end his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter, according to a letter sent by lawyers representing the world’s richest person to the social media company’s chief legal officer on Friday, CNBC reports.
“Twitter has not complied with its contractual obligations” with respect to providing the data and information necessary to “make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform,” Musk’s lawyers wrote in the letter that was also filed with the US capital markets regulator, Securities and Exchange Commission.
String Bio, a biotech company in Bengaluru that is developing useful proteins from greenhouse gases such as methane, has signed a strategic development agreement with Woodside Energy Technologies, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Woodside Energy Group, a large Australian oil and gas company, according to a press release.
Woodside is also investing an undisclosed amount in String Bio as part of the biotech venture’s series B equity fundraise. New and existing investors including Ankur Capital, Dare Ventures, Redstart, Zenfold Ventures and others have joined the first close of $20 million of the funding round.
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India’s information technology services sector will sustain double-digit revenue growth this fiscal, at 12-13 percent, driven by digitalisation, strong demand for new-age technologies, and depreciation in the rupee, rating agency Crisil said in a note yesterday. Rajeev Misra, head of SoftBank Group’s giant venture-investing arm, will step back from Vision Fund 2, And you can now search for spatial audio on Netflix.
Notes:
India’s information technology services sector will sustain double-digit revenue growth this fiscal, at 12-13 percent, driven by digitalisation, strong demand for new-age technologies, and depreciation in the rupee, rating agency Crisil said in a note yesterday.
This compares with the 19 percent growth last fiscal — the highest in the past eight years — given an expected tightening of IT expenditure by corporates amid the inflationary headwinds in America and Europe, which together contribute almost 85 percent to the sector’s revenue, Crisil notes.
However, revenue growth was supported by the shift in various industries globally towards automation, digitalisation and digital transformation services in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Also, the higher growth last fiscal had come on the back of a modest uptick of 6 percent in fiscal 2021, which was hit by the first wave of the pandemic.
Operating profitability will also remain healthy, but could fall back a tad to the pre-pandemic low of 22-23 percent, compared with 24 percent last fiscal, due to rising employee costs and as travel comes back. All said, any further surge in inflationary headwinds leading to deferral of discretionary IT spending by corporates will bear watching, Crisil says.
Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest IT company, will kick off the sector’s fiscal first-quarter earnings season after markets today.
Rajeev Misra, head of SoftBank Group’s giant venture-investing arm, will step back from his role to run a new outside investment outfit as the tech-investment giant struggles with the fallout of the tech stock crash this year, Wall Street Journal reports.
Misra, who joined Softbank in 2014, will stay on in a reduced capacity, overseeing the original Vision Fund investments, while stepping back from oversight of its successor, Vision Fund 2, according to a Thursday memo to staff signed by SoftBank’s founder, Masayoshi Son, the Journal reports.
Son will take an even more prominent role in directly managing the funds, according to the memo, the Journal reports.
Netflix is rolling out spatial audio to consumers around the world on its platform, in collaboration with Sennheiser, the video streaming company said in a press release yesterday. Spatial audio — which is an immersive surround sound experience — will roll out across Netflix’s catalogue, and users can find it by typing ‘spatial audio’ into the search bar to bring up shows that support the feature.
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Apple has introduced a ‘lockdown mode’ to help those small number of users who may be under threat of the most sophisticated mercenary cyberattacks, the company said in a press release yesterday. Amazon faces a new probe by UK regulators, even as it announces its Prime Day sales this month. And Axilor is raising $100 million for its second fund after backing more than 50 companies from its first fund.
Notes:
Apple has introduced a ‘lockdown mode’ to help those small number of users who may be under threat of the most sophisticated mercenary cyberattacks, the company said in a press release yesterday. Lockdown mode will harden Apple devices against attacks by significantly restricting several features and completely disabling certain others.
For example, most message attachments, except images and preview features, will be blocked. Certain complex web technologies such as just-in-time JavaScript compilation will be blocked unless the user excludes a trusted site from the lockdown mode. And a device can’t be enrolled in a mobile device management platform when lockdown mode is on.
These features will be available for iPhones, iPads and MacBooks starting with iOS 16 iPadOS 16 and macOS Ventura, in the fall in the US, which starts around September. Apple is also setting aside $2 million for any researchers who can detect flaws in lockdown mode.
Amazon is facing a new investigation by Britain's antitrust watchdog on concerns it was hurting competition by giving its own sellers an unfair advantage in its marketplace over third parties, adding to global regulatory scrutiny of the US tech giant, Reuters reports.
Britain's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it opened an investigation on Tuesday into whether Amazon's practices that affect sellers on its domestic marketplace may be anti-competitive and result in a worse deal for customers.
Meanwhile, July is usually the month for Amazon’s Prime Day sales and the ecommerce company yesterday announced July 23 and 24 as the dates in India.
Amazon India said in a press release it expects to see 30,000 new product launches from international and local companies including Samsung, Xiaomi, Intel and boAt. And 2,000 new product launches from more than 120 Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) like XECH, Cos-IQ, Himalayan Origins, SpaceinCart, Mirakii, Karagiri, and Nirvi Handicrafts in categories including electronics, fashion & grooming, jewellery and handmade products.
The ecommerce giant says it has 200 million Prime subscribers around the world, including India.
Axilor Ventures, an early-stage VC firm started eight years ago by Infosys co-founders Kris Gopalakrishnan and SD Shibulal, is launching its second technology fund, Axilor Technology Fund II, Economic Times reports. The firm expects to raise $100 million for this fund and is currently seeking approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India. It expects to close the fund by the end of September, according to ET.
The firm has invested 90 percent of its first fund of Rs. 200 crores in more than 50 startups, according to ET.
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Twitter on Tuesday asked an Indian court to overturn some government orders to remove content from the social media platform it offers, in a legal challenge that alleges abuse of power by officials, Reuters reports. The EU approved two landmark sets of rules that regulate big tech companies. And Indian entrepreneurs Darshan Bathija and Sanju Kurian’s crypto lender Vauld, which is in a financial bind, has been made a buyout offer by larger rival Nexo.
Notes:
Twitter on Tuesday asked an Indian court to overturn some government orders to remove content from the social media platform it offers, in a legal challenge that alleges abuse of power by officials, Reuters reports.
Twitter has been asked by Indian authorities over the past year to act on content including accounts that supported an independent Sikh state, posts alleged to have spread misinformation about protests by farmers, and tweets critical of the government's handling of the Covid pandemic, according to Reuters.
In a filing with the High Court in Karnataka, the top court in the southern Indian state, Twitter argued that some removal orders fell short of the procedural requirements of India's IT Act, according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, European lawmakers approved two sweeping new pieces of digital regulation, paving the way for clashes between regulators and some of the world’s biggest tech companies over how the rules should be applied, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The European Parliament on Tuesday voted to approve the two laws — one focused on anticompetitive behaviour, the Digital Markets Act, the other on content deemed illegal in Europe, the Digital Services Act — after reaching an agreement on them with European Union member states in March.
The Wall Street Journal also reported yesterday that Amazon, Microsoft and Google accounted for 65 percent of the $53 billion global cloud-service spending in the first quarter of 2022, citing data from Synergy Research Group.
This compares with 52 percent of global sales four years ago. And their control of the crucial, rapidly growing market is expected to continue as their size makes them better able to keep investing and attracting clients seeking stability in turbulent times, executives and analysts told the Wall Street Journal.
Vauld, the Singapore-based cryptocurrency lender that halted operations earlier this week, has been made a buyout offer from larger competitor Nexo, CNBC reports.
Nexo said Tuesday it had signed a term sheet with Vauld giving it 60 days of exclusive talks to explore an all-equity acquisition of the company. If successful, Nexo said it plans to restructure the company and pursue an expansion in Southeast Asia and India, according to CNBC.
Vauld, started in 2018 by Indian entrepreneurs Darshan Bathija and Sanju Kurian, said on Monday it had paused operations and that it was exploring restructuring options due to “financial challenges” posed by the latest crypto crash that started last month. The company is backed by the likes of Coinbase and Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel.
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Tata Consultancy Services, told the stock exchanges yesterday that a US court, which was hearing the latest appeal in a case in which EPIC Systems, a US company, has accused India’s biggest IT services company of stealing intellectual property, has passed an order reducing the jury award of punitive damages to $140 million.
TCS is legally advised that it has strong arguments in its favour before an Appeal Court and the Order on the punitive damages are not supported by the facts presented by TCS before the Trial Court, the company said. “We have been advised that the Order and the Judgement (when issued) is appealable to the US Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit Chicago,” TCS said in its statement.
TCS did not misuse or derive any benefit from EPIC’s documents, according to its statement. The lawsuit has been on for about seven years now.
Vauld, a crypto exchange and lender, has locked out customers, citing the economic downturn. The Singapore company, started by entrepreneur Darshan Bathija, is backed by investors including billionaire Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and a VC investor.
“We are facing financial challenges despite our best efforts,” the company said in a statement on its website. This is due to a combination of circumstances such as the volatile market conditions, the financial difficulties of key business partners affecting the company, and the current market climate which has led to a significant amount of customer withdrawals of nearly $200 million since June 12 — when the latest crypto crash started.
The company has hired lawyers and is in the process of filing an application to ask for a moratorium on any proceedings against it so it can explore options including a restructuring. “In the meantime, we have made the difficult decision to suspend all withdrawals, trading and deposits on the Vauld platform with immediate effect,” Vauld said in its statement.
Xiaomi’s latest flagship phone, Mi 12S Ultra, has a 1-inch camera sensor, The Verge reports. Xiaomi is said to have collaborated with Leica to develop the camera system, and with Sony on the sensor. The camera system has three cameras — a 48 megapixel ultra-wide lens, a 48 megapixel telephoto with 5x optical zoom (and 120x digital zoom), and a 50 megapixel main camera, which uses that 1-inch sensor, according to The Verge.
The smartphone itself has a 6.73-inch OLED display with 120Hz refresh rate, a top-of-the-line Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 system-on-chip, a 4,860 mAh battery, 67W wired fast charging, and IP68 water and dust resistance. The phone is also supposed to be the first Android device capable of shooting in Dolby Vision HDR.
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Google will delete location data of users who have visited personally sensitive places, including abortion clinics, the internet search giant said in a blogpost on Friday, a week after the US Supreme Court struck down a landmark 1973 judgement — now widely known as Roe V. Wade — that had ensured a woman’s right to an abortion in America. The reversal has polarised opinion world over.
“Some of the places people visit — including medical facilities like counselling centres, domestic violence shelters, abortion clinics, fertility centres, addiction treatment facilities, weight loss clinics, cosmetic surgery clinics, and others — can be particularly personal,” Jen Fitzpatrick, a Google senior vice president wrote in a blogpost on the company’s website.
“Today, we’re announcing that if our systems identify that someone has visited one of these places, we will delete these entries from Location History soon after they visit. This change will take effect in the coming weeks,” Fitzpatrick added.
Apple’s next wristwatch may be equipped with a sensor that can tell if the wearer has a fever, and this feature is a go for the upcoming model, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports. The feature will be part of both the standard Apple Watch, the next of which is the series 8, and also a rugged edition aimed at extreme sports athletes, Gurman writes.
It will, however, be absent in the next edition of the iPhone SE model that is also expected this year, he adds.
Private equity and venture capital investments in India during the quarter ended June 2022, were lower by more than 25 percent, at $11.3 billion, Venture Intelligence said in a blogpost yesterday.
The investments in Q2, across 315 deals, compared with $15.2 billion invested in 264 deals in the same period in 2021. The investments were also down almost 30 percent compared with the first three months of 2022 — which saw $16 billion invested in 390 deals — and marked three continuous quarters of decline, according to Venture Intelligence, a research service focused on private company financials, transactions, and valuations.
The latest quarter saw four new unicorns — Leadsquared, Purplle, PhysicsWallah and Open Financial Technologies — compared with 11 in Q1 of 2021 and 14 in Q1 of 2022. Overall, unicorn startups in India, attracted close to $8.5 billion in investments in the first half of 2022, down 16 percent versus the same period last year, which saw $10.1 billion being invested in unicorns, according to Venture Intelligence.
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Zendesk has agreed to be acquired by a group of buyout firms for $10.2 billion, bringing back a deal that will be one of the biggest private-equity takeovers of the year, Wall Street Journal reports. IT services employees are in no hurry to get back to the office, according to a survey by CIEL HR, Economic Times reports. And Intel has expanded its design and engineering capacity in Bengaluru by 2000 seats.
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Zendesk has agreed to be acquired by a group of buyout firms for $10.2 billion, bringing back a deal that will be one of the biggest private-equity takeovers of the year, Wall Street Journal reports.
The deal, with a group led by Hellman & Friedman and Permira, values the software company at $77.50 a share, Zendesk said Friday, according to the Journal. While that is a roughly 34 percent premium to the closing price on Thursday, it is down sharply from a roughly $17 billion bid from a similar group of buyout firms the company rejected in February.
Three in four employees working in IT services companies in India are not coming to office even once a week despite their organisations resuming work from office, according to a survey conducted by CIEL HR, Economic Times reports.
Many IT services companies are also going easy on their return-to-office policies as they fear coercion may trigger more resignations. CIEL surveyed 40 IT companies in India, including those among the top 10, employing a total of about 900,000 employees, according to ET.
Fintech startups in India have written to Reserve Bank, the country’s central bank, asking it to treat their prepaid payment instruments on par with bank accounts for customers who have undertaken certain verifications, TechCrunch reports. Reserve Bank last week signalled an industry-wide crackdown, saying that pre-paid instruments from non-bank companies couldn’t be used to sell loans.
Intel India last week announced the expansion of its design and engineering footprint with a new state-of-the-art facility in Bengaluru, adding 4.53 lakh sq. ft of space in two buildings which can accommodate 2,000 employees in total.
The expansion will help the semiconductor chip giant advance cutting-edge design and engineering work in client, data centre, IoT, graphics, artificial intelligence, and automotive segments, according to its press release.
Riot Games will begin background evaluation of recorded in-game voice communications on July 13 in North America, in English, PC Gamer reports. Riot said in a brief statement that the purpose of the recording is ultimately to "collect clear evidence that could verify any violations of behavioural policies,” according to PC Gamer.
For now, however, recordings will be used to first develop the evaluation system that may eventually be implemented.
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Apple’s iPhones and Android smartphones were hacked by an Italian company's spyware in Italy and Kazakhstan, Google said in a report on Thursday, according to Reuters. Flipkart has committed to decarbonising its operations by 2030 and that of its entire supply chain by 2040, the Walmart company said in a press release. And Fundamental VC, an early-stage Bengaluru investor, is raising $130 million for its first fund.
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Apple’s iPhones and Android smartphones were hacked by an Italian company's spyware in Italy and Kazakhstan, Google said in a report on Thursday, according to Reuters.
Milan-based RCS Lab, whose website claims European law enforcement agencies as clients, developed tools to spy on private messages and contacts of the targeted devices, the report said, according to Reuters.
Instagram is testing new options for young people on it to verify their age, starting with those in the US, the Meta company said in a blogpost yesterday. Instagram will require them to verify their age using one of three options: upload their ID, record a video selfie or ask mutual friends to verify their age.
Flipkart, the Indian ecommerce unit of Walmart, has committed to the target of decarbonising its operations by 2030 and what it calls its “larger value chain” by 2040, the company said in a press release, yesterday.
Recognising that the majority of the climate impact comes from Flipkart’s extended chain of suppliers, waste in operations, transportation and logistics, and product end-of-life, it will also work with its sellers, consumers and partners to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040, the company said.
Fundamental VC, a Bengaluru-based early-stage VC firm, started by former startup operators Saswat Sundar and Abhishek Rathi, has launched its first fund with a target corpus of $130 million. The firm will invest up to $1.5 million in each startup and aims to support 30 startups through the fund, over 2 years.
Cashify, a ‘re-commerce’ marketplace that facilitates gadget trade-ins and buybacks, has raised $90 million in Series E funding from NewQuest Capital Partners and Prosus, the company said in a press release.
WeRize, a financial services provider to small-town Indian customers, has raised $15.5 million from new investors, British International Investment, the UK’s development finance and impact investor — formerly known as CDC group — and Sony Innovation Fund, along with existing investors.
Neuron7.ai, a customer and field service software provider, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Battery Ventures and Nexus Venture Partners.
Vibrant Planet, a SaaS startup that is developing a Lidar and AI-based map of land and forests in California, to accelerate the restoration of forests, has raised $17 million in seed funding, TechCrunch reports.
The funding was led by Ecosystem Integrity Fund and The Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham Environmental Trust. The mapping software and related data and analytics are called Land Tender, which the company calls an “operating system for forest restoration,” according to TechCrunch.
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Accel, one of the top global venture capital firms, best known in India for backing Flipkart and Freshworks, has raised a $4 billion fund to invest in what it calls later-stage ventures. Britain has declared a ‘national incident’ after a rare discovery of a ‘vaccine-derived’ polio virus in sewage samples in London. And the cost of raw materials needed for EVs has doubled during the pandemic, according to AlixPartners, a consultancy.
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Accel, one of the top global venture capital firms, has raised a $4 billion fund to invest in what it calls later-stage ventures. The firm expects to provide “expansion capital” to promising companies within its portfolio worldwide, as well as companies that are new to the firm, it said in a blogpost yesterday.
“Our decades-long experience has also taught us the importance of patience and discipline — especially during periods of volatility and change like we are experiencing today,” the VC firm said in the blog post.
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, software giant Microsoft, Japan’s Sony, and IKEA are among some 37 global companies that have come together to form the Metaverse Standards Forum to develop common standards for the online world of avatars and 3D experiences.
Open to any organisation at no cost, the Forum will focus on pragmatic, action-based projects such as implementation prototyping, hackathons, plugfests, and open-source tooling to accelerate the testing and adoption of metaverse standards, while also developing consistent terminology and deployment guidelines, it said in the post.
Notably, Google and Apple aren’t participating yet.
British health authorities are urgently investigating a rare polio virus discovery in sewage samples in London, potentially putting Britain’s polio-free status at risk for the first time in almost two decades, CNBC reports.
Several waste samples from the Beckton sewage treatment work in Newham, east London tested positive for vaccine-derived polio virus between February and May, the UK Health Security Agency said in a statement. The agency has declared a national incident and informed the World Health Organisation of the situation.
Leap Finance, which gives student loans to those aspiring to higher education abroad, has raised $75 million in a round led by Owl Ventures, with participation from new investors Steadview Capital and Paramark Ventures, as well as existing investors Jungle Ventures and Sequoia Capital India, Economic Times.
Raw material costs for electric vehicles more than doubled during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new report by AlixPartners, a consultancy, CNBC reports. EV-specific costs have increased to $4,500 from roughly $2,000 in the past two years, according to the report.
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US President Joe Biden yesterday announced his intent to nominate Indian American engineer, Dr Arati Prabhakar, to serve as Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and once confirmed to this position, also as Assistant to the President for Science and Technology. Google ended a two-year fight against France, agreeing to a fine and stipulations over deals with news publishers.
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US President Joe Biden yesterday announced his intent to nominate Indian American engineer Dr Arati Prabhakar to serve as Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). And once confirmed to this position, also as Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, according to a statement by the White House.
In this capacity, Dr Prabhakar will be the President’s Chief Advisor for Science and Technology, a co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and a member of the President’s Cabinet.
Google agreed to negotiate license deals fairly with a broader array of news publishers in France, to end a dispute with French regulators and avoid further fines, Wall Street Journal reports.
The deal comes after the French regulator fined Google 500 million euros, equivalent to about $525 million, last year, for not negotiating deals with publishers in good faith. As part of the deal, Google has dropped its appeal against the fine.
DocuSign CEO Dan Springer is stepping down effective immediately, the company announced on Tuesday, CNBC reports. The decision comes after the e-signature software maker lost more than 60 percent of its value year to date, CNBC reports.
Springer became CEO in 2017 and took the company public in 2018.
Ericsson, a leading telecom equipment maker, said on Tuesday, it expects global 5G mobile subscriptions to surpass 1 billion in 2022, helped by higher adoption in China and North America, Reuters reports.
A weaker global economy and the uncertainties caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine lowered its estimate for 2022 by around 100 million, the Swedish company said in its biannual Mobility Report.
Stashfin, a Singapore-based fintech startup that offers credit cards to lower-income users in India, has raised $270 million in new funding round, to expand to Southeast Asia and other South Asian markets, TechCrunch reports.
The startup has raised $70 million against equity and $200 million as debt as part of its Series C funding round, Stashfin said.
Matrix Partners India, a US VC firm that has invested in several Indian startups, is looking to raise $450 million for its fourth India fund, according to an SEC filing. It is joining several other VC investors who have recently announced large India-focused funds.
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Tata Consultancy Services, which recently extended its contract to operate India’s passport services, expects to roll out chip-based e-passports by the end of the year, Economic Times reports. Volvo Trucks is testing hydrogen fuel cells that could offer ranges up to 1000 km, CNBC reports. And scientists have shown that machine learning can help detect autism in children by studying their speech.
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Tata Consultancy Services, which recently extended its contract to operate India’s passport services, expects to roll out chip-based e-passports by the end of the year, Economic Times reports. TCS is also setting up a command and control centre with the Ministry of External Affairs, and a data centre to support the backend requirements of the project, Tej Bhatla, the head of the company’s public sector business unit, told ET.
Platform.sh, a web hosting platform provider, has raised $140 million in series D funding, led by Digital Partners, with participation from Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital and others, TechCrunch reports.
This brings Platform.sh’s total funding to $187 million. Co-founder and CEO Fred Plais told TechCrunch the Paris-headquartered company will use the money for hiring and deepening automation capabilities.
Volvo Trucks has begun to test vehicles that use fuel cells powered by hydrogen, with their range extending to as much as 1000 km, CNBC reports, citing a statement from the Swedish company.
Volvo Trucks said refuelling the vehicles would take under 15 minutes. Customer pilots are set to begin in the next few years, with commercialisation planned within the next 10 years, according to CNBC.
Fuel cells for the vehicles will be provided by Cellcentric, a joint venture with Daimler Truck that was established in March 2021, according to CNBC.
The Nadathur S Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning, the innovation and entrepreneurship hub of the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, has launched a rural entrepreneurship incubation programme. The programme aims to focus on action for balanced, inclusive development and to bridge socio-economic gaps, creating sustainable livelihoods and employment opportunities in remote rural areas, the centre said in a press release.
A new study led by Northwestern University researchers used machine learning to identify speech patterns in children with autism, and showed that the patterns were consistent between English and Cantonese, suggesting that features of speech might be a useful tool for diagnosing the condition, Neuroscience News reports.
Undertaken with collaborators in Hong Kong, the study yielded insights that could help scientists distinguish between genetic and environmental factors shaping the communication abilities of people with autism, potentially helping them learn more about the origin of the condition and develop new therapies, according to Neuroscience News.
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Apple is facing another claim of nearly a billion dollars, that it knowingly throttled the performance of older iPhones, this time in Britain. Telegram, a messaging app rival to WhatsApp, said it now had 700 million monthly active users and launched a premium subscription plan. And Khumbu glacier, on which Mt. Everest’s base camp is located, is melting away at an alarming rate, BBC reports.
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Apple is facing another claim that it knowingly throttled the performance of older iPhones, this time in Britain. Justin Gutmann, a consumer rights champion in the UK, is taking Apple to court, seeking damages of around £768 million ($939 million) for up to 25 million iPhone users in the country, BBC reports.
Gutmann’s claim comes two years after a similar case was settled in the US. In 2020, Apple agreed to pay $113 million to settle allegations that it slowed down older iPhones. Thirty-three US states claimed that Apple had done this to push users into buying new devices.
Telegram now has 700 million monthly active users, the company said in a blog post yesterday. The messaging app rose to prominence on the promise of privacy and security, especially after changes were announced last year by Meta’s WhatsApp on how it will share user data.
Telegram also announced a premium subscription that offers doubled limits, 4 GB file uploads, faster downloads, exclusive stickers and reactions, improved chat management and other ‘resource heavy’ features, according to the blog post. All existing features will remain free.
Telegram didn’t provide details about the pricing of the subscription plan in the blog post, but the plan will likely cost about $5 a month, according to TechCrunch.
India’s open network for digital commerce, or ONDC, has partnered with the country’s National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, or Nabard, to extend the reach of the ecommerce enabling the network to the agriculture sector, Economic Times reports.
To begin with, ONDC and Nabard have announced a hackathon that has drawn 400 entries so far, including from several agri-tech startups, according to ET.
Khumbu glacier, home to the Everest base camp in the Himalayas, is fast melting due to global warming and human activity, BBC reports. The melting is creating crevasses overnight, including in areas where people at the camp could be sleeping, and causing hazardous rock falls.
The Nepalese government is now planning to shift the base camp to a different location at a lower altitude, according to the report. The current camp is at an altitude of 5,364 metres above sea level. The new one could be 200-400 metres lower, according to the report.
Climate change and human activity is causing the glacier to lose 9.5 million cubic metres of water a year, researchers at Leeds University told BBC. In addition to global warming, human activity at the camp itself, which can have as many as 1,500 people during the March-May climbing season, is exacerbating the problem.
These people generate 4,000 litres of urine a day and the fuel they use for cooking and staying warm also contributes to the melting, according to the report.
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Tata Consultancy Services rose 12 positions from last year to rank number 46 on Kantar BrandZ’s annual list of global brands. Rival Infosys debuted on the list, joining the top 100, ranking at number 64 on the widely followed ranking of the world’s biggest brands every year. Accenture improved its ranking by one spot to place at number 26. Microsoft, Zara and IBM, however, lead the list on a new sustainability index that Kantar has started this year.
Notes:
Tata Consultancy Services rose 12 positions from last year to rank number 46 on Kantar BrandZ’s annual list of global brands. Rival Infosys debuted on the list, joining the top 100, ranking at number 64 on the widely followed ranking of the world’s biggest brands every year. Accenture improved its ranking by one spot to place at number 26. Microsoft, Zara and IBM, however, lead the list on a new sustainability index that Kantar has started this year.
This year, the number of Indian brands in the Global Top 100 rose to four: Tata Consultancy Services, HDFC Bank, Infosys, and LIC. That’s more than the amount that Japan, Italy, and the UK placed — combined, Kantar said in its report. Formerly a challenger brand, TCS now isn’t far from Accenture by market value, the report notes.
TCS and Infosys also made it to the top 20 brands under the business solutions and technology providers category, while IBM and Accenture continue to rank higher on this list as well.
Microsoft, Zara and IBM lead the way in the new Kantar Sustainability BrandZ Index, which shows sustainability accounts for 3 percent of brand equity and is expected to rise. Consumer sustainability perception rose significantly in recent years, with Chinese consumers ranking second, next only to the Americas, according to Kantar.
Wipro, India’s fourth-biggest IT services company, and Eros Investments, a portfolio of media and entertainment businesses, have signed an alliance agreement to develop an artificial intelligence and machine learning-based content localisation solution. It will automate the time-consuming manual content localisation process of subtitling and dubbing with near human-level accuracy, delivering cost and time savings for global media organisations, post-production, and direct-to-consumer over-the-top streaming platforms, the companies said in a press release.
Ecozen has raised Rs. 54 crore of additional funding as part of its Rs. 200 crore Series C round. The new funding round was led by Dare Ventures, the venture capital arm of Coromandel International, with participation from existing investors Caspian and Hivos-Triodos Fonds.
Northern Arc, UC Inclusive Credit, Maanaveeya, and Samunnati also participated with debt funding. Early investors in Ecozen include IFA and Omnivore.
Ecozen makes motor controls, IoT devices, and energy storage devices for agriculture, irrigation and cold chains. Headquartered in Pune, Ecozen was founded on-campus by three IIT Kharagpur alumni, Devendra Gupta, Prateek Singhal and Vivek Pandey.
Fanbuff Technology India, better known as FanClash, a two-year-old Indian fantasy esports startup, has raised $40 million in series B funding from investors including Alpha Wave Global, Sequoia Capital India, Info Edge and Polygon, TechCrunch reports, citing the company’s founder and CEO Richa Singh.
FanClash previously raised $10.5 million, including a $10 million Series A round.
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SatoriXR, a tech startup in Chennai that offers 3D and augmented reality technologies for engineering design and manufacturing, has won Grameen Foundation India’s first Tech4Inclusion challenge. And entrepreneur Ronnie Screwvala’s UpGrad has doubled its private valuation in new funding round, ET reports.
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SatoriXR, a tech startup in Chennai that offers 3D and augmented reality technologies for engineering design and manufacturing, has won Grameen Foundation India’s first Tech4Inclusion challenge, the foundation said in a LinkedIn post yesterday.
With a grant from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Grameen conceptualised the Technology for Growth and Inclusion Challenge and announced it in August last year. Competitors were invited to work in the Augmented Reality and Machine Learning space to design a mobile application for educating rural customers and banking agents.
SatoriXR, founded by Mahesh Ramamurthy in 2018, built the prototype for a gamified AR learning application, to facilitate financial literacy and inclusion on its eponymous SatoriXR platform. The company will now be awarded the contract to build the full-scale application for Grameen, which will then be used by its banking correspondent partners.
SatoriXR was picked from among three finalists. The other two were Deeploop Technologies and MuCrest Technologies.
Clari, a Silicon Valley company that makes a revenue tracking software platform for businesses, has acquired India’s Wingman, a conversational AI provider for sales teams, the companies said in a press release yesterday. Clari didn’t reveal the terms of the deal, but the entire team of Wingman, including its three founders, is expected to join the US company, according to the press release.
The acquisition of Wingman gives Clari’s revenue collaboration and governance platform the ability to analyse customer and employee conversations, extract valuable AI-based insights, and reliably predict all revenue outcomes. Wingman goes beyond the limits of similar conversation intelligence tools by helping revenue-critical teams act in the moment when it matters, the companies said in the release.
Wingman, a Y Combinator portfolio company, was founded in 2018 by Shruti Kapoor, Muralidharan Venkatasubramanian and Srikar Yekollu. The company had raised $2.3 million in 2019 from investors including early-stage deep tech VC firm Speciale Invest.
UpGrad Education, founded by Ronnie Screwvala, has raised $225 million in funding from investors including billionaire James Murdoch’s Lupa Systems and US testing and assessment provider Educational Testing Service, Economic Times reports.
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Coinbase is laying off almost a fifth of its workforce amid a collapse in its stock and crypto prices, CNBC reports.
The cryptocurrency exchange will cut 18 percent of full-time jobs, according to an email sent to employees on Tuesday. Coinbase has roughly 5,000 full-time workers, translating to a head count reduction of around 1,100 people, according to CNBC.
Google, has suspended an AI engineer, Blake Lemoine, for claiming that an artificial intelligence he helped to develop had become sentient, The Washington Post reports.
“If I didn’t know exactly what it was, which is this computer program we built recently, I’d think it was a seven-year-old, eight-year-old kid,” Lemoine told the Post.
Lemoine himself released transcripts of conversations with the AI, called LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications), in which it appears to express fears of being switched off, talks about how it feels happy and sad and attempts to form bonds with humans by mentioning situations that it could never have actually experienced, The New Scientist reports.
Meanwhile, more than 400 AI researchers, including several from Google, have proposed an update to the famous Turing Test. British Mathematician Alan Turing first proposed a test for machine intelligence in 1950. Now researchers at Google and their partners have created a suite of 204 tests to replace it, covering subjects such as mathematics, linguistics and chess.
HDFC Bank yesterday announced the signing a memorandum of understanding with 100X.VC, an early-stage venture capital firm, to engage more deeply with startups in India.
With this MoU, 100X.VC will recommend HDFC Bank as the primary Bank to all its portfolio companies. HDFC Bank and the Mumbai VC firm will conduct joint programmes for startups such as Master Classes. The bank will also evaluate startups referred to it by 100X.VC for investment and extending loans.
Groyyo, a Mumbai startup in the B2B Manufacturing and Supply Chain Enablement space, has raised $40 million in a combination of equity and debt in its Series A round, the company said in a press release. The round of funding was led by Tiger Global with participation from early investors Alpha Wave Global.
Terra.do, a Silicon Valley startup that offers an immersive programme to equip anyone interested in climate action with the tools to pursue that interest, has launched a mobile app. People can use the app to find jobs, or recruits, in the climate economy, network with like-minded professionals through multiple communities and learn more.
The app is available on both iOS and Android.
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Infosys is setting up four more delivery centres in India’s tier-2 cities to allow staff to work closer to their hometowns, and tap a wider talent base, Economic Times reports, citing Krishnamurthy Shankar, the IT services company’s head of human resources. Sequoia raises its largest India fund yet. And Spotify adds a voice AI team and tech via an acquisition.
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Infosys is setting up four more delivery centres in India’s tier-2 cities to allow staff to work closer to their hometowns, and tap a wider talent base, Economic Times reports, citing Krishnamurthy Shankar, the IT services company’s head of human resources.
These centres will be 1000-seaters and will be ready by the end of the next fiscal quarter, Shankar told ET. The company, which has nearly 40 percent of its staff as women, is particularly focusing on getting women to come back, Shankar told ET, after many left during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Sequoia India and Sequoia Southeast Asia have collectively raised $2.85 billion across a set of funds, including India venture and growth funds and an $850 million Southeast Asian fund — Sequoia’s first dedicated fund for the region, the venture capital firm said in a blog post.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Sequoia as a global firm, 16 years in India, and 10 in Southeast Asia.
The region’s startup ecosystem has grown rapidly in the last decade, thanks to the acceleration of digital adoption and rising consumer incomes. Last year, India emerged as the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world, after the US and China. Southeast Asia, meanwhile, is on track to becoming a $1 trillion digital economy by 2030, the VC firm notes in its blog post.
Spotify is acquiring Sonantic, the UK-based voice AI company behind the tech that simulated actor Val Kilmer’s voice in the Hollywood blockbuster Top Gun Maverick, TechCrunch reports.
“We’re really excited about the potential to bring Sonantic’s AI voice technology onto the Spotify platform and create new experiences for our users,” Ziad Sultan, Spotify’s Vice President of Personalisation, said in a blogpost. “This integration will enable us to engage users in a new and even more personalised way,” Ziad added.
At Spotify, we’ve identified several potential opportunities for text-to-speech capabilities across our platform, and we believe that over the long term, high-quality voice will be important to growing our share of listening. For example, this voice technology could allow us to give context to users about upcoming recommendations when they aren’t looking at their screens, the company said in the blog post.
And here’s the Val Kilmer connection. In real life, the actor is unable to speak as he did in the past as a result of throat cancer. Therefore, for the Top Gun sequel, in which he reprised his role as a foil (and now friend) to Tom Cruise, his condition, and the simulated voice Sonantic created, were both written into the plot of the film, TechCrunch explains.
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Google has agreed to pay $118 million to settle a class-action gender discrimination lawsuit with around 15,500 women, according to a statement from the law firms representing the women. Meanwhile, The UK’s competition regulator wants to investigate how Apple and Google use their mobile phone dominance to kill competition. And an ed-tech company’s co-founder wants to blacklist teachers if they seek better prospects, ET reports.
Notes:
Google has agreed to pay $118 million to settle a class-action gender discrimination lawsuit with around 15,500 women, according to a press release on June 10, from the law firms representing the women who took Google to court four years ago.
The lawsuit first emerged in 2017 after three women filed a complaint accusing the company of underpaying female workers in violation of California’s Equal Pay Act, citing a wage gap of around $17,000, according to The Verge. The complaint also alleged Google locks women into lower career tracks, leading to less pay and lower bonuses when compared with their male counterparts.
The plaintiffs won class-action status last year.
The UK’s competition regulator wants to investigate how Apple and Google might be using their dominance of the mobile phone market to kill competition, ramping up global antitrust scrutiny of the largest US technology companies, Wall Street Journal reports.
Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority said on Friday that it intends to initiate market investigations into how the companies control web browsers for mobile devices, as well as complaints that Apple restricts cloud gaming on its devices. Under UK rules, market investigations can lead to binding orders to change practices, but no fines.
Shares of DocuSign plunged 24 percent on Friday after the e-signature software maker posted fiscal first-quarter earnings that fell short of analysts’ estimates, CNBC reports.
DocuSign’s adjusted earnings per share of 38 cents missed analysts expectations of 46 cents, according to CNBC. That pushed shares down even though DocuSign’s revenue for the quarter, at $588.7 million, beat analysts estimates of $581.8 million.
Brajesh Maheshwari, co-founder and director of test preparation coaching provider Allen Career Institute has threatened teachers working with the company with ‘blacklisting,’ if they move to rival offline coaching platforms set up by ed-tech startups, in a video statement released by him, Economic Times reports.
Among Allen Career Institute’s biggest investors is Bodhi Tree, formed by Lupa Systems founder and CEO James Murdoch and Uday Shankar, the former head of Star TV and Disney India. Bodhi Tree announced an investment of $600 million in Allen Institute in May, according to ET.
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Reserve Bank of India, the country’s central bank has proposed allowing integration between India’s Unified Payments Interface and credit cards, TechCrunch reports.
“UPI facilitates transactions by linking savings or current accounts through users’ debit cards. It is now proposed to allow linking of credit cards on the UPI platform,” Shaktikanta Das, the governor of Reserve Bank of India said at a briefing, according to TechCrunch. To begin with, the RuPay credit cards will be linked to UPI, he said.
RuPay is India’s homegrown card network, which is promoted by the National Payments Corporation of India, a special body of RBI that also oversees UPI payments.
Infosys has won a contract from TK Elevator that expands the Indian IT services giant’s engagement with the German maker of lifts, the company said in a press release yesterday. The seven-year contract involves providing AI-powered IT helpdesk services, digital workplace management, and network services, using automation solutions from Infosys Cobalt, the company’s suite of cloud technologies, products and services.
NASA is putting together an independent team of researchers to study sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs, the updated term now used to refer to UFOs, the American space agency said in a blog post yesterday. NASA says it plans to study these sightings from a scientific perspective but also stressed that “there is no evidence UAPs are extraterrestrial in origin,” The Verge reports.
The study team is to be led by astrophysicist David Spergel under NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. It will attempt to identify what data is out there on UAPs and figure out how to best capture data on UAPs in the future. NASA noted that the limitations in sightings make it hard to come to logical conclusions about where UAPs come from.
The study will be open and unclassified, according to Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator for science at NASA, according to The Verge.
SolarSquare, a Mumbai-based startup, has raised $4 million led by Google Capital, with participation from US investor Chris Sacca’s Lowercarbon Capital, Singapore based Symphony Asia and Nithin Kamath’s Rainmatter Foundation.
The round also saw participation from Better Capital, Climate Angels and several angel investors. This investment mark’s the $1 billion Lowercarbon Capital’s first Indian investment, according to SolarSquare’s press release. SolarSquare was founded in 2015 by Neeraj Jain and Nikhil Nahar, and Shreya Mishra joined them as co-founder.
The company, originally started as a B2B solar venture, is rapidly expanding its B2C operations, and the fresh funds will help SolarSquare to go faster in that direction.
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European Union countries and EU lawmakers on Tuesday have reached a ‘provisional agreement’ on a single mobile charging standard for devices in 15 different categories including mobile phones, laptops, tablets and cameras, TechCrunch reports. This will make the USB-C charger the EU standard, and equipment makers will have to comply by 2024. And Infosys has been asked, again, to fix new glitches in the income tax portal it made for India.
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European Union lawmakers on Tuesday have reached a ‘provisional agreement’ on a single mobile charging standard for devices in 15 different categories including mobile phones, laptops, tablets and cameras, TechCrunch reports. This will make the USB-C charger the EU standard, and equipment makers will have to comply by 2024.
The legislation is designed to cut waste and make life easier for consumers who would be able to use one charger for multiple devices. This will likely have a huge impact on Apple, as the company still uses its own Lightning connector to charge iPhones, while it has recently equipped iPads and MacBooks with USB-C ports.
“The common charging solution will not only affect Apple. It will affect a lot of brands producing some of these 15 different types of products when it will come into force in two years,” the parliament’s lead negotiator on the file, Alex Agius Saliba, said in a press conference. He called the provisional agreement “historic” and a “great achievement.”
With the provisional agreement in place, a formal vote is expected to follow in the next few months.
Tata Digital, which launched its all-in-one app in April, Tata Neu, is aiming to clock gross sales of around $2-$2.5 billion in the first year, Economic Times reports. In its first month of operations since launching the app, Tata Neu has clocked gross sales in the range of $120-$150 million. Tata Digital had an internal target of $200 million in gross merchandise value per month, according to ET.
Infosys has been asked to fix more glitches in the income tax portal that the IT services company developed for the central government. It got off to a rough start last year with numerous complaints from users, leading even to the country’s finance minister summoning the company’s CEO multiple times to fix the problems.
The Income Tax Department tweeted on Tuesday that it had asked Infosys to fix the new glitches after complaints from users. This time the problems were related to the search function, according to the tweet.
Some 20 amino acids have been found in the dust that Japan's Hayabusa2 probe returned to Earth from asteroid Ryugu, The Register reports, citing Japanese media. Amino acids help to build proteins, act as neurotransmitters in the brain, and are ubiquitous and essential to life on Earth, the tech news and analysis site points out. Discovering amino acids in space on comets or asteroids, for example, may help scientists get closer to figuring out why life happened on Earth.
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India’s central government is planning to create an appeals body where people can complain against social media posts, instead of having to go to the courts, according to a press release on Monday by the country’s ministry of electronics and information technology.
The appeals body will be called the ‘Grievance Appellate Committee’. Users will have the option to appeal against the grievance redressal process of the intermediaries before this new appellate body, according to the press release. ‘Intermediaries’ refers to companies such as Google, Meta and Twitter, which own and operate platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Apple started its annual worldwide developer conference, or WWDC, yesterday and announced a brand new MacBook Air, new software for the iPhone, iPad and watch, and a new 13-inch MacBook Pro laptop and also a buy-now-pay-later service on Apple Pay.
The laptops run on Apple’s own M-series chips, including the new M2 processor, all of which are said to offer longer battery life than the previous models that used Intel’s chips. The new software includes iOS 16, iPadOS 16, MacOS Ventura and WatchOS 9. iOS 16 will be available around September, for iPhone 8 and higher models.
Zomato’s board will likely meet on June 17 to clear a proposal to acquire the quick delivery startup Blinkit, formerly the online groceries venture Grofers, almost two years after the two first discussed a potential deal, Economic Times reports.
Under the proposal, Blinkit’s shareholders are expected to get about a 10 percent stake in Zomato. Blinkit’s largest investor, SoftBank Vision Fund, will get close to a 4 percent stake in the loss-making food delivery company that went public last year. Blinkit’s investors may have to compulsorily hold Zomato’s shares for at least six months, according to ET.
Solid Power, a US-based battery technologies startup, is a step closer to commercialising its solid-state batteries, TechCrunch reports. The company has opened up a new facility that will turn out what are called ‘B-samples’ of 60Ah and 100Ah cells. B-samples are close-to-commercial products.
Solid Power is aiming to deliver the B-samples in the first half of 2024, and according to the company’s timetable, a commercial solid-state battery that is ready to go into an EV could be available as early as 2028, according to TechCrunch.
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India’s digital payments industry will triple to touch $10 trillion in total transaction value by 2026, according to a report by PhonePe, Walmart’s Indian fintech unit, and BCG. Coinbase is extending its hiring freeze indefinitely. NASA is outsourcing its Lunar spacesuit development to two companies including Axiom Space, which is backed by investors including India’s Sanjay Mehta.
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India’s digital payments industry will triple to touch $10 trillion in total transaction value by 2026, according to a report by Walmart’s Indian fintech unit PhonePe and BCG, a consultancy.
Non-cash payments will constitute nearly 65 percent of all payments by 2026, up from 40 percent today, the companies said in a press release. UPI adoption will surge from 35 percent in FY 21 to 75 percent in the next five years. And merchant payments via digital modes will grow from $0.3-0.4 trillion today to $2.5-2.7 trillion by 2026, according to the release.
Coinbase, one of the largest crypto exchanges, plans to extend a hiring freeze that it announced two weeks ago into the “foreseeable future.” The company will also be pulling some job offers, CNBC reports.
Coinbase said it was informing prospects of the rescinded offers by email on Thursday. The company also said it was extending its severance policy to those individuals and will help them with job placements and resume reviews.
“After assessing our business priorities, current headcount, and open roles, we have decided to pause hiring for as long as this macro environment requires,” LJ Brock, Coinbase’s chief people officer, wrote in a blog post on Thursday. “The extended hiring pause will include backfills, except for roles that are necessary … for security and compliance, or to support other mission-critical work,” Brock wrote.
Oracle Corp has secured unconditional EU antitrust clearance for its $28.3 billion acquisition of US healthcare IT company Cerner Corp, the EU competition authority said on Thursday, Reuters reports.
The acquisition, Oracle's biggest, would give the company access to a large volume of data and could bring more healthcare clients to its cloud platform.
NASA announced that two private companies — Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace — will develop the next-generation spacesuits that future astronauts will wear on the Moon, The Verge reports.
These new spacesuits will play a critical role in NASA’s Artemis programme, the agency’s flagship initiative to send humans back to the lunar surface. Currently, NASA is aiming to land the first Artemis astronauts on the Moon by 2025.
Among Axiom Space’s backers is well-known Indian VC investor Sanjay Mehta, founder of the firm 100x VC.
3DBio Therapeutics (3DBio), a clinical-stage regenerative medicine company, and the Microtia-Congenital Ear Deformity Institute announced yesterday that they have conducted a human ear reconstruction using the AuriNovo implant, an investigational, patient-matched, 3D-bioprinted living tissue ear implant.
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Sheryl Sandberg said in a post yesterday that she is stepping down from her role as Chief Operating Officer at Meta, formerly known as Facebook, after 14 years at the company. Javier Olivan, the company’s chief growth officer, will take over as COO. Sandberg will remain on Meta’s board of directors. And some startups continue to find funding amid the current slowdown.
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Sheryl Sandberg said in a post yesterday that she is stepping down from her role as Chief Operating Officer at Meta, formerly known as Facebook, 14 years after she joined the company as a startup that she helped turn into one of the biggest tech companies in the world, which at one point was valued at over $1 trillion.
Javier Olivan, the company’s chief growth officer, will take over as COO around September. Sandberg will continue to serve on Meta’s board of directors, according to her post.
Coralogix, which offers a streaming analytics solution for data observability, has raised a $142 million Series D funding round, bringing the Israeli startup’s total funding to $238 million, the company said in a press release. Coralogix will use the money to expand its operations, including in India and APAC.
Additionally, the funds will also be used to accelerate the build-out and go-to-market of Snowbit, its recently announced cybersecurity venture being built out of India and Israel.
MoEngage, a customer engagement platform provider, has raised $77 million in Series E funding led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management and B Capital, with participation from the company’s existing investors.
This is Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s first investment in an Indian SaaS company, MoEngage said in a press release. This is the third round of funding raised by the company in the last 12 months, with $32.5 million in July and $30 million in December 2021.
The company will use the money to expand its operations overseas and for acquisitions.
Slice, a credit card and payments tech startup has raised $50 million as part of its larger series C round led by Tiger Global, along with participation from its existing investors, Moore Strategic Ventures and Insight Partners, and a new investor, GMO VenturePartners.
Slice will use the money to expand its new UPI product. The company expects its main credit business to become profitable in the coming months.
BetterPlace, a tech platform for frontline workforce management, has acquired OkayGo, an on-demand blue-collar gig workforce management platform for enterprises, for an undisclosed amount. This acquisition aims to reduce the cost of hiring blue-collared workers for enterprises by 15-20 percent by providing them with a pool of pre-skilled and pre-verified workers ready to be deployed for short-term tasks.
Udayy, an edtech startup has shut its business as demand for its online classes fell following schools opening up in India, Economic Times reports. The Gurugram company, founded in 2019, was offering its products to children from kindergarten to class eight. The company told Economic Times that all its 120 or so employees had been offered severance packages and most had been placed elsewhere.
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Tata Digital has partnered with Mad Street Den, an AI platform provider, to make Tata Neu, the so-called ‘super app’ it is developing for retail consumers, a more personalised and connected experience for users. Apple supplier Foxconn says the impact of March Covid lockdowns in China is lower than expected on production. And crypto startup Liminal raises more funding.
Notes:
Tata Digital has partnered with Mad Street Den, an AI platform provider, to make Tata Neu, the so-called ‘super app’ it is developing for retail consumers, a more personalised and connected experience for users. Tata Digital has selected Mad Street Den as its AI partner of choice, the company said in a press release yesterday.
Tata Neu will use Mad Street Den’s Blox AI platform to personalise its app from fashion to finance, gadgets to groceries, hotels to health and tech to travel, bringing together the Tata Group’s multiple consumer brands into one online commerce destination for users. The app, launched in April, has seen some 7 million downloads so far.
Mad Street Den, founded in 2013, is a Chennai and Silicon Valley company, founded by Ashwini Asokan, Anand Chandrasekaran and Costa Colbert. The startup is backed by investors including Falcon Edge, Sequoia Capital, and Exfinity Ventures.
“The Tata Group touches over a hundred million consumers in India” Sauvik Banerjjee, CTO of Tata Digital, said in the press release. “We’ve been working with Anand and Ashwini at Mad Street Den to fulfil this proposition of personalised customer experiences across our brands. I have seen this platform grow from just retail, to unleash its true value of powering any use case across industries, data types, images, videos, text and so much more,” he said.
Blox works with large enterprises to help them become ‘AI-native,’ the company said in its press release. “What makes blox.ai different is that we are not in the business of selling point solutions that don’t address the business problem. Our AI solutions absorb multi-dimensional data, real-time, responding to customers and users dynamically to deliver value across the value chain,” CEO Asokan said.
“Once you are live with the platform, what you get is a singular view of your business, customers, inventory, content, process, all speaking to each other,” Chandrasekaran, the CTO, said. Working with the Tata Neu app is also the ultimate case study on what Blox can do with multiple business verticals in a single app,” he said.
One of Apple’s biggest contract manufacturing partners, Foxconn, said the impact of China’s Covid lockdowns on its operations wasn’t as bad as expected, CNBC reports, citing a Nikkei Asia report on Tuesday that is behind a paywall.
Foxconn Chairman Liu Young-way said the company has seen a more limited impact from the lockdowns than it anticipated, and it raised its outlook for the current quarter and the full year as a result. Key manufacturing facilities have been operating at normal levels and product development is ongoing, the company said, according to Nikkei, CNBC reports.
The Wall Street Journal reported on May 21 that Apple is looking to expand production in countries including India and Vietnam.
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Amid a funding slowdown, Sharechat’s parent Mohalla Tech is expected to announce a $300 million funding round led by Google, India’s Times Group and Singapore’s Temasek, Reuters reports. Airbus has set up an R&D facility in the UK for cryogenic fuel technologies for its proposed hydrogen planes. One AI, an Israel and Silicon Valley NLP company has come out of stealth mode, raising $8 million in seed funding.
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Google, India’s Times Group and Singapore’s Temasek Holdings have invested nearly $300 million in Mohalla Tech, which runs the Indian social media platform Sharechat and short video app Moj, Reuters reports. The deal values Mohalla Tech at nearly $5 billion, two sources involved in the deal discussions told Reuters.
The deal is set to be announced as early as next week, according to Reuters. It comes at a time when Indian startups are cutting costs and laying off staff as funding is drying up due to a global economic downturn.
India’s government is ready with a consultation paper on cryptocurrencies, economic affairs secretary Ajay Seth told reporters on the sidelines of an event on Monday, Reuters reports. Seth said there needed to be a global consensus on cryptocurrencies and India would look at regulations enforced in other countries before deciding how it would regulate them.
Uncertainty over crypto regulation in India has led some crypto startups to move their base from the country to locations such as Dubai.
Former Disney CEO Bob Iger has acquired a stake in the Australian design company Canva and agreed to be an advisor to the privately held company, CNBC reports. Iger and Canva didn’t reveal the size of the investment. Canva raised money in September, valuing the company at $40 billion, according to CNBC.
One AI, an NLP-as-a-service startup that helps developers to embed Language AI in their products, officially launched yesterday, with $8 million in seed funding, the Israel and Silicon Valley company said in a press release. Angel investors and VCs, including Ariel Maislos, Tech Aviv, and Tomer Wiengarten, CEO of Sentinel One, invested in the company.
Airbus has launched a hydrogen technologies facility in the UK, in its latest move to support the design of its next generation of aircraft, CNBC reports.
Airbus said in a statement last week that the Zero Emission Development Centre in Filton, Bristol, had already begun working on the development of the tech. One of the site’s main goals will centre around work on what Airbus called a “cost-competitive cryogenic fuel system” that its ZEROe aircraft will need.
Details of three zero-emission, “hybrid-hydrogen” concept planes under the ZEROe moniker were released back in September 2020. Airbus has said it wants to develop “zero-emission commercial aircraft” by the year 2035, according to CNBC.
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Broadcom has agreed to pay $61 billion for VMware, as the semiconductor giant looks to expand into cloud software for enterprises, making it the biggest tech deal this year after Microsoft’s $68 billion deal to buy games maker Activision Blizzard in January. Facebook parent Meta is updating its privacy policies. And Google is exploring ways to join India’s open network for digital commerce, Economic Times reports.
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Broadcom has agreed to pay $61 billion for VMware, as the semiconductor giant looks to expand into cloud software for enterprises. This will be the biggest tech deal this year after Microsoft’s $68 billion deal to buy games maker Activision Blizzard in January.
The 50:50 cash-and-stock deal is at a 44 percent premium to VMware’s closing price on May 25, and the transaction is expected to close in Broadcom’s fiscal year 2023, the company said in a press release.
Facebook’s parent Meta is updating its privacy policy, which willcome into effect from July 26, the company said in a blogpost yesterday. Users will be getting in-app notifications right away, though.
These updates don’t allow Meta to collect, use or share your data in new ways, Michel Protti, chief privacy officer, product at Meta, said in the blog post.
The updates include more detailed explanations of Meta’s privacy policy including how it uses and shares information with third parties. “And we’ve paired it with the Privacy Center and new controls to manage your experience, like who sees your posts and the topics you want to see ads about,” Protti writes.
Google is in talks to find ways in which it could join India’s Open Network for Digital Commerce, Economic Times reports, citing sources familiar with the developments. This new network, ONDC, is being presented as a first-of-its-kind platform worldwide. It will make it easy for millions of small sellers in the country to go online and for consumers to find them irrespective of which app or site they use to shop.
The network started with a pilot via Paytm’s buyer app, and Amazon and Walmart’s Flipkart unit may also be joining it, according to ET.
In more Google news, the company is highlighting how its Chromebook laptops can work in ‘zero trust’ corporate environments with its new Chrome Enterprise Connectors Framework, The Verge reports, citing a blog post from John Solomon, VP for Chrome OS at Google.
The new integration system is designed to make the Chrome browser and Chrome OS devices easier for IT departments to implement with existing security, endpoint, and authentication solutions as well as other management tools.
Solomon describes the new tools as a “plug and play” solution that lets other companies access Chrome OS management functions like remote-wiping a Chromebook using BlackBerry Unified Endpoint Management or flagging malware downloads with Splunk, according to The Verge.
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Sequoia Capital, one of the world’s best-known venture capital firms, has warned founders of its portfolio companies that the flow of cheap money is over, and investors now have a distinct preference for ventures that can generate cash today.
In a 52-slide presentation, the company advises startups to conserve cash, cut any flab, and prepare for the long haul, because it doesn’t expect a quick recovery in the global economic conditions, unlike what happened after the Covid pandemic.
“With the cost of capital (both debt and equity) rising, the market is signalling a strong preference for companies who can generate cash today,” Tech Crunch reports, citing Sequoia’s presentation.
“We expect the market downturn to impact consumer behaviour, labour markets, supply chains and more. It will be a longer recovery and while we can’t predict how long, we can advise you on ways to prepare and get through to the other side,” the VC firm says, according to Tech Crunch.
Meanwhile, another famous VC firm, Andreessen Horowitz yesterday announced it was going big on crypto and web 3, with a $4.5 billion fund to benefit from what it sees as the beginning of a “golden era” of Web3, brushing aside the recent crypto crash.
Such periods are characterised by the right mix of new talent, viable infrastructure, and community knowledge. It’s “when legendary teams are formed, big ideas are hatched, and great products get built,” Chris Dixon, a general partner at the firm wrote in a blog post yesterday.
Since the advent of computing in the 1940s, there has been a major computing cycle every 10-15 years, including PCs in the 80s, the internet in the 90s, and mobile computing in the 2000s, Dixon points out. “We believe blockchains will power the next major computing cycle,” he writes.
Of the $4.5 billion, approximately $1.5 billion will be dedicated to seed investments, and $3 billion to venture investments. This brings the firm’s total crypto/Web3 funds to more than $7.6 billion, according to the blog post.
Snowflake yesterday joined the list of technology companies warning of a slowdown, sending its shares down as much as 16 percent in extended trading, CNBC reports. The company’s shares ended lower by about 14 percent.
The data management and analytics software maker disappointed analysts by saying it doesn’t expect a positive adjusted operating margin for the current quarter, according to CNBC.
While the company is still growing revenue strongly at upwards of 70 percent, Snowflake’s CFO Mike Scarpelli told analysts at a conference yesterday that the company was seeing the impact of the macroeconomic situation on its customers’ businesses, which in turn was likely to reduce their consumption of its software products.
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42 US lawmakers from the Democratic party have urged Google CEO Sundar Pichai in an open letter on Tuesday to stop collecting and keeping unnecessary or non-aggregated location data that could be used to identify people seeking abortions, CNBC reports.
The letter comes ahead of the anticipated reversal of a US Supreme Court decision in a case, widely known in the US as Roe v. Wade, that protected people’s right to an abortion. News of the imminent reversal became public after political news and analysis site Politico published a draft opinion by the court that was confirmed by the US Chief Justice to be authentic.
The prospect has raised fears that location data or search histories could be used against people seeking abortions or those who offer them in American states where they are illegal to obtain, according to CNBC.
Clearview AI, which has amassed a database of 20 billion images of people’s faces around the world, was fined close to $10 million by the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office, the country’s information and privacy regulator, said in a statement on Monday.
The British government agency slapped this fine on Clearview for using images of people in the country and elsewhere that were collected without any consent from the web and social media to create a global online database that could be used for facial recognition.
John Edwards, the UK’s information commissioner, said in the ICO’s statement: “The company not only enables identification of those people but effectively monitors their behaviour and offers it as a commercial service. That is unacceptable.”
Arcadia, an energy data technology company, has acquired Urjanet, the largest utility data provider in the world. Urjanet's global data access tech will integrate with Arcadia's data and API platform, called Arc, the US-based company said in a press release yesterday. Urjanet has a strong presence in Chennai, India. The two companies didn’t disclose the terms of the deal.
“Without data access, it will be impossible to meet the urgency and size of the climate crisis,” Kiran Bhatraju, CEO of Arcadia, said in the release. “Urjanet has built a fantastic business capturing utility data across 30 percent of the Fortune 500. With Urjanet joining Arcadia, we will be able to serve customers globally with the most comprehensive software solution in climate tech.”
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Broadcom is in talks to pay around $60 billion for VMware as the semiconductor giant looks to expand into cloud software for enterprises, Wall Street Journal reports, citing people familiar with the matter. This would be one of the biggest takeover deals of the year.
The two technology companies are aiming to announce a cash-and-stock deal worth about $140 a share on Thursday, assuming the talks don’t fall apart, according to the Journal. A final price hasn’t yet been decided.
Klarna, the Swedish buy now, pay later company, backed by investors including SoftBank Group, is laying off 10 percent of its workforce, CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski told staff via a pre-recorded video call Monday, Protocol reports.
“When we set our business plans for 2022 in the autumn of last year, it was a very different world than the one we are in today,” Siemiatkowski said in the announcement, which is also available as a blog post on the company’s website.
"The war in Ukraine, a shift in consumer sentiment, a steep increase in inflation, a highly volatile stock market and a likely recession,” are among the reasons for the layoff, according to the post.
The company currently has about 7,000 employees, and a 10 percent cutback puts the number of affected workers at about 700, according to The Verge.
The company is also looking for funding, at a valuation of around $30 billion, compared with its previous private valuation of $46 billion, Wall Street Journal reported last week.
Infosys has been selected by Backcountry, an online retailer of outdoor gear and apparel, to deliver improved and secure digital experiences to customers, India’s second-biggest IT services company said in a press release yesterday.
1K Kirana, a startup that provides technology to grocery stores, has raised $25 million in its Series B round, led by Alpha Wave Ventures, Economic Times reports. Info Edge Ventures, Kae Capital, and entrepreneurs including the founders of Zetwerk and GoMechanic have also invested in the funding round.
Founded in late 2018 by Kumar Sangeetesh, Sachin Sharma and Abhishek Halder, 1K Kirana provides a technology platform for grocery stores in India's smaller cities and towns, according to ET.
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Technology investments by the world’s biggest companies will continue to grow despite the current global uncertainties, Rajesh Gopinathan, chief executive of Tata Consultancy Services, one of the world’s biggest IT services providers, writes in the company’s annual report for the fiscal year that ended on March 31.
"The war in Ukraine, the geopolitical tensions in Europe, and the resultant impact on global economic growth are real threats. However, the Covid-19 pandemic has shown us that enterprise spending on technology is far more resilient than most people think, as it is central to businesses’ ability to innovate and differentiate in good times, and to survive and adapt in tough times," Gopinathan writes.
“At our current pace of growth, it is only a matter of time before we double our revenues and hit the $50 billion mark,” he writes.
Infosys, India’s second-largest IT services company, has extended CEO Salil Parekh’s tenure by about another five years, starting July 1, the company told the stock exchanges in a statement. Parekh, who came to Infosys from Capgemini in January 2018, is widely credited for returning Infosys to industry-leading growth, expanding and deepening its capabilities in cloud services and AI. The appointment is subject to shareholder approval.
MFine, a healthcare tech platform provider in Bengaluru, has fired between 500 and 600 people, based on reports from Economic Times and Inc42, which first reported the layoff. Startups in India face tough times ahead as the funding frenzy of 2021 comes to an end amid concerns of a recession in the US and a global economic slowdown. India’s startups are largely funded by foreign money.
Unacademy, Cars24, and Meesho are some of the other well-known startups that have laid off large portions of their workforce in recent times.
VenturEast, a venture capital firm, has fully exited Seclore, a data-centric security platform provider, as part of the startup’s latest funding round, the firm said in a press release. Seclore has raised $27 million in series C funding, led by Oquirrh Ventures and Origami Capital. VenturEast invested in the company at its seed and Series A stages. It now exits with a 17.5x return on its seed round.
Seclore has now raised $46 million to date. Its customers include government and defence agencies and more than 500 global enterprises, including American Express, Applied Materials, ADM, Saudi Telecom, and ICICI group, according to the press release.
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SoftBank's Vision Funds lost more than $27 billion in the last fiscal year, by far their worst performance on record, CNN reports. CEO Masayoshi Son said he will now play defence and be more selective about investments. Google teased its Pixel watch at its I/O conference, planned for a launch around September. Sachin Bansal adds Vidit Aatrey to Navi’s board. And Ather has raised more money.
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SoftBank's Vision Funds lost more than $27 billion in the last fiscal year, by far their worst performance on record, CNN reports after the Japanese company reported earnings on May 12.
The world's biggest tech investor said Thursday that the funds had recorded a loss of 3.5 trillion yen ($27.5 billion) in the year ended March. That was a significant reversal from the unit's performance from last year, when it had logged a healthy profit, according to CNN.
At an earnings presentation in Tokyo, CEO Masayoshi Son acknowledged the losses and pledged to start taking a more conservative approach.
"We, SoftBank, should be taking defence," he said, with the word Defense emblazoned on one of the slides of a presentation as well.
Going forward, SoftBank will be more selective about which deals to take on, roll out stricter criteria for new investments, and focus on improving returns from its portfolio companies, he added.
Google announced its long-awaited Pixel Watch on Wednesday, furthering the tech giant's expansion into hardware, CNET reports. The company teased its first smartwatch during its Google I/O conference but plans to reveal more details closer to the device's fall launch. Fall in the US starts towards the end of September.
The watch has a domed circular design, runs on Google's Wear OS smartwatch software and includes some Fitbit health-tracking features. Google didn't announce a price but said it will be sold as a premium product, according to CNET.
Ather Energy, one of India’s leading electric two-wheeler companies, has raised $128 million in its Series E funding round, with investors including National Investment and Infrastructure Fund Limited’s Strategic Opportunities Fund, Hero MotoCorp, and others. Ather Energy plans to use the funding to expand manufacturing facilities, invest in research and development, charging infrastructure and expand its retail network.
The company registered its highest ever monthly sales, in April 2022, delivering 3,779 units to customers. Booking orders for Ather Energy’s flagship product, the Ather 450X is growing at 25 percent quarter-on-quarter. Ather Energy is present in 32 cities with 38 showrooms and aims to expand to 150 in 100 cities by 2023.
Navi Technologies Limited, Flipkart founder Sachin Bansal’s financial services company, has appointed Vidit Aatrey, co-founder and CEO of Meesho as an independent director on its board of directors, effective April 9, 2022.
Aatrey joins three other independent directors, Abhijit Bose, Shripad Nadkarni and Usha Narayanan. Navi’s board now comprises seven members, including Bansal, co-founder Ankit Agrawal and Anand Sinha, a former deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India, the company said in a press release.
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Amazon and Walmart’s Flipkart unit are joining the country’s new Open Network for Digital Commerce, Economic Times reports. The network is being compared with India’s Unified Payments Interface, to support the idea that it could do for online commerce what UPI did for payments. And Uber, which is looking to cut costs in the US, is significantly and rapidly expanding its tech team in India.
Notes:
Amazon and Walmart’s Flipkart unit are joining the country’s new Open Network for Digital Commerce, Economic Times reports, citing sources familiar with the developments. This new network, ONDC, is being presented as a first-of-its-kind platform worldwide that will make it easy for millions of small sellers in the country to go online and for consumers to find them irrespective of which app or site they use to shop.
Paytm has already joined the network, and Flipkart’s payments unit PhonePe is doing so as well, according to ET.
Uber Technologies, which is cutting costs in the US, has announced a fresh round of recruitment for its India tech centres, with a plan to hire 500 more engineers by December. Uber recruited 250 engineers in 2021 to expand its tech team to 1,000 in two centres in India—Hyderabad and Bengaluru, the company said in a press release yesterday.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told staff recently that he will be cutting costs on multiple fronts, and that hiring should be seen as a ‘privilege,’ CNBC reported on May 9.
IBM’s Red Hat, an open-source software leader, and Kyndryl, its IT infrastructure services subsidiary, have announced a strategic partnership to help customers embrace open, differentiated automation technologies and managed services to modernise core business applications and IT infrastructure, the company said in a press release.
Red Hat and Kyndryl will offer integrated services and solutions based on the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform to automate critical workloads from the enterprise data centre to the edge and on public clouds.
GoKwik, which helps brands reduce ecommerce churn, has raised $35 million in a Series B round led by Think Investments. The round also saw participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital India, Matrix Partners India and RTP Global, the company said in a press release. The company will use the money to work on tech solutions for large marketplaces, and omnichannel players, and add more D2C customers. GoKwik expects to hire more than 200 people across India this year.
ReshaMandi, which is building a ‘digital ecosystem’ for the natural fibre supply chain in India, has made a foray into the skincare segment by investing an undisclosed amount in a Bengaluru-based skincare brand, Healios Wound Solutions, the company said in a press release. The investment will help Healios expand its silk protein-based skincare range and market it to a wider audience looking for natural, sustainable and environment-friendly skincare products.
Sericin has antioxidant, anti-ageing, moisture retention, and depigmentation properties, which makes it an ideal ingredient in any skincare line, according to ReshaMandi’s press release. Going forward, Healios’s SeriSkin range will be positioned as a silk protein-based premium product made of naturally-extracted sericin, the company said.
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Apple is ending the iPod Touch, the last of the company’s series of music devices — including the iPod nano and the Shuffle — that changed how people listen to music forever. Google’s annual developer conference starts today. Delhivery gets strong interest from anchor investors ahead of IPO subscription. And Razorpay offers staff an ESOP buyback while bringing on new investors.
Notes:
Apple is ending the iPod Touch, the last of the company’s series of music devices — including the iPod Nano and the Shuffle — that changed how people listen to music forever. The company announced yesterday in a press release that iPod Touch will remain on sale while stocks last.
Apple last updated the iPod in 2019.
Google’s annual developer conference, Google I/O, starts today and will run through tomorrow, with a wide variety of presentations on the latest at the search giant — including AI, updates to the Android operating system, and hardware as well.
This year, there are ongoing rumours about Google’s first wearable, the Pixel Watch, as well as a midrange counterpart to last year’s Pixel 6 smartphones. It’s possible we could also see a new pair of true wireless earbuds announced, according to The Verge.
Delhivery plans to open its initial public offering today, with a price band of between Rs. 462 and Rs. 487 per equity share of the face value of Rs. 1 each, the logistics startup said in a press release. The company raised Rs. 2,347 crore from allotments to 64 anchor investors yesterday, Economic Times reports.
Some of the foreign investors who participated in the anchor share allotment were Tiger Global, Steadview, Baillie Gifford, Amansa, GIC and Invesco HK, according to ET.
The IPO subscription closes on May 13. Bids can be made for a minimum of 30 equity shares and in multiples of 30 thereafter.
SoftBank may report a record loss for its quarter ended March 31, Bloomberg reports, citing Kirk Boodry, an analyst at Redex Research, who publishes on the investment research network SmartKarma. The Bloomberg report is behind a paywall, but it was also carried by Economic Times.
The world’s largest tech fund — and one of the biggest investors in India’s startup ecosystem — is estimated to have lost about $18.6 billion on its public portfolio alone during the March quarter.
The actual bottom line for the fiscal fourth quarter will hinge on how SoftBank marks the value of its vast number of privately-held holdings, including ByteDance, which operates the popular short video platform TikTok, and India’s Oyo Hotels, according to Bloomberg.
Razorpay, a payments and banking platform provider for businesses, has announced its fourth and largest ESOP sale under its Employee Stock Ownership Plan for its 650 existing and former employees as part of a $75 million transaction.
This is led by Lightspeed Venture Partners along with participation from Moore Strategic Ventures, who will subsequently join the company’s cap table, Razorpay said in a press release on May 10.
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Apple’s director of machine learning, Ian Goodfellow, is leaving the company due to its return to work policy, according to a tweet by Zoe Schiffer, a tech reporter with The Verge. Ride-hailing network provider Uber’s CEO has promised cutbacks on spending, CNBC reports. And the global tech-led sell-off after US monetary tightening has hit cryptocurrencies as well, with Bitcoin losing more than half its value from its November peak.
Notes:
Apple’s director of machine learning, Ian Goodfellow, is leaving the company due to its return-to-work policy, according to a tweet on May 8 by Zoe Schiffer, a tech reporter with The Verge. In a note to staff, Goodfellow said “I believe strongly that more flexibility would have been the best policy for my team,” according to Schiffer’s tweet, which has been picked up widely.
Uber, is the latest tech company to announce cutbacks, with money becoming less cheap, and investors looking elsewhere. The ride-hailing network provider will cut back on spending and focus on becoming a leaner business to address a “seismic shift” in investor sentiment, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told employees in an email, CNBC reported on Monday.
Uber will slash spending on marketing and incentives and treat hiring as a “privilege,” Khosrowshahi said, according to CNBC. The world’s biggest tech companies have lost over a trillion dollars in value, as dumped stocks after central banks around the world raised the rates at which commercial banks could borrow from them.
Bitcoin fell below the $30,000 mark today as both traditional financial markets and cryptocurrencies suffered from a sell-off caused by the US Federal Reserve's monetary tightening as well as fears of a recession, CoinDesk reports.
The latest decline left bitcoin at a 10-month low and its lowest price this year, less than half the value that the cryptocurrency had in November last.
HCL Technologies is acquiring Confinale AG, a Switzerland-based digital banking and wealth management consulting specialist, India’s third-biggest IT services company said in a press release. The acquisition will help HCL expand its reach in the global wealth management market with an emphasis on consulting, implementation and management of banking software from Avaloq, another Swiss company, whose software is used by some 140 banks around the world.
Clearview AI, an American facial recognition surveillance company, has agreed to permanently ban most private companies from using its service under a court settlement, The Verge reports. The agreement, filed in a court in the US state of Illinois yesterday, would settle a 2020 American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit that alleged the company had built its business on facial recognition data taken without user consent.
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Larsen & Toubro Infotech (LTI) and Mindtree will merge to form a larger IT services company that could be more capable of challenging bigger rivals for digital transformation contracts and global talent. LTI chief executive Sanjay Jalona is leaving and Mindtree’s boss Debashis Chatterjee is to lead the combined business.
Notes:
The combined entity is to be called LTIMindtree, the L&T group companies told the stock exchanges on Friday after markets in Mumbai.
LTI CEO and MD Sanjay Jalona, a former Infosys executive who took LTI public six years ago, and is widely seen as responsible for its bigger play today, has resigned. Debashis Chatterjee, a former senior executive at Cognizant Technology Solutions, who joined Mindtree as CEO and MD in August 2019, after L&T group acquired the Bengaluru company, has been named to lead the combined entity.
LTIMindtree would become India’s sixth-biggest IT services company by revenue, with combined sales of more than $3.5 billion for the year that ended March 31, 2022. The combine would be the fifth-biggest IT company by market cap, at $18.3 billion, surpassing Tech Mahindra’s $16.2 billion, as things stood on Friday. Tech Mahindra remains larger, by revenue, with annual sales of over $6 billion.
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Apple, Google, and Microsoft plan to expand support for a common passwordless sign-in standard created by the FIDO Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium; IBM shareholders have urged the company to report on concealment clauses that prevent employees from discussing workplace wrongdoing. And Wipro and HFCL team up to make 5G routers.
Apple, Google and Microsoft yesterday announced plans to expand support for a common passwordless sign-in standard created by the FIDO Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium, according to a post on the alliance’s website.
Based on its standards — which tie authentication to a physical device, such as a user’s smartphone — users will sign in through the same action that they take multiple times each day to unlock their devices, such as a simple verification of their fingerprint or face, or a device PIN.
This new approach protects against phishing, and sign-in will be more secure compared with passwords and legacy multi-factor technologies such as one-time passcodes sent over SMS, according to the post.
IBM shareholders at the IT giant's annual meeting last month endorsed a proposal to have the company produce a public report on the potential risks arising from its use of concealment clauses that constrain disclosure of workplace misconduct, The Register reports, citing a statement yesterday from Clean Yield Asset Management, a US-based investment firm focused on corporate social responsibility.
In a statement on its website, Clean Yield Asset Management said that 64.7 percent of IBM shareholders supported a proposal submitted by the investment firm calling on the company to report on its use of concealment clauses at IBM’s 2022 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.
The support for this proposal comes at a time when leading companies such as Google and Salesforce are scaling back the use of these problematic clauses and lawmakers at the state and federal levels are taking steps to end their use.
Specifically, Clean Yield’s proposal calls on the Board to report on the potential risks to IBM associated with its use of concealment clauses in the context of harassment, discrimination, and other unlawful acts. Concealment clauses are any employment or post-employment agreement, such as arbitration, nondisclosure or non-disparagement agreements that IBM asks employees to sign which would limit their ability to discuss unlawful acts in the workplace, including harassment and discrimination.
Wipro, India’s fourth-biggest IT services provider, and HFCL, a leading telecom equipment manufacturer and technology provider, have entered into a partnership to engineer a variety of 5G transport products that include Cell Site Router, Distributed Unit Aggregation Router, and Centralised Unit Aggregation Router, the companies said in a press release.
With expertise in product engineering, transport network technologies and 5G, Wipro will co-develop equipment with HFCL. Wipro will use Tarang Labs, its product compliance and certification labs in Bangalore, for hardware integration, validation and pre-certification.
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Amazon yesterday said that cumulative exports by Indian exporters on the Amazon Global Selling programme are on track to surpass the $5 billion milestone. The company has doubled its exports pledge to facilitate $20 billion in cumulative exports from India by 2025. Intel acquires GPU tech company Siru Innovation. More global competition for Netflix in India.
Notes:
Amazon yesterday said that cumulative exports by Indian exporters on the Amazon Global Selling programme are on track to surpass the $5 billion milestone. The programme took about three years to get to the first billion dollars, and the last two billion dollars have come in just 17 months, the e-commerce giant, which has not had a smooth going with Indian rules when it comes to local sales, said in a press release.
Amazon has doubled its exports pledge to facilitate $20 billion in cumulative exports from India by 2025.
Intel has acquired Siru Innovations, a graphics technology firm founded by ex-Qualcomm mobile GPU engineers, The Register reports.
Siru Innovations is a Finnish firm focused on developing software and silicon building blocks, known as IP, for GPUs made by other companies. The Siru team will join Intel's fledgling Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics Group, according to The Register.
Paramount Global, formerly ViacomCBS, has announced that the streaming service will become available in India in 2023, as CEO Bob Bakish pushes towards 100 million subscribers, TechCrunch reports. That means more competition for Netflix in India.
This June, Paramount, which has about 62 million subscribers overall, will launch in the UK and South Korea. In India, Paramount+ will launch in partnership with Viacom 18. The service has already launched in 25 markets across Latin America, Canada, the Nordics and Australia, according to TechCrunch.
Infosys and manufacturers’ Alliance, an industry lobby in the US, have released the findings of a survey on efforts towards carbon neutrality in the sector, the Indian IT services giant said in a press release yesterday.
According to their findings
- The vast majority of manufacturers surveyed are already tracking their direct (Scope 1) and indirect (Scope 2) emissions.
- Tracking the enormous category of Scope 3 emissions — those upstream and downstream of the factory gates — is the most difficult area to master, and most have not started. Notable exceptions include the Automotive and Aerospace industries, which are focusing on Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, roughly double the rate of the rest of the survey sample.
- The top three challenges cited as impediments to action included the inability to measure all related factors, the lack of resources to tackle goals and unclear ownership and roles inside the company.
- Over the next three to five years, the most frequently mentioned projects include improving energy efficiencies (e.g. renewables, lighting), reducing the overall environmental footprint (e.g. energy, packaging, water use) and making operational updates (e.g. vehicles, shipping, suppliers, scrap).
- Digital technologies hold the key to tracking and reducing carbon emissions due to their inherent ability to increase transparency and accelerate decision making.
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A group of Apple employees, calling itself Apple Together, has opposed the company’s ‘hybrid working pilot’ return-to-office policy as a measure that actually kills flexibility, even diversity, and perpetuates a culture of working in silos. Google has sacked another AI researcher for questioning its science, NYT reports. And investors pour hundreds of millions more into Indian startups.
Notes:
A group of Apple employees calling itself Apple Together has opposed the company’s ‘hybrid working pilot’ return-to-office policy, first announced last year and being implemented from April, as a measure that actually kills flexibility and even diversity and perpetuates a culture of working in silos.
In an open letter published last week, the group said the policy is really motivated by fear. “You have characterised the decision for the Hybrid Working Pilot as being about combining the 'need to commune in-person' and the value of flexible work," the letter says. "But in reality, it does not recognise flexible work and is only driven by fear. Fear of the future of work, fear of worker autonomy, fear of losing control.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook announced the policy mid-last-year, requiring staff to return to offices on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and work from home or remotely available on the other two days.
“Office-bound work is a technology from the last century, from the era before ubiquitous video-call-capable internet and everyone being on the same internal chat application. But the future is about connecting when it makes sense, with people who have relevant input, no matter where they are based,” the group said.
Google has fired another top AI researcher from its Google Brain unit, less than two years after it dismissed two researchers who criticised the biases built into artificial intelligence systems, New York Times reports.
The company has fired Satrajit Chatterjee, who questioned a paper it published on the abilities of a specialised type of AI used in making computer chips.
Chatterjee led a team of scientists in challenging the acclaimed research paper, which appeared last year in the scientific journal Nature that said computers were able to design certain parts of a computer chip faster and better than humans, according to the New York Times.
Chatterjee was fired in March, shortly after Google told his team that it would not publish a paper that rebutted some of the claims made in Nature. Google confirmed his dismissal to the New York Times and defended its decision to not publish his team’s paper, according to the report.
Zepto, a quick delivery service for groceries started by two Stanford dropouts, has raised $200 million in its Series D funding, valuing the company at around $900 million.
Traceable AI, an API security and observability company, has raised $60 million in Series B funding, valuing the venture at more than $450 million.
Toplyne, a SaaS platform provider that helps companies to monetise their product-led growth, has raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital India, and existing investors including Together Fund.
Kaleidofin, a fintech company, has announced a second close to its $15 million Series B equity round led by Michael and Susan Dell Foundation.
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ISMC, a semiconductor consortium, will invest Rs. 22,900 crore ($3 billion) in India's southern state of Karnataka to set up a chip-making plant, the state government said in a statement on Sunday. The plant is to come up on a 150-acre plot on the outskirts of the royal city of Mysuru, about three hours by car south of Bengaluru.
ISMC is a joint venture between Abu Dhabi-based Next Orbit Ventures and Israel's Tower Semiconductor, which may soon be acquired by US chip giant Intel.
This plant, India’s first semiconductor fabrication unit — a 65nm analogue semiconductor foundry — is expected to generate more than 1,500 direct jobs and 10,000 indirect jobs, the Karnataka government said in its statement.
Tower Semiconductor, is the principal technology partner, with the project initially funded by Next Orbit Ventures Fund. The consortium is one of the three applicants for the $10 billion incentive package for semiconductor manufacturing that India is offering under a national semiconductor mission.
Amazon is cutting paid time off for front-line US workers who test positive for Covid-19, starting today, CNBC reports.
All US-based Amazon workers who test positive for Covid-19 will now get up to five days of excused, unpaid leave, the company told workers in a notice sent Saturday. A spokesperson told CNBC, that workers are still able to use their sick time off if needed.
Wipro will continue to look for large acquisitions in underpenetrated areas of opportunity that can be scaled even further, Economic Times reports, citing CFO Jatin Dalal.
The company has taken aggressive steps to regain revenue growth leadership under CEO Thierry Delaporte, who has spent billions of dollars buying businesses including Capco, CAS Group and Rising. Last week, the $10 billion IT services giant, India’s fourth-biggest, reported earnings matching street expectations.
Accenture has named Nick Mulcahy, the CEO of Zag, which the tech services giant acquired, as the New Zealand country managing director, elevating him from his role as head of technologies, Consultancy reports. His predecessor Ben Morgan will assume the newly-created position of New Zealand regional growth lead.
Mulcahy joined Accenture as a managing director in 2020 upon its acquisition of Wellington-headquartered Zag, a SAP and cloud consultancy, for a reported $45 million.
Rise Capital, a VC firm founded by former Tiger Global executive Nazar Yasin, has entered India, hiring Anuj Mehta as its India head, Economic Times reports. The VC firm is looking to take the seed to Series B bets on Indian startups with cheque sizes ranging from $100,000 to $10 million from its third fund, Yasin, who quit Tiger Global in 2013, told ET.
Rise Capital, which has backed companies such as Facily, Kitopi, Kueski and Gaia, has already closed two deals in India recently. It has invested in TradeX, an investment app company, and SaveIn, a neobank, as part of their larger seed stage rounds, according to ET.
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Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Meta Platforms, used her influence to bury two stories about her then-boyfriend, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, the Wall Street Journal reports. Google adds a ‘reject all’ option so users in the EU can reject all cookie tracking with one click. And HCL Tech, India’s third-biggest IT company, expects revenue growth of 12-14 percent for the current fiscal year.
Notes:
Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Meta Platforms, used her influence on two occasions to bury reporting about her then-boyfriend, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The Journal reports that, in 2016 and again in 2019, Sandberg contacted MailOnline, the online version of the UK’s Daily Mail tabloid, in an attempt to prevent it from reporting about a restraining order filed against Kotick by his ex-girlfriend. On both occasions, the story did not run. Now, Facebook is investigating the issue to see if Sandberg violated company policy.
Sandberg attained fame for her book 'Lean In' in 2013, encouraging women to fight for their rights in their careers and at home. But Kotick is under a cloud for allegedly ignoring workplace harassment at Activision Blizzard, which is at the heart of multiple lawsuits against the game studio company, according to The Verge.
Google is introducing a ‘reject all’ button in Europe, which will allow users to reject all tracking cookies with one click in the same way the ‘accept all’ button allows all cookies. Google has added this new option after the EU found its existing dialogue boxes were in violation of the region’s data laws, The Verge reports.
The new menu will appear on Google Search and YouTube if users are not signed in to an account. If they are signed in, they can adjust tracking options through Google’s data and privacy menu, according to The Verge.
HCL Technologies expects revenue to increase by 12-14 percent for the current fiscal year, India’s third-biggest IT services company, said yesterday, reporting its latest earnings results.
The billionaire Shiv Nadar’s Noida company said revenue increased 12.7 percent in constant currency to almost $11.5 billion for the year ended March 31, 2022. Sales rose 1.1 percent to just under $3 billion for the March quarter, over the previous three months.HCL Tech ended FY22 with $8.3 billion in new orders, a 14 percent increase over the previous fiscal year. The company added 39,900 new recruits for FY22, with a net addition of 11,100 to end the year with 208,877 employees. Staff churn or attrition was at 21.9 percent at the end of FY22 on a 12 months basis.
WNS, a business process management services provider, said its annual revenue crossed the billion-dollar mark during FY22. The New York-listed company yesterday reported FY22 revenues of $1.1 billion, a 21.6 percent increase.
Accenture has acquired Ergo in Argentina which helps companies tap big data, analytics and artificial intelligence. Ergo’s team of 200 data specialists will join Accenture’s data and AI team within its Cloud First unit, the company said in a press release yesterday.
Accenture has also announced its intent to acquire Greenfish, an independent engineering and advisory company specialising in sustainability consultancy services in Europe.
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Mindtree and LTI, Mumbai-listed IT services companies that are part of the Larsen & Toubro group, are in advanced merger talks, according to Bloomberg and Economic Times. A merger plan may be announced as early as next week, Bloomberg reported on April 18.
The companies have already been teaming up on larger contracts, Economic Times reported yesterday, citing Mindtree CEO Debashis Chatterjee. A merger would narrow the gap between the combined entity and Tech Mahindra, India’s fifth-biggest IT services company, by revenue. By market value, the combined entity would surpass Tech Mahindra, at current share prices.
Meanwhile, Makers Lab, the research and development arm of Tech Mahindra, has set up a Quantum Center of Excellence, called QNxt, in Helsinki, the company said in a press release. The centre will accelerate the adoption and commercialisation of quantum technologies globally.
The European Union is a step closer to mandating USB Type-C chargers across electronic devices, which will be a blow to Apple, which continues to require its proprietary lightning charger for its iPhones and iPads.
On Wednesday, the EU’s Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee adopted its position on the revised Radio Equipment Directive with 43 votes in favour and two against, according to a press release from the European Parliament.
The EU wants to have a strategy by the end of 2026 that allows for minimum interoperability of any new charging solutions.
Brave Software has released a new feature on the Brave browser, called Discussions, which will surface results from forums like Reddit, the company said in a blogpost yesterday. To find discussions, just search for what you want using Brave Search.
Ashwin Damera, Founder and CEO of Eruditus and Emeritus has invested Rs. 240 crore ($32 Million) in venture debt finance company, InnoVen Capital India Fund. The investment was made through Ashwin’s family office which is co-managed by Ashwin and his wife Bhagyashree Damera.
Loop, a Pune-based healthcare and insurance startup has raised $25 million in a Series B round co-led by General Catalyst and Elevation Capital, the company said in a press release.
Lightspeed has elevated three executives to the role of partner, on its early-stage investment advisory team, the VC firm said in a blog post on April 19. The three are Shuvi Shrivastava, who joined the firm as an associate in 2015, Pinn Lawjindakul, and Rahul Taneja, who both joined in 2020.
Shuvi was responsible for Lightspeed’s investments in startups such as Darwinbox, Uni, Pixxel, Rattle, Bhanzu, and xFlow. Pinn helped expand Lightspeed’s operations in southeast Asia and Rahul Taneja was chief business officer before being named partner, according to the post.
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Accenture has made a strategic investment, through Accenture Ventures, in Strivr, a provider of virtual reality-based, immersive learning and training solutions for enterprises, according to a press release.
Santa Clara based Strivr has trained more than one million workers at some of the world’s largest companies using its proven, proprietary immersive learning platform. Strivr’s VR training platform helps enterprises increase the efficiency and efficacy of their employee skilling and up-skilling initiatives, while also delivering data-driven insights to improve their broader enterprise talent development efforts.
Global industrial equipment and facilities distributor RS Components and Tata Consultancy Services yesterday announced RS Industria, an industrial internet of things solution, Manufacturer magazine reports.
RS Industria connects real-time factory floor data with powerful analytical capabilities that continuously support RS Components’ manufacturing customers in their maintenance and repair activities. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) platform, hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) means the industrial supplier can better support those on the factory floor.
A Pune-based labour union has raised a complaint against Infosys with the central labour ministry and sought the removal of a non-compete agreement clause in offer letters given by the the company, Economic Times reports.
Infosys’s employee agreement states that an employee shall not accept for six months an employment offer from “named competitors” such as TCS, Wipro and HCL among others if the new job involves working with a customer with whom the employee has previously worked in the preceding 12 months during their stint at Infosys, the union, Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate, said in its complaint, according to ET.
Brave, the company behind the eponymous fast-growing browser, is rolling out a new feature called De-AMP, which allows Brave users to bypass Google-hosted accelerated mobile pages, and instead visit the content’s publisher directly. AMP harms users' privacy, security and internet experience, and just as bad, AMP helps Google further monopolise and control the direction of the Web, Brave said in a blogpost.
Indian Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) startups are expected to grow 55-70 percent to clock overall revenue of $116 billion by 2026, venture capital firm Chiratae and management consultancy Zinnov said in a report, according to Economic Times.
The report, titled ‘India SaaS: Punching through the global pecking order,’ notes that overall funding for Indian SaaS startups is expected to touch $6.5 billion this year, compared with $4 billion in 2021. The report also says that the average size of investments in Indian SaaS companies grew to $56 million in 2021 from roughly $25 million in 2020, according to ET.
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Indian industry could reap benefits of up to $80 billion by participating in the global semiconductor manufacturing supply chain, by 2030, according to a report by the Indian Electronics and Semiconductor Manufacturing Association. And Wipro has recruited Satya Easwaran, a former Accenture and KPMG executive as its country head for India.
Indian industry could reap benefits of up to $80 billion by participating in the global semiconductor manufacturing supply chain, by 2030, according to a report by the Indian Electronics and Semiconductor Manufacturing Association (IESA).
According to IESA’s ‘Global Semiconductor Manufacturing Supply Chain Report,’ from $440 billion in 2020, the semiconductor manufacturing market, comprising materials, equipment and services, is likely to touch $1 trillion by 2030. The overall global opportunity across these segments is estimated to be $550-600 billion, and of that Indian industry could capture about $80 billion, IESA said in a press release.
ReshaMandi, a digital commerce platform provider for the natural fibre supply chain, has set up Asia's second-largest cocoon mandi in Ramanagara, near Bengaluru, the company said in a press release. The cutting-edge processing plant and warehouse will benefit over 30,000 sericulture farmers and serve over 6000 reelers to optimise the silk value chain and produce high-quality raw silk through data-driven interventions.
Whatfix, a digital adoption platforms provider, has acquired Leap.is, a mobile-first onboarding and assistance platform startup that brings the value of digital adoption platforms to mobile applications. The deal marks Whatfix’s first mobile DAP product-focused acquisition, as well as its largest M&A deal so far, according to a press release. Whatfix didn’t provide financial details.
Leap’s toolset will integrate with Whatfix’s existing applications by adding guidance to mobile apps to improve activations and adoption, reduce time-to-ship for onboarding experiences, and increase the customisation of user experiences overall.
UrbanPiper, a restaurant management platform provider, has raised $24 million in Series B funding led by existing investors Sequoia Capital India and Tiger Global, new investors Swiggy and Zomato, and several angel investors, according to a press release.
Founded by Saurabh Gupta, Anirban Majumdar and Manav Gupta, UrbanPiper is a B2B software platform that aims to become a single window to help restaurants run their entire operations. The Bengaluru startup is developing a suite of digital applications to ensure all the commerce workflows for a restaurant can happen seamlessly simply and intuitively.
Wipro has named Satya Easwaran as the company’s Country Head for India, leading strategic consulting, transformation and modernisation engagements, India’s fourth-biggest IT services provider said in a press release.
Satya brings global experience in leading end-to-end business transformation programmes for large enterprises in different sectors, according to Wipro. Before joining Wipro, Satya was the Head of Business Consulting and the Telecom, Media and Technology Sector Leader at KPMG India. During his tenure at KPMG, in India and the US, and at Accenture India, Satya held multiple leadership positions in management consulting, with a focus on Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), cloud, digital, and strategy and transformation.
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Apple said last week that its suppliers more than doubled their use of clean power over the last year, with more than 10 gigawatts operational now, out of nearly 16 gigawatts in total commitments in the coming years. Twitter is fighting to thwart a hostile takeover after Elon Musk offered $43 billion for it. Plus, Infosys shares fell as much as 9 percent in early Mumbai trading after a fiscal Q4 revenue miss
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Apple said last week that its suppliers more than doubled their use of clean power over the last year, with more than 10 gigawatts operational now out of nearly 16 gigawatts in total commitments in the coming years. In 2021, these renewable projects avoided 13.9 million metric tons of carbon emissions, Apple said in a press release last week.
Apple wants to become carbon neutral across its entire supply chain by 2030. The company has been carbon neutral for its own global operations since 2020, according to the release.
Twitter, which has become embroiled in a takeover war, has adopted a ‘poison pill’ resolution after Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, made a $43 billion unsolicited offer to buy the influential microblogging platform provider.
Twitter announced on Friday that if any person or group acquires beneficial ownership of at least 15 percent of the company’s outstanding common stock without the board’s approval, other shareholders will be allowed to purchase additional shares at a discount. The plan is set to expire on April 14, 2023, CNBC reports.
Musk has already purchased more than 9 percent of Twitter.
Infosys shares fell as much as 9 percent in early Mumbai trading today when markets opened after a long weekend. Investors are glum about the company’s sequential quarterly revenue miss for Q4 FY22 and its rising staff churn.
Infosys’s sales for the three months ended March 31, 2022, were at $4.28 billion, a 20.6 percent increase over the year-earlier period and a 1.2 percent increase on Q3 FY22 — missing analysts’ expectations of about 2-2.8 percent growth.
CEO Salil Parekh’s assurance that this was owing to a one-off cut back from a large client, and his confidence about robust demand ahead, doesn’t seem to have assuaged investors’ concerns, as the company’s staff churn hit 27.7 percent at the end of Q4 FY22, on an LTM basis, compared with about 17 percent for larger rival TCS.
Antler, an early-stage venture capital firm, has launched a cohort-based programme for aspiring entrepreneurs in India, called the Antler India Residency, Economic Times reports.
Antler expects 8-10 companies to be born out of each cohort, which will have the chance to receive $270,000 each for a nine percent stake. The funds will help new startups make at least five-six iterations of an early product-market fit, Srivatsa told ET.
Rapido, a bike taxi platform provider, has raised $180 million in Series D funding, led by new investor Swiggy. The round also saw investment from TVS Motor Company, along with existing investors, Westbridge, Shell Ventures, and Nexus Ventures, the company said in a press release.
Observe.AI, which provides an intelligent workforce platform for contact centres, has raised $125 million in Series C funding led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 with participation from Zoom, the company said in a press release.
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Infosys yesterday reported revenues increased by nearly 20 percent last fiscal year, the highest growth since the fiscal year 2010-11, and forecast growth of between 13 percent and 15 percent for the year that started this month. The rate at which people are leaving and switching jobs remains the biggest concern at a time of strong demand in the $227 billion IT services industry.
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Infosys yesterday reported revenues increased by nearly 20 percent last fiscal year, the highest growth in 11 years, and forecast growth of between 13 percent and 15 percent for the year that started this month.
Revenues touched $16.3 billion for the year ended March 31, 2022, which was a 19.7 percent increase in constant currency, matching the 19.5-20 percent range the company had forecast in January. Earnings per share increased 14.3 percent and free cash flow was more than $3 billion at the end of the year.
“We’ve had an exceptional year … we are gaining market share, we’re building on our leadership in cloud and digital, and we’re working more closely with clients on their transformation programmes,” CEO Salil Parekh told reporters at a press conference in Bengaluru yesterday.
Revenues from services related to digital technologies now account for almost 60 percent of Infosys’s sales, and sales of digital tech services grew by more than 41 percent in FY22. And within digital, cloud services are growing faster. The company’s suite of cloud-based services, called Cobalt, is seeing strong traction, Parekh added.
Infosys’s sales for the fiscal fourth quarter were at $4.28 billion, which was a 20.6 percent increase over the year-earlier period and a 1.2 percent increase on the December quarter. The sequential increase missed analysts’ expectations of about 2-2.8 percent growth, owing to a one-off cutback from a large client.
Infosys, India’s second-biggest software services provider, ended the year with $9.5 billion in the total contract value of large orders — meaning those that are each worth $50 million or more over the life of the contract. TCV for Q4 was $2.3 billion.
Larger rival TCS reported on April 11 that its revenues for the year ended March 31, 2022, rose $3.53 billion, the biggest incremental increase in the company’s history, to touch $25.7 billion, a 15.4 percent increase over the previous fiscal year, in constant currency.
The high rate at which employees are leaving and switching jobs is the biggest concern in the IT services industry today. Infosys has one of the highest rates of this churn, among the top IT providers from India. Attrition at the company kicked up to 27.7 percent at the end of Q4 from 25.5 percent at the end of December. It was only about 11 percent a year ago when uncertainties due to the Covid pandemic were still high.
Today, as the world’s biggest markets return to growth, demand for talent in the IT sector has soared, and churn has surged. The increase in the rate of attrition is also due to how it is calculated, in terms of the 12 months including the reporting period. The rate has begun to come down in more recent months, Infosys CFO Nilanjan Roy told reporters yesterday.
The company hired 85,000 people in FY22, including 22,000 in Q4, with a net addition of 54,396 over the year, to end with 314,015 employees as of March 31, 2022. Infosys is starting the current year with a target of 50,000 recruits. Third-ranked HCL Technologies reports its earnings on April 21 and Wipro, the fourth-biggest Indian IT vendor, will report its earnings on April 29.
Infosys press release
https://shrtm.nu/U0FP
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Tata Consultancy Services reported the highest incremental revenue in the company’s history, for the fiscal year 2022. Revenues for the year ended March 31, 2022, rose $3.53 billion to $25.7 billion, a 15.4 percent increase over the previous fiscal year, in constant currency, TCS said in a statement yesterday after markets. Meanwhile, Wipro is doubling down on its acquisition strategy under CEO Thierry Delaporte.
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Tata Consultancy Services reported the highest incremental revenue in the company’s history, announcing its latest earnings results, after markets yesterday. Revenues for the year ended March 31, 2022, rose $3.53 billion to $25.7 billion, a 15.4 percent increase over the previous fiscal year, in constant currency.
Revenue for the three months ended March 31 rose 14.3 percent in constant currency terms to $6.7 billion, TCS said in a press release. That is a 2.6 percent from $6.5 billion for the December quarter, matching Street expectations. TCS shares were little changed in early Mumbai trading this morning.
TCS and other large IT services providers are benefitting from clients prioritising their tech budgets, after the Covid-19 pandemic, CEO Rajesh Gopinathan told reporters in Mumbai, in the company’s first in-person earnings press conference in two years. Sales were led by demand in America, the company’s biggest market, and a return to business among retailers, one of the most affected segments during the worst of the pandemic.
TCS, India’s largest software services provider, ended the fiscal year with an order book of almost $35 billion, including the biggest total contract value accumulated in any one quarter, at $11.3 billion in Q4. The company won two very large orders in Q4 that were worth almost a billion dollars each, over the life of the contract, Gopinathan said.
At the end of Q4 FY22, amid an intensifying war for talent, TCS saw staff churn increase by about 200 basis points from the previous quarter to 17.4 percent on a leading twelve months basis, and it will get worse in the short term Gopinathan warned. The company ended FY22 with 592,195 employees, with a net addition of 103,546 staff, as against a target of 40,000 recruits at the beginning of the fiscal year.
Infosys, India’s second-biggest software services provider, is expected to report its Q4 FY22 earnings tomorrow after markets.
Meanwhile, Wipro is doubling down on its acquisition strategy, as CEO Thierry Delaporte is attempting to drag the Bengaluru company back to growth that can be compared favourably with larger rivals Infosys and TCS.
Wipro yesterday announced that it has acquired Convergence Acceleration Solutions (CAS Group), a US-based consulting and programme management company that specialises in large-scale business and technology transformation for the world’s biggest communications service providers.
Wipro CEO Delaporte has been acquiring companies to consolidate and deepen Wipro’s ability to deliver large scale transformation projects for clients in multiple verticals. A year ago, Wipro acquired Capco, a fintech consultancy for $1.45 billion in its largest acquisition. Wipro didn’t provide financial details of the CAS Group purchase, which is smaller, and which brings about 138 consultants into the company’s fold.
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India will soon roll out new rules called the Digital India Act, which will be a “renewed policy for the digital ecosystem and cyberspace” in the country, Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar said over the weekend, Economic Times reports. Meanwhile, startups in the country received more than $10 billion in funding for the third straight quarter, Press Trust reports, citing PwC. Plus, Nissan is stepping up its solid-state batteries plan.
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India will soon roll out new rules under a Digital India Act, which will be a “renewed policy for the digital ecosystem and cyberspace” in the country, Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar said over the weekend, Economic Times reports.
Chandrasekhar was speaking at the inauguration of Bennett University’s Centre for Law and Computing Technology on Saturday. India’s internet rules currently stem from the country’s Information Technology Act, which is more than two decades old. On the internet, that’s like four or five centuries, the minister pointed out.
The central government has just unveiled the national data governance framework and policy that is undergoing public consultation. It will shortly be rolling out cybersecurity policies and guidelines, and very soon after that the government will be working on a new Digital India Act, he said, according to ET.
Tata Sons has infused Rs. 5,882 crore into its flagship e-commerce unit Tata Digital, Economic Times reports, citing regulatory filings from the salt-to-steel conglomerate. This is the highest ever fund allocation in a single tranche and the most that the Tatas have invested into e-commerce in any single fiscal year, according to ET.
The latest funding takes the total investment in Tata Digital to Rs. 11,872 crore in 2021-22, according to the ET report.
India’s startup ecosystem received more than $10 billion in investments during the first three months of 2022, the third consecutive quarter to see such inflow, Press Trust of India reports, citing accounting firm PwC. The quarter also saw 14 new unicorns, meaning startups being privately valued at more than $1 billion each.
The January to March period this year saw 334 funding deals, and the 14 new unicorns take the total to 84 such companies in India, Press Trust reports.
Total fund inflow in Q1 was $10.8 billion, with more than a third of that going to software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies. The SaaS sector also accounted for the most unicorns, at five out of the 14.
Nissan last week unveiled its prototype production facility for laminated all-solid-state battery cells, which the company aims to bring to market in 2028, the Japanese carmaker said in a press release. This prototype facility, within the Nissan Research Center in Kanagawa Prefecture, is aimed at further promoting the development of all-solid-state batteries.
Under its long-term plan, Nissan Ambition 2030, the company aims to launch an EV with all-solid-state batteries developed in-house by fiscal 2028. It plans to establish a pilot production line at its Yokohama Plant in the fiscal year 2024, with materials, design and manufacturing processes for prototype production on the line to be studied at the production facility.
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Peter Kalmus, a NASA scientist who studies biological systems and climate change, and three others were arrested in Los Angeles on Wednesday after chaining themselves to the doors of a Chase Bank office building, Business Insider reports.
JPMorgan Chase has invested more money in fossil fuels than any other bank, according to a 2020 report from the Sierra Club and other climate advocacy organisations. In addition to calling for immediate action to address the climate crisis, the protestors were calling for the bank to divest from coal, oil, and gas, according to Insider.
The actions of Kalmus and his companions were part of more than a dozen protests staged in cities across the globe this week. This week's protests followed the release of the United Nations' latest climate report.
Amazon is planning to object to the results of the election where workers at a New York warehouse voted to organise with the Amazon Labor Union, according to a deadline extension request the company filed with the National Labor Relations Board, according to The Verge.
Infosys and Rolls-Royce yesterday inaugurated their joint ‘Aerospace Engineering and Digital Innovation Centre’ in Bengaluru. This centre has been established to provide high-end research and development services integrated with advanced digital capabilities to Rolls-Royce’s engineering and group business services from India.
Infosys and Rolls-Royce have agreements on strategic collaborations over the next seven years, India’s second-biggest software services company said in a press release.
Elevation Capital, the early-stage investor that has backed startups such as Swiggy, Paytm, Urban Company and Meesho, has closed its eighth, and largest, India-dedicated fund at $670 million, Economic Times reports. Elevation will look to deploy the money over the next three years.
Unacademy, an ed-tech unicorn that was valued at $3.4 billion last year, has laid off around 1,000 employees in the past few weeks, Economic Times reports. These include on-roll staff and teachers on contract. Around 600 people were fired last week as Unacademy, backed by investors including Softbank Group and Temasek, looks to cut costs amid an impending slowdown in venture funding.
Instoried, a user-friendly, intuitive web platform designed to help people craft empathetic and more effective written content, has signed an agreement with GEM Global Yield, an alternative investment group for a share subscription facility of up to $200 million, to be drawn at the option of the company, for a 36-month term following a public listing.
Omega Seiki Mobility and Log9 Materials have teamed up to deploy 10,000 3-Wheeler Rage+ Rapid EVs in Tier II and III markets of India over the next two years. Supporting these 3W EV Cargo Loaders will be Log9’s InstaCharging stations that charge a 3W completely within 35 minutes, Log9 said in a press release.
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VerSe Innovation, a local language technology platform company in Bengaluru, has raised $805 million in fresh funding, the company said in a press release. This investment follows the $650 million the company raised last year, taking the total capital raised in the past year to about $1.5 billion. The investment is said to have valued VerSe at $5 billion.
Twitter has begun testing an edit button allowing users to alter published tweets, and Hypebeast reports. The company revealed the news on Tuesday, saying that it’s been “working on an edit feature since last year.”
Twitter went on to clarify that it didn’t get the idea from a poll, a reference to its newest stakeholder Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, who recently posted a poll asking users if they wanted an edit button. While the decision isn’t entirely up to Musk, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal retweeted his poll and added that “the consequences of this poll will be important,” according to Hypebeast.
Microsoft has elevated its Garage project Journal, a note-taking app designed for styluses and pens, into a full-fledged product now called Microsoft Journal, the company said on Tuesday, The Verge reports.
The app offers “a delightful freeform personal note-taking experience that lets you take notes and reason through ink,” Microsoft’s Renee Malone said in a blog post. The app lets you write and draw like many other note-taking apps, but it also supports gestures like scratching out words to erase them and circling words or phrases to select them.
Journal can also be used to mark up PDFs, a popular feature, according to The Verge.
Spending on AI systems in the Asia Pacific region will almost double from $17.6 billion in 2022 to around $32 billion in 2025, IDC said in a press release. Over the next five years, the banking industry will continue to invest the most in AI solutions, according to IDC. Hardware will be the leading technology, accounting for more than 49.8 percent of AI spending; the largest areas of investment will be in servers, accounting for more than 84 percent of total spending, while the rest will go toward storage, according to the release.
Two notebooks that belonged to Charles Darwin that were reported stolen from Cambridge University's library have been returned, two decades after they disappeared, Associated Press reports.
The notebooks, which include the 19th-century scientist's famous 1837 "Tree of Life" sketch, went missing in 2001 after being removed for photographing. At the time, staff believed they might have been misplaced. However, after searches of the library's collection of 10 million books, maps, and manuscripts failed to find the books, they were reported stolen to police in October 2020.
Associated Press reports that Cambridge university said on Tuesday that the manuscripts were left in the library inside a pink gift bag, along with a note wishing the librarian a Happy Easter.
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Speciale Invest, a VC firm in Chennai that focuses on early-stage deep tech ventures in India, has announced the final close of its second fund at $38 million. The fund was oversubscribed twice over since the firm announced its first close in April last year.
“This fund is 4X our first fund, and we are excited to play an active role in influencing the deep-tech entrepreneurial ecosystem in India,” Vishesh Rajaram and Arjun Rao, who founded Speciale in 2017, told Forbes India.
They have backed entrepreneurs in areas including enterprise software products emerging from deep tech in the cloud, voice and vision ML/AI, image analytics, AR/VR; and industrial hardware products in propulsion technologies, robotics, rocket engines, lithium technologies, microelectronics and optical communications.
Gupshup, a conversational engagement platform company, has acquired Active.Ai, a conversational AI platform provider to banks and fintech companies. The acquisition strengthens Gupshup’s customer experience (CX) solutions for BFSI customers, it said in a press release.
CynLr, a deep-tech startup developing a computer-vision-enabled robot to make ‘universal factories’ of the future a possibility, has raised $4.5 million in fresh funding. CynLr’s Visual-Robot Platform eliminates the trap of machinery customisation. CynLr envisions its Visual-Robots or Object Computers to ‘simplify’ manufacturing, just as the computers simplified data processing.
CynLr will be establishing its business presence in the US, expanding its team and building capacity to address the current pipeline of customers and deliver 100 Robots annually, the company said in a press release.
Futwork, a sales-as-a-service platform for companies looking to scale their outbound tele-calling operations, has raised $1 million in funding led by Blume Ventures and Simile Venture Partners. Other participants include Silicon Valley-based Riverside Ventures and various angel investors.
PhonePe plans to double its employee strength this year. The digital payments unit of Walmart’s Indian ecommerce business Flipkart, said in a press release. The company plans to fill 2,800 vacancies in engineering, product development, analytics, business development, and sales. The jobs are based in Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai, Delhi, and other parts of the country.
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Pixxel, a space-technology startup in Bengaluru, has launched its first commercial imaging satellite to space. The company launched its first full-fledged commercial satellite, named Shakuntala (Technology Demonstrator-2) onboard a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket on April 1, according to a press release.
Weighing less than 15 kg, Shakuntala (TD-2) is capable of capturing orbital images in more than 150 bands of colour from the visible and infrared spectrum with a resolution of 10-meters per pixel — far exceeding the specificity of 30-meter per pixel hyperspectral cameras on satellites from NASA, ESA, and ISRO, according to Pixxel’s release.
This launch also comes on the heels of Pixxel’s $25 million Series A funding from Radical Ventures, Seraphim Space Capital, Relativity Space co-founder Jordan Noone, Lightspeed Partners, Blume Ventures, and Sparta LLC among others. More than 50 customers have also signed pre-launch agreements with Pixxel from sectors including agriculture, oil and gas, mining, and climate monitoring.
Infosys, India’s second-biggest IT services company, will release its fiscal fourth-quarter results on April 13, for the year ended March 31, 2022 (FY22). The Bangalore headquartered company’s results are expected after markets in Mumbai, at around 4 p.m. IST, on the day.
Expectations are high that Infosys will continue to accelerate its growth on the back of the strong demand for digital transformation projects as its customers around the world invest more in shifting workloads to the cloud, and embrace technology for a secure, hybrid workplace.
In January, Infosys projected that it expects full-year revenues to increase by between 19.5 percent and 20 percent for FY22. Larger rival Accenture projected last month that it expects to grow revenues for its current fiscal year that ends on August 31, in the range of 24-26 percent, in local currency.
Ather Energy, an electric scooter maker in Bangalore, sold 2,591 scooters in March, posting a 120 percent increase from the same period last year, according to the company’s monthly sales report. Ather is also expanding its sales network, having added four new showrooms, including in Guwahati, Vijayawada, Tirupathi, and the third one in Bangalore.
The company has previously said that it is currently fulfilling only a fraction of its orders due to a component shortage. It has also recently tied up with contract manufacturer Foxconn, to help ramp up production of its Ather 450 series of scooters.
Atlassian, which makes cloud software for collaboration, expects to expand its venture fund to support more SaaS startups that are looking to work with its products and platform, including in India, the Nasdaq-listed Australian company said in a press release last week. Atlassian has a global R&D centre in Bangalore with more than 1,000 engineers.
Over the last 18 months, the company has committed $110 million to Atlassian Ventures, and invested in 30 startups, according to the release.
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Roughly $625 million worth of cryptocurrency has been stolen from Ronin, the blockchain underlying the popular crypto game Axie Infinity, The Verge reports. A research team at Korea University has developed a software program that uses machine learning to determine the best way to treat soil with biochar, or thermally decomposed biowaste, to trap heavy metals. Plus, a raft of funding news.
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Roughly $625 million worth of cryptocurrency has been stolen from Ronin, the blockchain underlying the popular crypto game Axie Infinity, The Verge reports. Ronin and Axie Infinity operator Sky Mavis revealed the breach on Tuesday and froze transactions on the Ronin bridge, which allows depositing and withdrawing funds from the company’s blockchain.
A research team at Korea University has developed a software program that uses machine learning to determine the best way to treat soil with biochar, or thermally decomposed biowaste, to contain heavy metals and prevent them from moving up the food chain.
This work is significant because it can help improve the effectiveness of soil treatment with biochar to reduce or contain land pollution.
The machine-learning-based method has been developed by a team led by Yong Sik Ok and Kumuduni N. Palansooriya from Korea University. Their findings were recently published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.
Citymall, a local community-based ecommerce platform provider, has raised $75 million in Series C funding led by Norwest Venture Partners, Economic Times reported. The round values Citymall at around $350 million, according to ET. Citymall will use the money to add categories and locations and strengthen its back-end technology.
Classplus, a B2B ed-tech startup that helps educators and content creators launch and scale their online coaching businesses, has raised $70 million in a Series D round co-led by Alpha Wave Global and Tiger Global, the Noida company said in a press release. This new round follows a $65 million Series C investment in June 2021.
The latest investment values Classplus — founded in 2018 by Mukul Rustagi and Bhaswat Agarwal — at nearly $600 million.
LambdaTest, a cloud-based test orchestration platform provider, has closed a $45 million venture round, led by Premji Invest with participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital India, Telstra Ventures, Blume Ventures, and Leo Capital, the Silicon Valley and Noida company said in a press release.
LambdaTest expects to mostly use this money for new product innovation. It is also looking to add multiple roles and in multiple locations.
Cloaked, a Boston startup that allows users to generate unique email addresses and phone numbers when creating online accounts has secured $25 million in Series A funding, TechCrunch reports.
Founded in 2020 by brothers Arjun and Abhijay Bhatnagar, Cloaked allows privacy-conscious individuals to create unique identifiers. The service, available as an app and a browser extension, creates “cloaked” identities — such as emails, phone numbers, passwords and credit card numbers — that can be unique to any given online service, according to TechCrunch.
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Apple plans to make about 20 percent fewer iPhone SEs next quarter than originally planned, in one of the first signs that the Ukraine war and looming inflation have started to dent consumer electronics demand, Nikkei Asia reports. HCL Technologies has been selected to provide global service desk and on-site support to Danish pharma company Novo Nordisk. Plus, Chalo, a bus-ride app provider, has acquired Vogo, a bike-rental provider.
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Apple plans to make about 20 percent fewer iPhone SEs next quarter than originally planned, Nikkei Asia reports. Apple launched the iPhone SE as its first 5G-capable budget phone less than three weeks ago but is now telling multiple suppliers that it aims to lower production orders by about 2 million to 3 million units for the quarter.
Apple also reduced orders for its AirPods earphones by more than 10 million units for all of 2022, according to the report.
HCL Technologies, India’s third-biggest IT services company, has been selected to provide global service desk and on-site support to Danish pharma company Novo Nordisk, according to a press release. Through the partnership, HCL will help Novo Nordisk transform its IT operations and create world-class end-user experiences and drive efficiency across its workforce.
Genpact, a professional services provider focused on delivering digital transformation, has been recognised as one of the most ethical companies in 2022, by Ethisphere, a leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices, according to a press release. This is the fourth year that Ethisphere has recognised Genpact.
Amazon India will host the third edition of ‘Amazon Smbhav’ on May 18 and 19 this year. The two-day virtual summit will bring together policymakers, industry leaders, solution providers, startups and Amazon executives to discuss ways to bring online small local stores and businesses across India.
Loco, a game streaming platform, has secured Rs. 330 crore ($42 Million) in series A investment led by Hashed, with participation from Makers Fund, Catamaran Ventures, and Korea Investment Partners. All the investors from the company’s seed round including Krafton, Lumikai, and Hiro Capital also participated in this round. Loco will use the money to develop its tech and content further.
Chalo, a bus transport app provider, has acquired Vogo, a tech-enabled shared mobility startup that offered bike rides booked over a mobile app. Vogo will augment Chalo’s bus technology services by facilitating first and the last mile rides at major bus stops and other public places. This will help bus users to easily travel to and from bus stops, and further boost bus ridership as it becomes more convenient to take a bus.
Postman, an API platform provider, plans to open an API Lab at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, the alma mater of the company’s founders, to promote API literacy amongst students and aspiring developers as APIs become more critical in today’s digital world. The lab is set to open in December.
Paperplane, a Bangalore-based digital clinic, backed by 100X.VC, has raised nearly $400,000 in a follow-on funding round that was led by Cornerstone Venture Partners, while the rest included LV Angel Fund and other seed investors. Paperplane helps doctors and patients connect online more effectively, according to a press release.
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Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of Tesla and SpaceX, ranked “artificial intelligence going wrong” as one of the top three “existential threats” to humanity, Insider reports. The European Space Agency is funding a project called Camaliot to conduct scientific experiments on big data, collected from GPS receivers including smartphones. Plus, several Indian founders have banded up to start a pre-seed-stage fund.
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Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of Tesla and SpaceX, ranked “artificial intelligence going wrong” as one of the top three “existential threats” to humanity, Insider reports.
Musk, the richest man in the world who aspires to build a home for humans on Mars, said he fears religious extremism, a declining birthrate, and artificial intelligence going wrong. The declining birthrate in countries like the US is also a cause for concern, Musk said, adding he didn’t see it turning around, according to Insider.
The European Space Agency is funding a project called Camaliot to build the infrastructure for ingesting large volumes of observations from various kinds of GPS-capable receivers, including mobile phones, according to the project’s website.
With the proliferation of smartphones, wearables and the Internet of Things, observations acquired from such devices will become the next big data source. Therefore, the Camaliot project is laying the groundwork for exploiting this rapidly increasing source of data, according to the website.
Apple paid out special engineering bonuses worth up to $200,000 to retain top talent, Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman reports in his popular Power On newsletter. For the second time in three months, Apple is paying out special one-time retention bonuses. Last time, the bonuses went to select engineers in Apple’s virtual and augmented reality and chip engineering departments.
This time they went to some hardware and software engineers. The idea is to keep employees happy at a time of rising inflation, increased recruiting from rivals like Facebook owner Meta Platforms, and a move to get working-at-home staff back into offices, according to Gurman.
Google released a Chrome update for Windows, Mac, and Linux on Friday last that fixes a zero-day vulnerability, Android Police reports. In a Chrome Releases Blog post Google explains that there is one security update in the release, for zero-day exploit CVE-2022-1096, first reported to the company by an anonymous tip on March 23.
This particular vulnerability is a weakness in Chrome's JavaScript engine that can be used by hackers to inject their code into your browser. Google has said hackers have already exploited this weakness, according to Android Police.
Founders of Meesho, Rivigo, Lead School, NoBroker, and Cars24 are among the entrepreneurs and senior executives at several startups in India who have come together to launch Bharat Founders Fund, which will invest in pre-seed-stage ventures, Economic Times reports.
Some 65 founders are investing through the fund, which has made 20 investments so far. The fund will typically invest $100,000 to $200,000 in the pre-seed stage, including in entrepreneurs who’ve just started out with an idea, according to ET.
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Bharat Electronics and Airports Authority of India have entered into an agreement for the joint, indigenous development of systems for air traffic management and surface movement of aircraft at airports in the country, which were hitherto being imported. IBM has announced a collaboration with the Department of School Education, in the northeastern state of Nagaland, to introduce the IBM STEM for Girls programme.
Police in Britain have arrested seven people over suspected connections to the Lapsus$ hacking group, which has in recent weeks targeted tech giants including Samsung, Nvidia, Microsoft and Okta, TechCrunch reports.“The City of London Police has been conducting an investigation with its partners into members of a hacking group. Seven people between the ages of 16 and 21 have been arrested in connection with this investigation and have all been released under investigation. Our enquiries remain ongoing,” the London Police said in a statement to TechCrunch.
Bharat Electronics Limited and the Airports Authority of India have entered into an agreement for the joint, indigenous development of systems for air traffic management and surface movement of aircraft at airports in the country, which were hitherto being imported, BEL said in a press release. Under this Agreement, BEL and AAI will jointly develop a Civil Air Traffic Management System with Advanced-Surface Movement Guidance and Control System, a complex ground surveillance system that manages air traffic at airports and in Indian Civil Airspace for the safe operation of flights from take-off to landing.
IBM has announced a collaboration with the Department of School Education, in the northeastern state of Nagaland, to introduce the IBM STEM for Girls program in more than 250 secondary and higher secondary schools across 15 districts in the State, the company said in a press release. This program will help more than 12,000 girls studying between eighth and 10th grade.
Netcore Cloud, a SaaS company in the area of customer communication, engagement, and retention, has invested close to $100 million to acquire a majority stake in Unbxd Inc., a US-based, search-personalisation technology company, according to a press release. It will also be infusing additional funding into Unbxd to propel the company's growth in developed markets.
Bolt, an EV Infrastructure Provider, has installed 10,000 charging stations in India in the past six months, the company said in a press release. The company wants to install a million charging stations in 500 cities across India and other emerging markets. Bolt is on track to deploy 100,000 charging points in the next six months in cities including Jaipur, Nagpur, Nashik, Chandigarh, Surat, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Bhubaneswar and Vijayawada.
Ather Energy, an electric scooter maker in Bangalore, has partnered with HDFC Bank and IDFC First bank to provide easy financing options to its consumers, the company said in a press release. These partnerships will allow Ather Energy customers to get instant loans from HDFC and IDFC First banks at low interest rates and with a maximum LTV (Loan-to-value). Ather Energy customers have preferred a 95 percent LTV option while choosing a financing option, with 2-3 years being the most preferred duration to repay the loan, according to the press release.
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A cyberattack in January on Okta, a company that provides network access to its customers, may have been more severe than it originally thought, BBC reports. Oxyzo Financial Services, a tech-enabled smart financing solution provider, has raised $200 million in Series A funding. Plus, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw has been named to Scotland’s Royal Society of Edinburgh.
A cyberattack in January on Okta, a company that provides network access to its customers, may have been more severe than it originally thought, BBC reports. Hundreds of organisations that rely on Okta to provide access to their networks may have been affected by the cyberattack by the gang called Lapsus$.
Okta said the "worst-case" was 366 of its clients had been affected and their "data may have been viewed or acted upon." Its shares fell 9 percent on the news. Okta has more than 15,000 clients. Okta had initially said the attack involved a third-party contractor, a "sub-processor", and "the matter was investigated and contained”.
Oxyzo Financial Services, a tech-enabled smart financing solution provider, has raised $200 million in Series A funding from investors including Alpha Wave and Matrix Partners India, Tiger Global, Norwest Venture Partners and Creation Investments.
It has grown to an AuM of $350 million with 100 percent Y-o-Y growth while maintaining its GNPA at 1.2 percent, even through the Covid-19 period.
Icertis, a cloud software provider for contract lifecycle management, has released an AI Studio, a self-serve, self-learning cognitive tool. AI Studio utilises artificial intelligence models to analyse large sets of documents and generate contract intelligence for real-time insights and decision making. AI Studio’s availability coincides with the latest release of the company’s ICI platform.
The traditional PC market (Desktops, Notebooks, and Workstations) in the Asia/Pacific (including Japan and China) region posted a 15.9 percent year-over-year increase in 2021, reaching 120.3 million units, according to the International Data Corporation’s Quarterly Personal Computing Devices Tracker, Q4 2021. PC shipments are expected to remain robust in 2022—following a strong 2021 that experienced better supply and solid demand for PCs, IDC said in a press release.
Capco, a global management and technology consultancy, has announced it is undertaking a major recruitment drive in India to meet the rising demand for its services from locally-based global financial services institutions, the Wipro company said in a press release.
As these clients continue to focus on optimising customer experiences, operating models and internal automation, Capco is looking to fill over 500 roles in the coming months in a broad range of specialist areas across consulting, data, digital and technology. The roles are variously based in Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, and Chennai.
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Executive Chairperson of Biocon and Biocon Biologics, has been elected as the Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland’s National Academy established in 1783, for the advancement of learning and useful knowledge, the company said in a press release.
Kiran will be joining RSE’s current Fellowship of around 1,700 Fellows who are recognised for their accomplishments in physical and life sciences, arts, humanities, social sciences, education, professions, industry, business and public life.
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Google’s parent Alphabet’s quantum technology unit, Sandbox, is spinning off into an independent company, the company said yesterday, CNBC reports. A few of Apple’s services experienced another outage yesterday, just one day after various services and online infrastructure went offline on Monday, The Verge reports. Plus, Mfine has added blood pressure and glucose monitoring features to its mobile app.
Infosys has been recognised as one of athe World’s Most Ethical Companies for 2022, the second year in a row, by Ethisphere Institute, which works in the area of defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices. A clarification on disallowing offset of loss against profit in crypto transactions in India has caused much consternation among startups, TechCrunch reports. Plus, ecommerce automation SaaS company CommerceIQ turns unicorn.
Infosys has been recognised as one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies for 2022, the second year in a row, by Ethisphere Institute, which works in the area of defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices. It is also the only company from India, and one of four such honourees globally, in the software and services industry, the company said in a press release. In 2022, 136 honourees were recognised from 22 countries and across 45 industries.
India’s proposed taxation law of virtual digital assets won’t permit individuals to offset the loss from one asset against the profit of another, the Ministry of Finance said on Monday, causing dismay among the country’s crypto startups, TechCrunch reports.
This move is “detrimental for India’s crypto industry and the millions who have invested in this emerging asset class,” Ashish Singhal, co-founder and CEO of CoinSwitch, one of India’s largest crypto exchanges, said in an email.
CommerceIQ, which helps retailers automate various ecommerce processes, has raised $115 million in a funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, at a value of more than $1 billion, making it the 12th Indian startup unicorn of this year, Economic Times reports.
Qualcomm has launched a Snapdragon Metaverse Fund, established to invest up to $100 million in developers and companies building unique, immersive XR experiences, as well as associated core augmented reality and related artificial intelligence technologies, the company said in a press release.
nurture.farm, a digital platform for sustainable agriculture, has generated and forward-sold 20,000 carbon credits through its alternate wetting and drying and dry seeded rice project, the company said in a press release. Its benefits included 15-30 percent of water savings, according to the release.
Snowflake, a data cloud provider, has launched a healthcare and life sciences data cloud to offer customers a single, integrated, and cross-cloud data platform that eliminates technical and institutional data silos.
PhonePe, a payments platform provider that is part of Walmart’s Flipkart unit, has acquired GigIndia, a network for freelancers, to help corporates and enterprises acquire more customers and scale up their distribution channels, the company said in a press release.
Bizongo, a B2B trade enablement platform provider, has acquired Mumbai based IoT and location services provider Clean Slate Technologie. Bizongo aims to equip more than 100 Indian factories with its IoT powered cloud factory solution by 2023.
PolygonLEAP 2021 Accelerator has announced its first cohort of 31 startups. It will support the 31 solutions, selected from over 270 applicants globally, in building their innovative decentralised ideas in the boot camp phase.
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Reliance Retail, part of the Reliance Industries conglomerate, is acquiring an 89 percent stake in direct-to-consumer brand Clovia for $125 million. Indian Institute of Science has entered into an MoU with Ajit Isaac, founder and chairman of Quess Corp, and his wife Sarah Isaac, for establishing a Centre for Public Health at the IISc campus. Plus, Sri Lankan Cricketer Mahela Jayawardene co-founds a cyber security venture.
Reliance Retail, part of the Reliance Industries conglomerate, is acquiring an 89 percent stake in direct-to-consumer brand Clovia for $125 million as the largest Indian retail chain looks to expand its footprints in the apparel and innerwear categories, TechCrunch reports.
Eight-year-old Clovia, which operates a ‘bridge-to-premium D2C brand’ and sells over 3,500 products across innerwear and loungewear categories for millennial women, had raised about $25.8 million before Sunday’s announcement.
India’s Income Tax Department has found and seized “a large number of incriminating pieces of evidence” that reveals a Pune and Thane-based unicorn startup, referring to Infra.Market, “booked bogus purchases” and disclosed an additional income of more than $29.4 million, TechCrunch reports.
Infra.Market’s investors include Tiger Global, Nexus Venture Partners and Accel, and is valued at $2.5 billion. The startup helps construction and real estate companies procure materials and handle logistics for their projects.
The company “made huge unaccounted cash expenditure and obtained accommodation entries, aggregating to the tune of over Rs 400 crore ($52.7 million),” the department said in a statement, according to TechCrunch.
The Indian Institute of Science has entered into an MoU with Ajit Isaac, founder and chairman of Quess Corp, and his wife Sarah Isaac, for establishing a Centre for Public Health at the IISc campus.
The Isaacs have committed a sum of Rs. 105 crore towards setting up this Centre, which will be called the Isaac Centre for Public Health (ICPH), and will be a part of the postgraduate Medical School, soon to be established on campus. The Centre will be operational by 2024.
Sri Lankan cricketer Mahela Jayawardene has teamed up with technology entrepreneurs Chandita Samaranayake and Stefano Harding, to co-found Dygisec, a Singapore based cyber security company, according to a press release from the company.
With operations in Sri Lanka, Singapore, the US, and with plans to expand into Australia and the UK, Dygisec will offer its agent-less, data-driven cloud compliance policy engine called Triton.
The company also plans to form a Cloud Security Academy to train and certify 5,000 cloud security experts representing women, financially-challenged and differently-abled individuals in Sri Lanka over the next three years.
Loop, a startup building a user research tool for software product development teams, has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding led by VC firm Speciale Invest. Additional funding for the startup, founded by Kritika Oberoi and Akash Tandon, is coming from First Cheque, angel investors and a grant from Sequoia Capital India as part of the Sequoia Spark program.
Looppanel allows product and design teams to analyse and share insights from Zoom-based user interviews in minutes. Product managers and designers can quickly test their assumptions and prototypes with their own customers.
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Wipro and Pandorum Technologies, a biotechnology company working in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, have teamed up to develop technologies that shorten time-to-market and maximise patient outcomes during R&D and clinical trials of regenerative medicine; Walmart Global Tech and IIT Madras will collaborate on research, and continued education for Walmart associates; And Blinkit raises money from Zomato, ET reports.
Wipro and Pandorum Technologies, a biotechnology company working in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, have teamed up to develop technologies that shorten time-to-market and maximise patient outcomes during R&D and clinical trials of regenerative medicine, India’s fourth biggest IT services company said in a press release yesterday.
Walmart Global Tech is partnering Indian Institute of Technology Madras to accelerate research in new areas of technology, provide Walmart associates with continuing education and collaborate on projects for Corporate Social Responsibility for their India operations, the retail giant said in a press release.
IITM students and WGT associates will work on research projects together, facilitated by the Centre for Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research (IC&SR) at IITM.
Blinkit (formerly Grofers), has closed an additional $100 million in financing as a part of its ongoing fundraise, Economic Times reports. The funds are being raised through convertible notes from Zomato, which will later be converted into equity, according to ET. This is a part of a larger $400-million funding Blinkit is looking to raise from Zomato and other investors, which is expected to close in the next two quarters, according to ET.
Ninjacart, an agri-platform provider, has acquired Tecxprt, a company with expertise in integrating cloud software. Ninjacart didn’t provide any financial details.
Ambee, an environmental intelligence company that supplies hyperlocal environmental data in real-time, has launched ‘SmartFarming Data’, a new offering that brings data science techniques to farmers and agribusinesses to improve the health of their farms.
‘SmartFarming Data’ by Ambee will help farmers understand their farms better, mitigate the impact of climate change on agriculture, take measures to monitor and mitigate soil degradation, and increase agricultural productivity using environmental data, according to a press release.
Loco, a game streaming startup, has raised $42 million as it looks to build what it has described to some investors as “Twitch for India,” TechCrunch reports.
The startup — run by Anirudh Pandita and Ashwin Suresh, who previously co-founded content platform Pocket Aces — has raised about $51 million to date. Pocket Aces acquired Loco in 2018.
Kuku FM, an audio content platform provider, has secured Series B funding of $19.5 million led by South Korean gaming giant KRAFTON, according to a press release. The round also saw participation from its existing investors including 3one4 Capital, Vertex Ventures, and India Quotient, with Founder Bank Capital and Verlinvest joining as new investors.
Mentor Match, an ed-tech startup, has raised $1 million in its pre-seed round of funding from Sapient Fund a US-based seed-stage venture fund led by Karthik Sundaram, according to a press release.
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US President Joe Biden issued a new executive order on Wednesday on regulating cryptocurrencies in America, laying out a broad strategy for how the government plans to balance consumer protection without stifling innovation. Amazon shares surged on its plan for a 20-1 stock split, Bloomberg reports. And Money View, a fintech startup, Jiffy.ai, a B2B automation platform and Atlan, a data management venture, have all raised substantial funding.
The Reserve Bank of India yesterday launched additional features on the Unified Payments Interface platform that will allow people to make payments even on basic feature phones, which are still widely used in India.
Considering that there are more than 40 crore feature phone mobile subscribers in the country, UPI123pay will materially improve the options for such users to access UPI, it said.
Google has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Mandiant, a leader in dynamic cyber defence and response, for $23.00 per share, in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $5.4 billion, inclusive of Mandiant’s net cash.
According to the release, The acquisition of Mandiant will complement Google Cloud’s existing strengths in security.
In more Google Cloud news, the company has won a contract from Walmart’s ecommerce unit Flipkart.
Apple yesterday announced its latest iPhone SE, which has the company’s A15 Bionic chip, a larger battery than the previous model and 5G wireless support. The new SE retains the home button and touch sensor, along with the compact 4.7-inch display. It has tougher glass than its predecessor, the same IP67 water resistance, but supports wireless charging.
The phone is available in three colours — midnight, starlight, and red. iPhone SE will be available for pre-order this Friday, March 11, with availability beginning Friday, March 18. Prices in India start from Rs. 43,900, with no-cost EMIs available for qualifying credit cards.
Swiggy, a food and groceries delivery service in India, has hired bankers as it gears up for an initial public offering next year to raise as much as $1 billion, TechCrunch reports.
The Bangalore startup was valued at $10.7 billion after a funding round in January this year. The company, backed by investors including Prosus Ventures, Accel and SoftBank Group, has hired JP Morgan and ICICI Securities to help it with the listing, according to TechCrunch.
InfoEdge is acquiring a 76 percent stake in Aisle, an Indian dating app provider, for Rs. 91 crores. With both Aisle and Jeevansathi, InfoEdge will look to strengthen its products in the matchmaking segment, the company said in a press release yesterday. Able Joseph, Founder and CEO of Aisle will continue to run Aisle.
Cooby, a Taiwan-based conversation management tool provider, has raised $2.9 million to date, led by Sequoia India’s Surge and Pear VC. Cooby is the first Taiwan startup to raise funding from Surge, according to a press release.
Wizzy, an advanced site search solution for e-commerce stores and marketplaces, has raised nearly $300,000 in fresh funding from several investors, the 100X.VC portfolio startup said in a press release. The company will use the funds to develop its product, amplify its reach to store and marketplace owners around the world.
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Amazon is allegedly employing suppliers in China with links to forced labour, according to a report from the Tech Transparency Project, a research group owned by the nonprofit watchdog organisation Campaign for Accountability. The report accuses Amazon of continuing to work with these suppliers, despite evidence of their association with Uyghur labour camps in China, and in one case, continuing to buy from a supplier that has been sanctioned by the US government for employing forced labour in China. In China, programmes euphemistically called “labour transfers” move workers from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, a predominantly Muslim area in western China, to factories in other parts of the country, according to the Tech Transparency Project (TTP). Three Amazon suppliers are reported to have used forced labour directly: Luxshare Precision Industry, AcBel Polytech, and Lens Technology. Another two, GoerTek and Hefei BOE Optoelectronics, are themselves supplied by factories that have been implicated in forced labour, according to TTP.
Better.com, the online mortgage lender, whose CEO callously laid off 900 people over a zoom call three months ago, is about to lay off roughly half of its staff of about 8,000 this week, TechCrunch reports, citing sources within the company. This new round of layoffs is expected to happen tomorrow. The majority of its staff are in sales and operations roles, but the layoff is believed to be impacting the whole company and will directly affect approximately 4,000 people. Better.com has employees around the world, including in the US and India, according to TechCrunch.
Electric two-wheelers are on the cusp of mass adoption in India, data from the Federation of Automobiles Dealers Association shows (FADA). Sales of electric two-wheelers jumped 433 percent to 32,443 units in February 2022, compared with 6,083 for the year-earlier period. Electric passenger vehicles also rose, by about 300 percent, to more than 2,350 units. Hero Electric, Okinawa Autotech, Ampere Vehicles and Ather Energy all saw big jumps in their sales. And Ola Electric saw sales of more than 3,900 electric scooters, according to FADA.
Eruditus, an ed-tech startup focused on executive education, has closed a $350 million debt financing from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board to fund its acquisition plans overseas, Economic Times reports, citing co-founder Ashwin Damera. Eruditus, which is backed by investors including SoftBank Group, is in talks for strategic acquisitions and plans to spend as much as $1 billion on these purchases, according to ET. The company plans to grow its gross annual bookings by 90 percent to around $950 million in the fiscal year 2023, as against an estimated $500 million in this fiscal year ending March 31.
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Meesho is preparing for an IPO as early as 2023, Reuters reports, citing an internal company document it has seen. According to Reuters, the Bangalore company is working to be ready for a listing by the end of 2022 and is evaluating both Indian and US exchanges. Ninjacart, an agri-tech platform provider, has launched a $25 million fund. And CredAvenue has raised $137 million, tripling its valuation in the process, according to ET.
Meesho is preparing for an IPO as early as 2023, Reuters reports, citing an internal company document it has seen. According to Reuters, the Bangalore company is working to be ready for a listing by the end of 2022 and is evaluating both Indian and US exchanges.
Meesho, which raised $570 million in September last year, is moving away from its social commerce roots to become a larger e-commerce company. Its venture capital investors valued it at $4.9 billion in September.
CredAvenue, an online debt marketplace for businesses, has raised $137 million in funding led by Insight Partners, B Capital Group and Dragoneer, Economic Times reports. According to ET, existing investors also participated, and the company’s valuation has tripled to $1.3 billion from September last. Nikhil Sachdev, managing director at Insight Partners, will join CredAvenue’s board of directors.
Ninjacart, an agri-tech platform provider, has launched a $25 million fund to support emerging and new-age startups in the agriculture sector, the company said in a press release. Ninjacart will make seed investments in new startups, as well as exceptional tech teams even though they may not immediately have specific ideas or solutions.
Apollo.io, a San Francisco company that provides a sales intelligence and engagement platform, has closed $110 million in a Series C funding led by Sequoia Capital, along with existing investors Tribe Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, and NewView Capital, the company said in a press release.
With this funding, the Silicon Valley company, which also has a Bangalore centre, will accelerate its product-led growth, nearly tripling its investment in product and engineering. The company has raised over $150 million to date.
Nasscom has announced a Launchpad Programme for Canada in partnership with the Province of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the City of Brampton that will help Indian tech companies expand into the North American Market, the Indian tech lobby said in a press release on Friday.
Log9 Materials, a battery cell technologies company, has entered into a three-year agreement to collaborate on a mutual-interest basis with the Centre for Automotive Research and Tribology at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, the Bangalore startup said in a press release.
Aston Martin has teamed up with lithium-ion battery cell technologies company Britishvolt to make batteries for the British luxury car maker’s high-performance vehicles, according to Green Car Reports.
Aston Martin plans to launch its first battery-electric vehicle in 2025, which is expected to directly replace one of the automaker’s current front-engine sports cars. The automaker also aims to provide an electrified powertrain option to all new product lines by 2026.
The company expects 95 percent of its lineup to be electrified (meaning hybrid or all-electric) by 2030, with the remaining 5 percent retaining gasoline-only powertrains limited to track use.
Green Car Reports
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Mfine, a digital health platform provider, has launched a Heart Rate Monitoring Tool on its mobile app that uses the phone’s camera flash. Infosys and Roland-Garros have renewed their partnership for another five years. Filo, Docsumo, and Pocketly raise funding. Plus, Tide, UK, has a plan to support 500,000 women entrepreneurs.
Notes:
Mfine, a digital health platform provider, has launched a Heart Rate Monitoring Tool on its mobile app, the Bangalore company said in a press release. The app uses the smartphone’s camera flash to measure the ebb and flow of blood at the fingertips as the heart pumps blood. It is currently able to measure the heart rate at 90 percent medical accuracy, according to Mfine’s press release.
The company expects to launch glucose monitoring and blood pressure measurement via its app by the end of this year.
Infosys, and Roland-Garros, have renewed their three-year partnership for another five years, the Bangalore based Indian IT services giant said in a press release. Roland-Garros and Infosys have brought new digital experiences for the entire tennis ecosystem, introducing solutions that use AI, cloud computing, and analytics.
The contract renewal will see Infosys continue to develop broadcast and technology innovations, and launch a new social inclusion initiative at Roland-Garros 2022.
Daimler Truck has announced the launch of its Daimler Truck Innovation Center India at Bangalore, the German truck maker said in a press release yesterday. The centre will serve as the backbone for all innovations and technology developments for Daimler Truck globally including Mercedes-Benz Trucks, Freightliner, Western Star, Thomas Built Buses, Fuso, Bharat Benz, and EvoBus.
Tide, a UK based business financial platform, with operations and an imminent launch in India, has announced a target of supporting 500,000 women-led businesses to start up, over the next five years, the company said in a press release. This move comes on the heels of Tide’s ‘Women in Business’ initiative in the UK and the company’s plan to work as an incubator for women business owners in India. Through this initiative, Tide aims to help women-led SMEs start and grow their businesses.
Filo, an instant live tutoring startup, has raised $23 million in Series A funding led by Anthos Capital, the company said in a press release. The round also saw participation from existing investor Better Capital along with GSV, Sapling Capital, and many individual investors. Filo will use the money for product development, expanding the team, tapping new categories, and expanding its tutor base across the country.
Docsumo, a document management software provider in Singapore, has raised $3.5 million in seed capital, the company said in a press release. The round was led by Common Ocean with participation from Fifth Wall, Arbor Realty Trust, and existing investor Better Capital. Docsumo will use the money to expand its client base in the North American market and grow the team.
Pocketly, an online lender to young adults, has raised $3 million in debt and equity funding as part of its Pre-Series A round. The round was led by Dholakia Ventures, with several angel investors joining in. The company is part of 100x.VC’s first batch. It is now serving more than 100,000 borrowers and is currently disbursing more than Rs. 250 crore annually.
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Mindtree’s founders have closed the inaugural fund at their early-stage venture capital firm Mela Ventures at Rs. 320 crore, well exceeding their initial target of Rs. 200 crore, Economic Times reports. EV company Ather Energy sold 2,042 scooters in February this year, a 140 percent increase over the same month in 2021. Plus, Sony has released a new wireless headphone for bass enthusiasts.
Notes:
Mindtree founders’ VC firm closes first fund at 320 crore rupees
Mindtree’s founders have closed the inaugural fund at their early-stage venture capital firm Mela Ventures at Rs. 320 crore, well exceeding their initial target of Rs. 200 crore, Economic Times reports.
Krishnakumar Natarajan and Parthasarathy NS started Mela after leaving Mindtree, their Bangalore based IT services company which was acquired by Larsen & Toubro Group. They will back companies in the business-to-business segment. Mela achieved the first close in August 2020 when it secured Rs. 130 crore from investors.
The fund of funds from India’s Small Industries Development Bank contributed a significant portion of Mela’s first fund, while the rest came from investors including Nippon India Digital Fund, several family offices and ultra-high-net-worth individuals, according to ET.
EV company Ather can’t keep up with demand
Ather Energy sold 2,042 scooters in February this year, a 140 percent increase over the same month in 2021, the company said in a newsletter. The company could have sold many more if it had been able to make them faster, according to the newsletter. Ather says that February’s sales represent a fraction of the Bangalore-based electric scooter maker’s pending pre-orders.
Bizongo sees jump in revenue as textile units adopt its tech
Bizongo, which provides an online platform for small manufacturers to digitalise their operations, saw its revenues increase 20-times to Rs. 600 crore in the last 11 months, on an annualised basis, as its solutions saw rapid adoption by the textile hubs of the southern Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka, the Bangalore startup said in a press release yesterday.
A substantial part of the growth is driven by the digitalised and automated supply chain financing solution provided to manufacturers to help them with their credit and working capital needs. Bizongo has been helping MSMEs with collateral-free and minimum documentation working capital lines, according to the press release.
Student loan startup Kuhoo raises $20 mln in seed funding
Kuhoo, a fintech startup providing student loans, has raised $20 million in seed funding from WestBridge Capital. The Mumbai-based company founded by Prashant Bhonsle, a former banker, aims to provide online loans to students aspiring to study in universities in India and abroad. The company’s products will cover engineering, MBA, executive education, online courses, coaching classes, and even-new age courses, it said in a press release.
Sony releases WH-XB910 with more bass
Sony India has launched a new overhead wireless headphones WH-XB910 featuring the company’s EXTRA BASS technology, the company said in a press release on February 28th. The headphones are equipped with 40 mm drivers and they offer club-like bass, improved noise cancellation with dual-sensor noise technology, adaptive sound control, and up to 30 hours of battery life. The headphones are now on sale and will set you back by about Rs 15,000.
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Biocon Biologics has struck a $3.335 billion cash-and-stock deal with US pharmaceuticals company Viatris to acquire its global biosimilars business including rights in the partnered in-licensed portfolio. Infosys has launched a ‘metaverse foundry’ to fast-track its customers’ adoption of the online environment. And Prime Venture Partners, a Bangalore VC firm focused on early-stage startups has closed its latest fund at $120 million.
Notes:
Biocon Biologics acquires Viatris’s biosimilars unit for $3.35 billion
Biocon Biologics has struck a deal with US pharmaceuticals company Viatris to acquire its global biosimilars business including rights in a partnered in-licensed portfolio. This acquisition gives Bangalore-based Biocon Biologics access to Viatris’ commercial engine in developed and emerging markets and will be value accretive, the subsidiary of Indian biopharma company Biocon, said in a press release.
The cash-and-stock deal is valued at $3.335 billion and will give Biocon Biologics access to Viatris global biosimilars business projected to be a $1 billion business by revenue in 2023.
“This acquisition is transformational and will create a unique fully integrated, world-leading biosimilars enterprise,” Biocon’s founder and chairperson Kiran Mazumdar Shaw said in the press release.
Infosys launches ‘Metaverse Foundry’ as a cloud service
Infosys, India’s second-biggest IT services provider, has launched a ‘metaverse foundry’ to fast-track its customers’ adoption of the online environment, the company said in a press release last week. The foundry will include virtual and augmented environments, for their end customers, workplaces, products and operations.
The metaverse foundry brings together domain and design expertise, platforms and digital accelerators, with strong relationships in a rich creator-partner economy, Infosys said. Customers can use this as a cloud-based service, to build their own metaverse environments, deliver signature experiences in an existing metaverse, and take advantage of advanced AI-powered data analytics and simulations.
Prime VP closes the fourth fund at $120 million
Prime Venture Partners, an early-stage India-focused VC firm, has secured the final close of its fourth fund, at $120 million, the company said in a press release last week. The fund was oversubscribed and has exceeded its target of $100 million in commitments and will invest in startups in FinTech, EdTech, HealthTech, Consumer Internet and Global SaaS.
With this closing, the new fund takes the total capital under management across all Prime VP funds to more than $250 million.
GigForce raises more funding to take the total to $6 million
GigForce, a B2B on-demand gig-tech platform, has raised fresh funding from Meraki Labs taking its total funding to $6 million, the company said in a press release. VC firm Endiya Partners had led Gigforce’s last round, with participation from Unitus Ventures and angel investors.
The platform aims to provide employers with a predictable and flexible demand fulfilment solution at scale and helps gig workers up-skill, earn, and develop their careers.
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Hasura raises $100 million to expand SaaS product, becomes a unicorn
Hasura, which provides software for developers to connect disparate sources of data, has secured $100 million in funding in a round led by Greenoaks with participation from existing investors Nexus Venture Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Vertex Ventures, the company said in a press release.
The Series C round brings the total capital raised by Hasura to $136.5 million and the company’s valuation to $1 billion. Hasura plans to use the funding to accelerate research and development and expand go-to-market activities globally for the company’s GraphQL Engine, which makes it fast and easy for even those with zero GraphQL expertise to compose a GraphQL API from existing APIs and databases.
Vymo raises $22 million in series C funding
Vymo, an Intelligent Sales Engagement platform for Financial Institutions, has raised $22 million in Series C funding, led by Bertelsmann India Investments with existing investors Emergence Capital and Sequoia Capital participating. As part of the financing, BII’s Rohit Sood will be joining the company’s board.
In 2021 Vymo saw over 20 percent quarterly growth, 142 percent net retention rate, zero logo churn, entry into the US with wins like Berkshire Hathaway, and onboarding some of the largest Insurers in Japan, co-founder and CEO Yamini Bhat said in a press release yesterday. The latest funding will help Vymo go after a market opportunity to provide sales intelligence estimated at $10 billion.
Wipro Ventures invests in vFunction in cloud services partnership
Wipro, India’s fourth-biggest IT services provider, has formed a joint go-to-market partnership with vFunction, a Palo Alto-based startup that has developed a technology platform for modernising Java applications and accelerating migration to the cloud, the Bangalore company said in a press release yesterday.
The partnership will strengthen Wipro’s cloud services business. In conjunction with this partnership, Wipro Ventures, the corporate investment arm of Wipro, has invested in vFunction’s Series A funding round to deepen the strategic partnership. Wipro didn’t provide financial details.
UMG launches Def Jam India to take Indian rap to other markets
Universal Music Group has launched Def Jam India, a new label division within India and South Asia dedicated to representing the best hip-hop and rap talent from the region, the Dutch-American music corporation said in a press release yesterday. Def Jam India will follow the blueprint of the iconic Def Jam Recordings label, which has led and influenced the cutting-edge in hip-hop and urban culture for more than 35 years.
UMG aims to tap the growing popularity of hip-hop as a genre in India and take Indian hip hop to other markets. Artists it has signed on already include Dino James and Fotty Seven.
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India is formulating rules to get all its states to share data via a common searchable database, according to a draft policy document released on Monday by the country’s Ministry of Electronics and IT, Economic Times reports. Eka Software is in talks to be acquired by PE firms. Plus, AI can’t claim its own art, US officials copyright officials decide
Vedanta, Foxconn to invest $7.4 billion to build India chip foundry
In a move that could give India at least a toehold in the global semiconductor fabrication market, Vedanta Group and Foxconn are partnering to build a chip foundry in India that could be ready as early as 2024, Economic Times reports. The fab will focus on 28nm technology to make chips that could go into smartphone components, among other things, and Vedanta Group will invest $7.4 billion in the project, according to ET.
Apple expected to release new laptops with the faster M2 chip
Apple is gearing up to release several new Macs with an M2 chip later this year, according to Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter. The company will debut a 13-inch MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, 24-inch iMac, and a redesigned MacBook Air, all running on the new M2 chip, and Gurman expects the new chip to be slightly faster than its predecessor.
He expects the M2’s CPU to also share the same eight-core architecture as the M1, but have more graphics cores.
In more Apple news, some retail employees are beginning to quietly unionise, in part because hourly wages have remained stagnant while Apple’s profits have soared, Futurism reports, citing news from the Washington Post that is behind a paywall.
Two store locations are preparing to file paperwork with the US National Labor Relations Board and more are in earlier stages, and many of the organisers have switched to Android phones to avoid any potential spying from Apple, according to the report.
Pine Labs raised $150 million at the valuation of over $5 billion
Pine Labs has raised $150 million in a mix of primary and secondary funding from Alpha Wave Global, in a deal that values the New Delhi fintech company—headed for an IPO—at more than $5 billion, Economic Times reports. The equity and secondary investments are about half and half, according to ET.
CRED in talks to invest in smallcase
In more fintech startup news, CRED, entrepreneur Kunal Shah’s credit card and data company, is in talks to invest in another Bangalore startup, smallcase that helps people invest in small, curated baskets of stocks, TechCrunch reports.
CRED’s proposed investment values smallcase in the range of $300 million to $400 million, according to TechCrunch. smallcase is backed by investors including Amazon, Sequoia Capital and Zerodha, India’s biggest online broker.
BigBasket acquires Kerala startup Agrima Infotech
BigBasket, India’s biggest online grocer, has acquired Agrima Infotech, a startup incubated by Kerala Startup Mission, which has developed a customer vision technology platform, the company said in a press release. BigBasket will implement Agrima’s technology at the self-checkout counters of its offline stores—a segment that the company has been looking to expand into, after its acquisition by the Tata Group last year.
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Uniphore, a conversational automation tech company, yesterday announced its Series E funding round of $400 million, led by NEA, at a valuation of $2.5 billion. IBM has acquired Neudesic, a cloud consultancy. And the top 10 percent of the global population, by consumption, are responsible for almost half of the carbon emissions on the planet, a new study has found.
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Uniphore raises $400 million in Series E funding
Uniphore, a conversational automation tech company, yesterday announced its Series E funding round of $400 million, led by NEA, at a valuation of $2.5 billion. This brings Uniphore’s total funding to $610 million, the company said in a press release. March Capital and other existing and new investors also participated.
Uniphore will use the money to invest further in voice AI, computer vision and tonal emotion, and expand its business operations in North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific.
IBM acquires Neudesic, a Microsoft Azure consultancy
IBM has acquired Neudesic, a US cloud services consultancy specialising primarily in the Microsoft Azure platform, along with bringing skills in multi-cloud, the company said in a press release yesterday. This acquisition will expand IBM’s portfolio of hybrid multi-cloud services and advance the company’s hybrid cloud and AI strategy, IBM said.
Headquartered in Irvine, California, Neudesic has more than 1,500 cloud and data experts located in the US and India.
The top 10 percent of the world responsible for half the CO2 emissions
The top 10 percent of the global population, in terms of wealth and therefore consumption, are responsible for almost half of the carbon emissions on the planet, a new study has found. The results of the study, by researchers at the University of Groningen, Netherlands, University of Maryland, in the US, and Shandong University in China, were published in the journal Nature Sustainability on Feb. 14.
“Our results confirm extreme carbon inequality across the world,” the researchers said in their paper. To visualise this inequality, they divided the global population into the bottom 50 percent, the middle 40 percent and the top 10 percent of carbon emitters.
The consumption of the bottom half of global carbon emitters was contributing only one-tenth of global carbon emissions. Meanwhile, the lifestyle of the middle 40 percent accounted for 43 percent of global carbon emissions. Consumption of the top 10 percent was contributing almost half of all emitted CO2.
Moreover, the global top 1 percent were responsible for about 15 percent of global CO2 emissions, the researchers estimated.
GOQii raises $50 million in series C funding
GOQii has raised $50 million in series C funding, led by Sumeru Ventures, to invest further in its smart-tech-enabled platform for preventive health care, the company said in a press release yesterday. GOQii’s products include fitness trackers, mobile app, coaching, a health store, and insurance.
Proactive For Her raises $5.5 million in series A funding
Proactive For Her, a digital clinic that offers products and services for outpatient health concerns of Indian women, has raised $5.5 million in Series A funding led by Vertex Ventures South East Asia and India with participation from existing investor Nexus Venture Partners, the Bangalore company said in a press release.
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Twitter is making its Safety Mode auto-blocking feature available to a wider set of users in its beta version, to help people protect themselves from abuse on the microblogging platform, the company said yesterday. Microsoft has a new powerful laptop aimed at professionals. Plus, Offgrid Energy Labs, a battery tech startup, has launched its first product ZincGel
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Twitter expands the reach of the Safety Mode beta version
Twitter is making its Safety Mode auto-blocking feature available to a wider set of users in a beta launch to help people protect themselves from abuse on the microblogging platform, the company said yesterday. The expanded coverage of the beta version of Safety Mode will reach about 50 percent of users in English-speaking markets, including the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand, according to The Verge. India does not figure in this rollout.
Twitter is also testing a feature to send direct messages right from a tweet, which could make it easier for cyberbullies to send unwanted messages, according to The Verge.
Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio open for pre-orders
Microsoft India yesterday announced that its new Surface Laptop Studio will be available from March 8. Built as the ideal product for developers, creative professionals, designers, and gamers, this device brings you the power of a desktop, the portability of a laptop, and a creative studio all in one, Microsoft said in a press release. Pre-orders are open and the laptop starts at Rs. 156,999.
EdgeQ appoints Ajit Pai, former US FCC chair, to the advisory board
EdgeQ, a 5G wireless startup founded by Indian American entrepreneur Vinay Ravuri, yesterday announced the appointment of former US FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to the company’s board of advisors. Pai joins EdgeQ as the company scales to deliver the industry’s first software-defined 5G and AI Base Station-on-a-Chip for wireless infrastructure, EdgeQ said in a press release.
Pai is credited with implementing major initiatives during his tenure at the FCC, including freeing up cellular and unlicensed spectrum and instituting reforms to encourage private sector investments in wireless infrastructure. He also modernised outdated regulations to promote 5G backhaul and wide-scale fibre deployment; and held the first-ever FCC-led fora on open radio access networks and artificial intelligence, according to the press release.
5ire blockchain venture raises $100 million ahead of IPO
5ire, a blockchain network founded by two entrepreneurs of Indian origin—Pratik Gauri and Prateek Dwivedi along with crypto financier Vilma Mattila—has secured $100 million in capital commitment from GEM Global Yield (GGY), as it seeks to file for an IPO, the company said in a press release yesterday.
Offgrid Energy launches first product, ZincGel for stationary batteries
Offgrid Energy Labs has come out of stealth mode with its first product, a rechargeable zinc-based battery, with the brand name ZincGel. Backed by investors including Shell Ventures, Ankur Capital, and APVC Singapore, Offgrid Energy Labs is targeting the energy storage market through new materials and designs for stationary batteries, the company said in a press release yesterday.
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Warrant Buffett bought a billion dollars worth of Activision Blizzard shares weeks before Microsoft announced its deal to acquire the gaming company, according to a regulatory filing by the billionaire investor’s company Berkshire Hathaway. Jio Platforms, the digital services unit of Reliance Industries, has formed a satellite internet JV. Separately, Jio will also invest $200 million in Glance.
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Warren Buffett buys stake in Activision weeks before Microsoft deal
Warrant Buffett bought a billion dollars worth of Activision Blizzard shares weeks before Microsoft announced its deal to acquire the gaming company, according to a filing with the US Securities Exchange Commission by the billionaire investor’s company Berkshire Hathaway yesterday.
Berkshire Hathaway purchased 14.7 million shares of Activision—maker of such games as the ‘Call of Duty’ and ‘World of Warcraft’—taking an almost 2 percent stake worth $975 million, at the end of December, Business Insider reports, citing the SEC filing. And in January, Microsoft announced its deal to acquire Activision Blizzard in an all-cash deal for $69 billion.
Jio Platforms, SES form satellite internet joint venture
Jio Platforms, the digital services unit of Reliance Industries, and SES, a satellite-based content connectivity solutions provider based in Luxembourg, yesterday announced the formation of a joint venture—Jio Space Technology Limited—to deliver satellite broadband services in India, Reliance said in a press release yesterday.
JPL and SES will own 51 percent and 49 percent equity stake in the joint venture, respectively. The joint venture will use multi-orbit space networks that are combinations of geostationary (GEO) and medium earth orbit (MEO) satellite constellations capable of delivering multi-gigabit links and capacity to enterprises, mobile backhaul and retail customers across India and neighbouring regions.
Jio Platforms to invest $200 million in Glance
Separately, in more Jio news, Jio Platforms is also investing $200 million in Glance Inmobi, a lock screen content and commerce platform provider. Glance will use the money to expand into the US, Brazil, Mexico and Russia, the company said in a press release.
Glance will also integrate its lock screen tech into the JioPhone Next smartphones that Jio has launched with Google.
Startup new — MFine, Bizongo, Slice, BiteSpeed
MFine, a healthcare tech startup, has teamed up with Datar Cancer Genetics, a cancer research company to launch a cancer screening programme on the MFine app, the company said in a press release. MFine users will be able to book tests for various cancers as well as diabetes.
Bizongo, a B2B ecommerce and supply chain enablement platform provider, completed its first share buyback from employees, in a programme worth $3.7 million, Bizongo said in a press release. And Slice, a fintech startup in the credit cards space, also announced its first share purchase plan for employees, worth about $8.6 million.
BiteSpeed, a SaaS company that helps ecommerce businesses use conversational tech to reach customers, has raised $1.9 million in seed funding led by Sequoia India’s Surge, with participation from First Cheque, Whiteboard Capital and various angel investors.
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N Chandrasekaran has been reappointed as the chairman of Tata Sons for a further five years, the salt to steel conglomerate said in a statement after its board met on February 11. Freshworks crossed the $100 million quarterly revenue milestone in its fiscal fourth quarter ended December 31. UK regulators have warned the country’s banks on the use of AI for lending decisions.
Tata Sons reappoints Chandrasekaran for another five-year term
N Chandrasekaran has been reappointed as the chairman of Tata Sons, for a further five years, the salt-to-steel conglomerate said in a statement after its board met on February 11.
Chandrasekaran, who was CEO and MD of Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest IT company, was tapped to lead Tata Sons at a time of turmoil for the $104 billion group, owing to a dispute with Cyrus Mistry, its second-largest shareholder, in October 2016. Chandra, as he’s popularly known within the group, took over in January 2017.
This year Chandrasekaran was the only Indian CEO to be in the top 25 list of corporate leaders in Brand Finance’s index.
Freshworks crosses the $100 million quarterly revenue mark
Freshworks, which makes cloud-based help desk and customer service software, crossed the $100 million quarterly revenue milestone in its fiscal fourth quarter of 2021, the company said in a press release on February 10. Sales for the three months ended December rose 44 percent to $105.5 million from a year earlier.
Freshworks went public in September 2021, listing on the Nasdaq, becoming the first Indian founder-led SaaS company to do so. On a sequential basis, Q4 revenue compares with $96.6 million in the September quarter of 2021. Losses came down to $56.4 million in Q4 from $140 million in Q3.
UK regulators warn banks on the use of AI
UK’s banking regulators have warned banks in the country that they must ensure that using artificial intelligence to approve loan applications will be allowed only if the banks can show that the AI won’t be discriminatory towards minorities, pymnts.com reports, citing news from the Financial Times, which is behind a paywall.
Minorities already have trouble borrowing as it is, and watchdogs have been getting more stringent against the biggest British banks on how they’ll combat the issues with AI, according to pymnts.com.
Swipe raises $2 million in seed funding from Y Combinator
Swipe, a fintech start-up has raised $2 mln in seed funding led by Y Combinator. The start-up was incubated at riidl, Somaiya Vidyavihar University. Swipe is a simple billing and payments app for small businesses in India, the company said in a press release.
Lost Ark hits 1 million concurrent users within a day of launch
Lost Ark crossed one million concurrent players within 24 hours after launch, becoming the second most played game in Steam history by concurrent counts, The Verge reports. The MMO game (massively multiplayer online game) was launched over the weekend by Amazon Games which collaborated with Smilegate RPG to localise and translate Lost Ark and make it available in English.
It’s now in second place on the top concurrent list behind PUBG. Lost Ark was originally released in 2019 in South Korea. It has millions of active players in South Korea, Russia, and Japan, according to The Verge.
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Binance Holdings, the parent company of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, is making a strategic investment of $200 million into the 105-year-old media company Forbes, Bloomberg reports. Patrick Hillmann, Binance’s chief communications officer, and Bill Chin, head of Binance Labs, its venture capital arm, will join the Forbes board when the transaction closes.
“Forbes editorial independence is and will always be sacrosanct. The strength of the Forbes brand and our investment depends on that continued independence,” Binance’s founder, billionaire Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao, said on Twitter.
Google has released Android 13’s first developer preview, Android 13 Preview 1, the company said in a blog post yesterday. The next version of the Android operating system, the most used smartphone software in the world, will continue Google’s ongoing effort to add security and privacy as well as developer productivity features, the company said in the post.
In more Android news, OnePlus will release its Nord CE 2 5G smartphone in India on February 17, the company said on Twitter. The OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G is expected to be similar to its predecessor, the Nord CE 5G, according to Android Central. The phone is expected to be equipped with a 6nm MediaTek Dimensity 900 5G chipset, with up to 12GB of RAM and 256GB of built-in storage.
A launch by Astra, a small rocket company in the US, carrying cubesats built by various universities, failed yesterday a little more than three minutes after takeoff, The Verge reports.
“We experienced an issue in today's flight. I'm deeply sorry we were not able to deliver our customer's payloads. I'm with the team looking at data, and we will provide more info as soon as we can,” Chris Kemp, CEO of Nasdaq-listed Astra said on Twitter.
Disney+ added 11.8 million new subscribers last quarter to reach 129.8 million subscribers, Disney said in its Q1 2022 earnings release. The company said it’s on track to reach 230-260 million subscribers by 2024.
Disney+ has 42.9 million subscribers in the US and Canada and 41.1 million worldwide. It also has 45.9 million subscribers for the Disney+ Hotstar service in India.
Swiggy’s consolidated revenue from operations fell 27 percent to Rs 2,547 crore for the financial year ended March 31, 2021, compared with the previous fiscal year, Economic Times reports, citing regulatory filings from the food delivery service company. Swiggy’s net losses also came down by about 59 percent to Rs 1,616 crore, according to ET.
Lockdowns, restrictions and multiple emergencies because of the Covid-19 pandemic, hurt sales, the company said in its filings, according to ET.
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James Murdoch, Uday Shankar return to India with $1.5 billion from QIA
James Murdoch and Uday Shankar have launched a new company called Bodhi Tree, with $1.5 billion from Qatar Investment Authority, to focus on opportunities in India and Southeast Asia.
Bodhi Tree would be “designed to invest in media and consumer technology opportunities in Southeast Asia, with a particular focus on India,” Murdoch and Shankar said in a statement, according to the LA Times.
James, the younger son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, was previously making investments through his firm Lupa Systems, which also he had started with Shankar. Shankar built Star India for 21st Century Fox, the Murdoch family’s media conglomerate that was acquired by Disney in a deal that was completed in 2019.
Climate tech gets more funding in India
Climate tech businesses received $7 billion in equity funding in 2021, a 4X increase over the $1.87 billion in equity funding raised by all climate tech sectors in 2020, according to the ‘State of Climate Finance in India’ report, released by Unitus Capital on Feb 8.
The bulk of the climate financing still goes towards renewables, with electric vehicles a distant second. Later stage rounds skew the funding that has gone into climate tech—the 25 Series C and beyond deals tracked by the impact investment firm constituted 86 percent of the $7 billion in funding.
In early-stage financing, funding interest is expanding into other areas of climate innovation. Renewables were responsible for only 12 percent of the 182 deals Unitus tracked in 2021. Electric mobility was the largest segment with 68 deals. Agri and F&B sectors saw 52 deals spread across the value chain, although agri-tech needs more focus at the farm level, according to Unitus.
Starlink loses 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm
Starlink has lost 40 satellites that were meant to be part of its low-earth orbit constellation to a geomagnetic storm, the company said in a statement on Feb. 8.
These satellites were part of the 49 launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Up to 40 of the satellites will reenter or already have reentered the Earth’s atmosphere, the company said. The de-orbiting satellites pose no collision risk with other satellites and will burn up in the atmosphere, so no orbital debris is created and no satellite parts will hit the ground.
Xpressbees raises $300 million, becomes a unicorn
Xpressbees, a third-party logistics services provider, has raised $300 million in Series F funding, led by private equity funds Blackstone Growth, TPG Growth and ChrysCapital. Existing investors, Investcorp and Norwest Venture Partners, also participated. With this round, the total amount of funds raised by Xpressbees exceeds $500 million.
The Pune-based company will use the money to expand operations, invest in product development and hire more people. The latest investment makes the six-year-old startup a unicorn, co-founder and CEO Amitava Saha told Forbes India in an interview.
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Two arrested in connection to 2016 crypto heist worth $4.5 billion today
The US Department of Justice has arrested two people in connection to a crypto heist in 2016. The two, Ilya Lichtenstein and his wife, Heather Morgan, are accused of conspiring to launder cryptocurrency that was stolen during a hack of Bitfinex, a virtual currency exchange, in 2016, presently valued at approximately $4.5 billion.
Thus far, law enforcement officials have seized over $3.6 billion in cryptocurrency linked to that hack, the justice department said in a statement yesterday.
Razorpay starts international expansion with Malaysian acquisition
Razorpay has acquired a majority stake in Curlec, a Malaysian fintech company, as part of its strategy to expand into Southeast Asia, the Bangalore based payments and financial services platform company said in a press release yesterday. Kuala Lumpur-based Curlec, founded in 2018, is building solutions for recurring payments for modern businesses of all sizes, according to the release.
Razorpay didn't provide any details on the terms of the transaction, which marks its first overseas acquisition and fourth overall.
Startup news
Airmeet, an online meeting software provider, has raised $35 million in Series B funding. New investors Prosus Ventures, Sistema Asia Fund, RingCentral Ventures, KDDI Open Innovation Fund, DG Daiwa Ventures and Nexxus Global participated alongside existing investors Sequoia Capital India and Accel India, the company said in a press release.
Mudrex, a Y Combinator-backed crypto startup with operations in Bangalore and Silicon Valley, has raised $6.5 million in a pre-series A round from Arkam Ventures, Tribe Capital, and Bolt by QED Investors. This round follows $2.5 million in seed funding four months ago led by Nexus Venture Partners and Village Global with participation from Kunal Shah, Anand Chandrashekharan and Anjali Bansal.
US-based SaaS blockchain orchestration platform Cion Digital, dedicated to R&D and crypto financing and payment solutions, is opening its first office in India. The expansion strategy includes setting up an R&D centre in Pune, investing Rs. 50 crore. And Cion aims to hire more than 100 engineers with expertise in blockchain technology.
TrayamBhu Tech Solutions, a blockchain startup, has raised an undisclosed amount of seed money from US-based Octave Ventures and others, the company said in a press release. TrayamBhu plans to develop newer blockchain products on climate tech covering ESG, Carbon Credit, and Tokenisation Carbon Assets.
Infina, a Vietnamese startup targeting millennials interested in the capital markets, has raised $6 million in seed funding from investors including Sequoia Capital India’s Surge, Y Combinator, Saison Capital, Starling Ventures, Alpha JWC, and AppWorks.
GoalTeller, an automated financial planning platform provider, has raised $500,000 in pre-series A funding, the company said in a press release.
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Polygon raises $450 million in fresh funding
Polygon, a blockchain startup, has raised about $450 million through a private sale of its native MATIC token in a funding round led by Sequoia Capital India, with participation from SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Galaxy Digital, Galaxy Interactive, Tiger Global, Republic Capital and prominent angel investors, the company said in a blogpost yesterday.
SatSure raises $5 million from Baring PE
SatSure, a startup working at the intersection of space-tech, Artificial Intelligence, and Software as a Service, has raised $5 million in Pre-Series A funding in a round led by Baring Private Equity India, joined by ADB Ventures. Other investors include Flowstate VC, Force Ventures, IndigoEdge Advisors, Toch.ai, Nishchay Goel and Saikiran Krishnamurthy.
SatSure, which was founded in 2017 by Prateep Basu, Rashmit Singh Sukhmani, along with Abhishek Raju, will use the money to expand its footprint in Southeast Asia and accelerate its product development, which also includes launching its proprietary payloads to Low Earth Orbit.
L&T and Microsoft team up to offer cloud services
Larsen & Toubro and Microsoft India, yesterday announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding to develop a regulated-sector focused cloud service. In line with emerging regulations, L&T and Microsoft will co-engage with a defined set of large customers in regulated sectors to develop architectures and roadmaps to modernise their traditional data centres to potentially hybrid models and advance their digital transformation goals.
FirstMeridian buys RLabs
FirstMeridian Business Services has completed its acquisition of RLabs, an IT staffing and consulting firm with more than 1,200 technology professionals servicing customers in over 40 locations in India. This marks the sixth acquisition by the FirstMeridian Group since the founding of the Bangalore company in mid-2018.
HaystackAnalytics releases universal infectious diseases test
HaystackAnalytics, a Mumbai based health-tech startup, supported by the Department of Science & Technology, Govt of India, has developed a Universal Infectious Diseases test that deploys Next-Generation Sequencing technology to identify existing and emerging infections while providing information on drug resistance to support and identify correct treatment options for patients, the company said in a press release.
Gold Setu raises $1.2 million
Gold Setu, a mobile-first micro SaaS platform for jewellery retailers, has raised $1.2 million in seed funding led by Village Global, Better Capital, Titan Capital, iSeed and Anjali Bansal for Avaana Seed, the startup said in a press release. The company will use the money for its go-to-market initiatives and launch new products on its platform.
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Vitamin D deficiency linked to Covid-19 severity and mortality
There is a correlation between vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 severity and mortality, according to a study conducted by Israeli researchers at the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine of Bar-Ilan University in Safed and the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya. They published their results on February 3 in the journal PLOS ONE, Scitechdaily reports.
Patients with vitamin D deficiency (less than 20 ng/mL) were 14 times more likely to have a severe or critical case of Covid-19 than those with more than 40 ng/mL, the study found, according to the Scitechdaily report.
Amazon, Nike are considering independent bids for Peloton
Amazon and Nike are among potential buyers of Peloton, whose stationary bikes and streamed fitness classes became a rage during the pandemic, but have since lost steam, according to reports in The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times.
Peloton became a hit at the beginning of the pandemic when people were looking for fitness alternatives after their gyms closed due to lockdowns. But, as the US opened up and rivals cropped up with cheaper alternatives, the company lost its sales momentum to the extent that it recently stopped some production lines, according to CNBC.
IIT-Gandhinagar researchers develop affordable water desalination technique
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar have developed a water desalination technique to make seawater potable by removing more than 99 percent of salt and other impurities with natural processing, according to a Press Trust of India report.
The researchers have found a way to expand the space between layers of graphite in a controlled manner to selectively allow water, while filtering out salt, in a way similar to how trees take up water using a process called capillary action. The research findings have been published in the international journal Nature Communications.
These findings could eventually help in designing affordable water desalination filters and other applications including gas purification, proton exchange in a fuel cell, chemical separation, recovery of precious metal from waste among others.
Microsoft launches Cyber Signals, a quarterly brief on security
Microsoft has launched Cyber Signals, a cyberthreat intelligence brief informed by Microsoft’s latest threat data and research, Vasu Jakkal, a corporate vice president for security, compliance and identity, at the company, wrote in a blogpost on February 3. These quarterly briefs are designed to give security professionals and journalists a quick look at the most important trends, tactics and solutions in today’s threat landscape, Jakkal writes.
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Multiple oil transport and storage companies across Europe are dealing with cyber-attacks, BBC reports. IT systems have been disrupted in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. In total, dozens of terminals with oil storage and transport around the world have been affected. TCS will add close to 1,000 jobs in New Jersey. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s mega-yacht needs a historic bridge in Rotterdam partially dismantled so it can sail out to the ocean.
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Multiple European oil transport companies hit with cyberattacks
Multiple oil transport and storage companies across Europe are dealing with cyber-attacks, BBC reports. IT systems have been disrupted at Oiltanking in Germany, SEA-Invest in Belgium and Evos in the Netherlands.
In total, dozens of terminals with oil storage and transport around the world have been affected, with companies reporting that the attacks occurred over the weekend.
But cyber experts say that this may not necessarily be a coordinated attack, and there could be less sinister reasons, BBC reports.
Apple and Google app store dominance focus of latest US bill
Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play store are a small, but significant, step closer to being opened up. The US Senate Judiciary Committee passed its second tech competition bill of the year targeting the two biggest mobile app stores and their restrictions on developers, CNBC reports.
The committee voted to advance the bipartisan Open App Markets Act. If the bill becomes law, app stores with more than 50 million US users will be banned from forcing developers to exclusively use their own payment systems. They also can’t prevent or punish developers for offering their apps at different price points elsewhere. The law would also require the app stores to allow developers to directly reach their users for legitimate business purposes, according to CNBC.
TCS to add 1000 jobs in New Jersey by 2023
Tata Consultancy Services, yesterday, announced plans to expand its operations in New Jersey by hiring nearly 1,000 additional employees by the end of 2023 to support customers in the US. To nurture a pipeline of local IT talent, TCS will also expand the reach of its STEM and computer science education teacher training and student programmes in New Jersey by 25 percent, the company said in a press release.
Jeff Bezos’s mega-yacht needs a Rotterdam bridge dismantled for passage
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is expected to become the owner of the largest sailing yacht in the world this year. But first, the Dutch maritime city of Rotterdam will have to dismantle part of a historic, 100-year old, bridge to let the mega-yacht sail out into the ocean, Washington Post reports.
The 417-foot yacht’s masts are so tall that even the 131-foot clearance beneath the Koningshaven bridge in Rotterdam, according to Insider. The massive vessel — currently known only as Y721 — is estimated to cost $500 million. Its existence was first reported by journalist Brad Stone in his second book on Amazon and Bezos, titled ‘Amazon Unbound.’
Bezos, whose wealth is worth about $176 billion, has also commissioned a smaller, ‘support yacht’ which will have its own helipad, Insider reports.
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Facebook saw its first-ever quarterly decline of daily users globally. Parent company Meta warned of a slowdown in the growth of ad sales that sent its shares plunging by 20 percent on Wednesday. US IT services giant Cognizant joined its rivals in posting strong December quarter numbers. Chargebee, a SaaS company raised a quarter of a billion dollars with a big jump in valuation.
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Facebook daily users fell for the first time in the company’s history
Facebook saw its first-ever quarterly decline of daily users globally and parent company Meta warned of a slowdown in the growth of ad sales that sent its shares plunging by 20 percent on Wednesday.
Overall, Meta’s family of apps—including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp—were used by an average of 2.82 billion people daily around the world in the three months ended December 31, the company’s fourth quarter of 2021, compared with 2.81 billion people in the previous quarter.
The Facebook app itself, however, saw a decline in daily active users to 1.929 billion in Q4, from 1.93 billion in Q3. This was the first such decline in the company’s history, as confirmed by a company spokesperson, The Verge reported.
Cognizant posts strong Q4 numbers
Cognizant Technology Solutions reported fiscal Q4 revenue of $4.8 billion, up 14.5 percent, and full-year revenue of $18.5 billion, a 10 percent increase. Digital services revenue increased 20 percent and 19 percent year-over-year in Q4 and full-year, respectively.
Order bookings in Q4 increased 22 percent year-over-year and the total contract value signed in 2021 was $23.1 billion, Cognizant said in a press release. Cognizant projects revenue for 2022 to increase by 8.5 percent to 11.5 percent to be in the range of $20 billion to $20.5 billion.
Chargebee raises $250 million at a valuation of $3.5 billion
Chargebee, which sells billing and subscription management software to business customers, has raised $250 million in a new funding round co-led by Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital, Economic Times reports. The investment values Chargebee at $3.5 billion. Existing investors including Insight Partners, Sapphire and Steadview Capital also participated.
Park Place acquires Storfirst software platform
Park Place Technologies, a data centre and networking optimisation provider, has purchased Congruity360’s Storfirst software platform. Storfirst is the industry’s most secure, OEM and platform-agnostic file system migration and information management software, the company said in a press release.
FourKites acquires NIC-place to expand operations in Europe
FourKites, a real-time supply chain visibility platform provider, has acquired NIC-place, a similar company in Europe. FourKites and NIC-place’s combined over-the-road, rail and ocean carrier networks create the largest multimodal carrier network in Europe, the company said in a press release.
OneTo11 has raised $2.5 million in seed funding
OneTo11, which is developing a blockchain gaming ecosystem, has recently raised $2.5 million in its private and seed funding from a wide selection of investment and capital groups and global blockchain investors, the company said in a press release. The company was founded in 2020.
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India will introduce a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) to “give a big boost to the digital economy,” Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in her speech yesterday outlining the government’s budget proposals for the coming fiscal year that starts April 1. India will also tax crypto transactions at the rate of 30 percent, she said. And Google’s parent Alphabet reported record revenues for 2021, as ads and cloud sales surged.
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India to introduce CBDC, tax virtual digital assets at 30 percent
India will introduce a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) to “give a big boost to a digital economy,” Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in her speech yesterday outlining the government’s budget proposals for the coming fiscal year that starts April 1.
“Digital currency will also lead to a more efficient and cheaper currency management system. It is, therefore, proposed to introduce Digital Rupee, using blockchain and other technologies, to be issued by the Reserve Bank of India starting 2022-23,” Sitharaman said.
The finance minister also noted that “there has been a phenomenal increase in transactions in virtual digital assets and the magnitude and frequency of these transactions have made it imperative to provide for a specific tax regime.” Therefore, the government will tax virtual digital assets (read cryptos, NFTs), at the rate of 30 percent.
In a push to accelerate the energy transition and climate action in the country, the government will release a policy on battery swapping and standards for interoperability of electric vehicles infrastructure, the minister announced.
The government will also broadly encourage everyone to use public transport, while in parallel developing multi-modal transport options. Over time, cities will be developed as centres of sustainable living, the minister said.
“The union budget has magnified the digital India vision and importance of technology in all focus areas,” Rajesh Gopinathan, CEO and MD of Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest technology company, said in a statement. This budget provides many opportunities for growth for the technology industry, he added.
You can find our full budget coverage on forbesindia.com
Forbes India Budget 2022 coverage
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Alphabet reports record revenue as Google’s ad and cloud sales surge
Google’s parent company Alphabet reported record annual revenue for 2021, as businesses around the world stepped up their online and digital investments. They bought more ads online and spent more money on Google Cloud as well.
Revenue for 2021 was $257.6 billion, a 41 percent jump over 2020, Alphabet said in an investor release. For its fiscal fourth quarter of 2021, which ended Dec. 31, Alphabet said revenue was $75.3 billion, up 32 percent from the year earlier.
“Q4 saw ongoing strong growth in our advertising business, which helped millions of businesses thrive and find new customers, a quarterly sales record for our Pixel phones despite supply constraints, and our Cloud business continuing to grow strongly,” Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in the release.
The company also announced a 20-for-1 stock split that will take effect in July.
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Wordle, the super hit online web-only word game, has been bought by The New York Times, according to a tweet by the game’s creator Josh Wardle. New York Times will integrate the daily word puzzle into its suite of word games, Wardle said. Sony has bought video game maker Bungie for $3.6 billion. Plus, IT sector M&A and PE deals saw strong interest in 2021.
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New York Times buys online word game Wordle
Wordle, the super hit online web-only word game, has been bought by The New York Times, according to a tweet by the game’s creator Josh Wardle. New York Times will integrate the daily word puzzle into its Games suite of word games, Wardle said.
Wordle will “initially remain free to new and existing players” once it moves to the Times’ website, and Wardle says that he’s working with The New York Times to preserve players’ existing wins and streak data once the game is taken over by the newspaper.
Sony strikes deal to buy Halo maker Bungie for $3.6 billion
Sony Interactive Entertainment said yesterday that it has entered into definitive agreements to acquire Bungie, a premier independent videogame developer best known as the creator of Halo and Destiny, in a deal worth $3.6 billion. This acquisition will give Sony access to Bungie’s world-class approach to live game services and technology expertise, furthering Sony’s ambition to reach billions of players.
Bungie will continue to operate independently, maintaining the ability to self-publish and reach players wherever they choose to play. Its 900 employees are currently focused on the long-term development of the hugely successful Destiny 2, expanding the Destiny universe, and creating entirely new worlds in future intellectual property, according to the press release.
Google’s integrated Gmail view will roll out from next week
Google is introducing a new, integrated view for Gmail, making it easy to move between applications like Gmail, Chat and Meet in one place, the company said in a blogpost yesterday.
Beginning February 8, users can opt-in to test the new experience and get used to it. By April, users who have not opted-in will begin seeing the new layout by default but can revert to classic Gmail via settings.
By the end of Q2, meaning by June 30, the new layout will become the standard experience for Gmail, with no option to revert.
IT M&A and PE deals in 2021 added up to more than $297 billion
Mergers and acquisitions in the IT industry saw a strong increase last year as demand for cloud and digital technologies accelerated due to the Covid pandemic, Nasscom, India’s IT industry lobby, said in a press release yesterday.
Overall, the IT industry saw 1,200 M&A and private equity deals worth $297 billion in 2021, with deals typically in the $20 million to $50 million range. There were also some very large deals worth over $1 billion, according to Nasscom.
LoadShare Networks raises $40 million in funding led by Tiger Global
LoadShare Networks, one of India’s fastest growing asset-lite logistics platforms, said today that it has raised a Series C investment of Rs. 300 crore ($40 million), led by Tiger Global and with participation from Filter Capital, 57 Stars and existing investors CDC Group Plc and Matrix Partners India. A few prominent family offices also participated in the round.
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The vast majority of mobile apps aimed at children in India ask for dangerous permissions, according to the latest annual survey by Arrka, a company that offers a privacy management platform to businesses. Overall, Google—no surprise—by far is the biggest tracker of personal data in India, according to Arrka. Separately, Google is investing $1 billion in Bharti Airtel for an equity stake and joint go-to-market strategies.
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Most children’s apps in India seek dangerous permissions
The vast majority of mobile apps aimed at children in India ask for dangerous permissions, according to the latest annual survey by Arrka, a company that offers a privacy management platform to businesses. The report, State of Data Privacy of Indian Mobile Apps and Websites, finds that 87 percent of all children’s apps ask for at least one dangerous permission.
Of the apps that Arrka reviewed, 21 percent had access to the smartphone’s camera, 28 percent had access to phone details and 55 percent had in-app ads.
Arrka says it has been studying apps and websites from 100 organisations worldwide for the last five years. In its latest report it says, Google is the single largest third-party that is collecting our personal data on mobile apps as well as websites.
Google to invest $1 in Bharti Airtel
In more Google news, the company will invest up to $1 billion in Bharti Airtel as part of its Google for India Digitization Fund, which includes $700 million in equity investment and up to $300 million towards implementing commercial agreements in the coming years.
These investments will include expanding the reach of Android devices on Airtel’s network, and co-creating India-specific applications on 5G. Airtel is already using Google’s 5G-ready Evolved Packet Core and Software Defined Network platforms, according to the press release.
Stakeholders agree on a plan for 5Gi’s merger with 5G
Telecom and wireless industry stakeholders around the globe agreed to a plan of action that will allow the merger of 5Gi into 5G, at the Radio Access Network plenary meeting of global standards development body 3GPP, according to a press release by Telecommunications Standards Development Society, India, an industry-academia standards development organisation.
According to TSDSI, 5Gi is an extension of the 3GPP 5G standards to meet the rural (extended) coverage requirements of India. It is under deliberations with the industry ecosystem in India under the consultative process of the Telecom Engineering Centre and TSDSI.
Moglix, Dealshare raise more money from Tiger Global
Moglix, an ecommerce marketplace for businesses in Bangalore, has raised $250 million in series F funding at a valuation of $2.6 billion. The investment was led by Tiger Global and Alpha Wave Incubation, an India-focused fund from US VC firm Falcon Edge, with Hong Kong-based Ward Ferry joining in, the company said in a press release on Jan 28.
In another transaction, Dealshare, a social ecommerce startup in Bangalore, has raised $165 million in the first close of its series E funding. Investors include Dragoneer Investments Group, Kora Capital and Unilever Ventures, and existing investors Tiger Global and Alpha Wave.
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Indian IT-BPM sector has concerns about exemptions in the Data bill
India’s IT services and business process management companies will petition the government over concerns that the broad exemptions sought by lawmakers in the proposed Data Protection Bill will adversely impact the $190 billion sector in the European Union, Economic Times reports.
In addition to opposing wide-ranging access to personal data being sought by the government, the industry representation will also highlight the inclusion of non-personal data in the bill, absence of timelines by when government agencies need to be compliant with the provisions as well as lack of applicability to personal data in the physical format, according to ET.
Apple posts record revenues, says supply chain is improving
Apple posted an all-time revenue record of $123.9 billion, up 11 percent year over year, for its fiscal first quarter that ended Dec. 31, the iPhone maker said yesterday in a press release. That compared with analysts expectations of $118.66 billion according to Refinitiv, CNBC reported.
CEO Tim Cook said on an earnings call that supply chains, which had been disrupted by the Covid pandemic, were improving.
The latest earnings numbers come within days of news about additional features Apple is introducing on its devices — such as universal control, now available in beta — and the ability to use iPhones as point-of-sale terminals for payments.
AMD’s deal to buy Xilinx gets go-ahead from China’s regulators
AMD, the US chipmaker that is buying Xilinx, which makes field programmable logic array devices, has got approval for the $35 billion deal from Chinese authorities, Wall Street Journal reports. The go-ahead clears the last major regulatory hurdle for one of the biggest deals in recent years in the semiconductor industry, according to the Journal.
Atlassian buys Percept.AI
Atlassian, a Nasdaq-listed Australian company that makes collaboration software, has acquired Percept.AI, a startup that offers an AI chatbot for natural language understanding, TechCrunch reports. Atlassian plans to integrate this virtual agent technology into Jira Service Management, its tool for helping IT teams provide better service to employees and customers.
SuperOps.ai raises $14 million in funding led by Fixel’s Addition
SuperOps.ai, a Silicon Valley and Chennai startup that provides a SaaS platform for unified professional services automation and remote monitoring and management, has raised $14 million in Series A funding. The money will help SuperOps expand the reach for its modern, AI-powered platform that is aimed at managed services providers.
The investment was led by Lee Fixel’s Addition and Tanglin Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors Matrix Partners India and Elevation Capital, and several angel investors.
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Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys have overtaken IBM to become the second and third most valuable IT services brands in the world, in the annual Brand Finance survey. Only Accenture remains ahead, retaining its top spot for the fourth consecutive year. Infosys made strong gains, jumping from 214 in 2021’s global rankings to 158 in 2022, which also put it among the 25 fastest growing brands of 2022.
A fall in IBM’s value, following the spinoff of the Kyndryl unit, also helped the Indian IT companies claim higher rankings.
Accenture has retained the sector’s most valuable brand title for the fourth consecutive year, with its brand value increasing by 39 percent over the past year to $36.2 billion. Since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, the tech giant’s brand value has seen a 43 percent increase—standing out from among other brands in the US, according to Brand Finance’s press release.
Tata Consultancy Services has risen to 2nd position in the Brand Finance IT Services 25 2022 ranking, behind Accenture, following a 12 percent growth year on year and 24 percent since 2020 to a brand value of $16.8 billion.
TCS has not only successfully managed the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic to continue developing its business operations around the world but also maintained momentum with brand partnerships and sports sponsorships, Brand Finance said in its press release.
Infosys has seen the fastest increase in brand value from among all the IT brands in the ranking this year. Infosys’s brand value has increased by 52 percent to $12.8 billion from last year, and 80 percent over the past two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to Brand Finance.
Infosys’s strong business results can be attributed to the brand’s ability to credibly adapt its services to the fast-evolving needs of today’s economy as well as to its continued investment into innovative solutions that help clients securely accelerate their journey to the cloud.
Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran is the lone Indian among the top 25 global brand custodians as ranked by Brand Finance for 2022 in its Brand Guardianship Index. He is also the top CEO in India. Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella is the number one CEO on the Index.
There are six Indian brands in the Brand Finance IT Services 25 2022 ranking among the top 10 fastest-growing IT Services brands throughout 2020-2022. Following TCS and Infosys, are Wipro (7th), HCL (8th), Tech Mahindra (15th), and LTI (22nd).
Overall, Apple remains the number one global brand in 2022, followed by Amazon, Google and Microsoft. Walmart is the lone non-tech brand in the top five global brands. Facebook is ranked 7th, and TikTok is the fastest growing global brand.
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Google tracks you even when your location is turned off, US states allege
Google tracks people’s movements using information from its search engine, Maps app, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth services even after users turn off location tracking, three US states allege in a lawsuit, Reuters reports.
Texas, Indiana, Washington State, and the District of Columbia sued Google on Monday over what they called deceptive location-tracking practices that invade users’ privacy, according to Reuters.
“Google falsely led consumers to believe that changing their account and device settings would allow customers to protect their privacy and control what personal data the company could access,” Washington, D.C., Attorney General Karl Racine's office said in a statement.
Yet Google “continues to systematically surveil customers and profit from customer data," which was "a clear violation of consumers’ privacy,” the statement added.
Boeing adds $450 mln to air taxis venture with Google co-founder Page
Boeing is investing a further $450 million in Wisk Aero, its joint venture with Kitty Hawk, a company backed by Google co-founder Larry Page to develop small, pilotless aircraft for short passenger hops in and around cities, The Verge reports.
Wisk says it will use the new funds to undertake a period of rapid growth, adding new employees to its current workforce of approximately 350 people, and kicking off a manufacturing process that it says will result in a full-scale, commercially operational air taxi business within the next five years. Once that happens, the company predicts that it will conduct 14 million flights annually in around 20 major markets around the globe.
Delhi releases draft regulation on e-mobility for food tech, ecommerce
The Delhi government has released a draft regulation for the transportation activities of various tech companies, including food delivery, ride-hailing apps and e-commerce in the National Capital Region, Economic Times reports.
The draft focuses on electrification, bringing transparency in pricing and access to data—like the number of drivers on the road, the quality of vehicles, drivers’ ratings, movement—and ensuring adequate customer care service is in place.
The state government has given three weeks for public feedback.
DarwinBox turns unicorn after $72 million series D funding from TCV
Darwinbox, a cloud software provider for human resources management, has become India’s latest unicorn, being valued at $1 billion after raising $72 million in a new round of funding, the Hyderabad startup said in a post on its website.
The investment was led by Technology Crossover Ventures, known for its investments in Netflix, Facebook, Spotify and Airbnb, with participation from existing investors—Salesforce Ventures, Sequoia, Lightspeed, SCB 10X, JGDEV, Endiya Partners, and 3One4Capital.
This brings DarwinBox’s total funding to more than $110 million, the company said.
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Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen and other activists have urged the social networking giant to release a long-awaited report on its impact in India, alleging the company is purposely obscuring human rights concerns, The Guardian reports. Meanwhile, a US Senate panel backed a bill that proposes some curbs on Big Tech. And in startup news, blockchain venture Stader has raised more money, at a hefty valuation.
Facebook urged to release the report on its impact in India
Former Facebook employee Frances Haugen and other prominent whistleblowers have renewed calls for Facebook to release a long-awaited report on its impact in India, alleging the company is purposely obscuring human rights concerns, The Guardian reports.
More than 20 organisations on Wednesday joined whistleblowers Frances Haugen and Sophie Zhang, as well as former Facebook vice-president Brian Boland, to demand the company, now called Meta, release its findings.
Meta had commissioned law firm Foley Hoag in 2020 to carry out an independent review of its impact in India—the company’s largest market at 340 million users—but its release has repeatedly been delayed, activists allege.
US Senate panel votes in favour of bill curbing Big Tech
A Senate panel approved antitrust legislation forbidding the largest tech platforms from favouring their own products and services over competitors’, Wall Street Journal reports. The American Innovation and Choice Online Act moves next to the Senate floor.
A second bill, which was held over, would bar big app stores, like Apple's, from forcing app providers to use their payment system, and prohibit them from punishing apps that offer different prices through another app store or payment system, Reuters reported.
Stader Labs, blockchain and crypto startup, valued at $450 million
Stader Labs, a blockchain crypto startup in Bangalore, has raised $12.5 million in a strategic private sale that values the company at up to $450 million, the company said in a press release.
The sale was led by Three Arrow Capital with several other VC firms, including Accel, and angel investors joining in. Stader had previously raised $4 million from Pantera, Coinbase Ventures and others.
Tom Cruise movie producers in a deal to put a studio in space
Producers of a Tom Cruise film, set in space, are planning to launch the world's first movie studio connected to the International Space Station, Business Insider reports.
Elena and Dmitry Lesnevsky, the movie producers, announced on Thursday that they’ve signed a deal to build a fully operational movie studio connected to the International Space Station. The studio, Space Entertainment Enterprise-1 (SEE-1), is slated to launch in December 2024 and will be the world's first functional entertainment and content studio in space, according to Business Insider.
SEE-1 will be developed in partnership with Axiom Space, a Huston-based space infrastructure developer and the company behind the world's first commercial space station, Axiom Station. Once it's ready for launch, the studio will dock with Axiom Station, which is currently attached to the ISS.
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Parallel Systems, a company founded by former SpaceX engineers to reimagine the railroad system, has raised $49.55 million in Series A funds to build autonomous battery-electric rail vehicles that move freight, the company said in a press release yesterday; Meanwhile GM said it is expanding its hydrogen fuel cells beyond vehicles to power homes, offices and malls.
Former SpaceX engineers’ startup out of stealth with electric rail
Parallel Systems, a company founded by former SpaceX engineers to reimagine the railroad system, has raised $49.55 million in Series A funds to build autonomous battery-electric rail vehicles that move freight, the company said in a press release yesterday. The round is led by Anthos Capital and includes investments from Congruent Ventures, Riot Ventures, Embark Ventures, and others.
The funds will be used to build a fleet of rail vehicles, execute advanced testing programmes and grow the team. The company, which came out of stealth mode yesterday, has raised $53.15 million to date, including $3.6 million in seed funds.
“We founded Parallel to allow railroads to open new markets, increase infrastructure utilisation, and improve service to accelerate freight decarbonisation,” said Matt Soule, Co-founder and CEO, Parallel Systems. His co-founders are John Howard and Ben Stabler.
GM to expand hydrogen tech beyond EVs
General Motors, yesterday, announced new commercial applications of its HYDROTEC fuel cell technology. HYDROTEC projects, which are currently in development, from heavy-duty trucks to aerospace and locomotives, are being planned for use beyond vehicles, for power generation, the company said in a press release.
GM is planning multiple HYDROTEC-based power generators, all powered by GM’s Generation 2 HYDROTEC fuel cell ‘power cubes,’ including a mobile power generator to provide a fast-charge capability for EVs without installing permanent charge points; a rapid charger, brand named EMPOWER, to help retail fuel stations add affordable DC fast charging without expanding the grid; and a palletised mobile power generator to quietly and efficiently power military camps and installations.
These generators could ultimately replace gas and diesel-burning generators with fewer emissions at locations such as worksites, buildings, movie sets, data centres, outdoor concerts and festivals.
They could also back up or temporarily replace grid-sourced electricity for residential and small commercial enterprises at times of power disruption, the company said.
SaaS Labs, Rocketlane raise funding
SaaS Labs, which builds business automation tools for sales and support teams, has raised $42 million in Series B funding led by Sequoia Capital India with participation from existing investors, Base 10 Partners and Eight Roads Ventures, the company said in a press release.
The company plans to use the funds raised on R&D, to develop new products for its global users, as well as to scale newly-launched products.
Rocketlane, a purpose-built customer onboarding platform, has closed an $18 million Series A funding round, the startup said in a press release. The investment is being led by previous Asana investors, 8VC, with participation from Nexus Venture Partners, Matrix Partners India, and prominent angel investor, Gokul Rajaram.
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Microsoft to buy Activision for $68.7 billion
Microsoft is acquiring Activision Blizzard in an all-cash deal valued at $68.7 billion, to “become the third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony,” the maker of Windows and Azure software said in an investor release.
“Gaming is the most dynamic and exciting category in entertainment across all platforms today and will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms,” Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO of Microsoft, said in the announcement.
With the acquisition Microsoft can add Activision’s games such as Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, Call of Duty and Candy Crush to its Game Pass for Xbox and PCs, which has 25 million subscribers. Activision has nearly 400 million monthly active players in 190 countries and three billion-dollar franchises.
US lawmakers introduce bill curtailing ‘surveillance advertising’
US lawmakers have introduced a new bill seeking to ban targeted advertisements based on personal data that will affect companies like Facebook, Google and data brokers that exploit deep stores of personal information to make money from targeted ads, TechCrunch reports.
The bill, Banning Surveillance Advertising Act, introduced by representatives Anna Eshoo and Jan Schakowsky in the US congress and Cory Booker in the Senate, would dramatically limit the ways that tech companies serve ads to their users, banning the use of personal data altogether, according to TechCrunch.
US airline CEOs warn of ‘catastrophic’ crisis from 5G deployment
CEOs from major US airlines including American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, and Southwest Airlines have warned in a letter to the American government that the impending deployment of new 5G spectrum in the US could cause “catastrophic” disruption of flights across the country, Reuters reports.
America’s federal aviation administration has previously said that 5G waves could interfere with the aircraft’s onboard systems, such as altimeters, that help them land in poor visibility.
Recruitment automation startup Kula raises money from Together Fund
Kula, a Silicon Valley startup building a recruitment automation platform, has raised $2.7 million funding from Venture Highway, Together Fund, and Global Founders Capital. Kula describes itself as a proactive recruitment platform that widens the talent pool by unifying all candidate sources and automating the candidate outreach and engagement.
Kula’s co-founders are Achuthanand Ravi, who’s previously worked at Stripe, Sathappan and Suman Kumar Dey, former Freshworks and Grab engineers.
In more funding news, Scripbox, which helps people easily make mutual fund investments through a mobile app, has raised $21 million from existing investor Accel, Economic Times reports. Scripbox will use the money to accelerate its growth as a broader wealth-management platform.
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Ed-tech startups, institutes warned against outsourcing arrangement
The Universities Grants Commission and the All India Council for Technical Education, have warned higher education institutes in the country that outsourcing of various programmes to ed-tech startups is not permitted, and said that action could be taken against them.
The Regulations governing higher education institutes in India mandate that they shall not offer open and distance learning and/or online programmes under any franchise arrangement and the institutes themselves are completely responsible for the programmes, according to a notice by the UGC.
However, some ed-tech companies are taking out advertisements that they are offering degree and diploma programmes in association with some universities and institutions recognised by the UGC, the commission said.
Such a franchisee arrangement is not permissible and action will be taken against defaulting ed-tech companies and institutes, and students should check the recognition status of any programme before enrolling them, UGC said. The AICTE has issued a similar warning.
Walmart preparing to get into the metaverse
Walmart appears to be venturing into the metaverse with plans to create its own cryptocurrency and collection of non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, CNBC reports. The big-box retailer filed several new trademarks late last month that indicate its intent to make and sell virtual goods, including electronics, home decorations, toys, sporting goods and personal care products, and, in a separate filing, the company said it would offer users a virtual currency, as well as NFTs, according to CNBC.
DeHaat acquires Helicrofter to expand operations in Maharashtra
DeHaat, an agri-tech company, has acquired a B2B agri-input marketplace startup, Helicrofter, adding more than 2000 agri-input retailers and 30 sellers in the state of Maharashtra. DeHaat today reaches more than 700,000 farmers in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
Founded in 2020 by Siddhartha Choudhary, Helicrofter is a farm input e-commerce platform designed to do away with supply chain inefficiencies in the rural ecosystem. Despite the pandemic, Helicrofter has been generating revenue since the very first month of its inception and has achieved annual revenue of more than Rs. 50 crore, according to a press release from DeHaat.
Sony enters Tamil Cinema in partnership with Kamal Haasan
Sony Pictures Films India, the Indian production arm of Sony Pictures International Productions, has struck a deal with Kamal Haasan, Tamil megastar and filmmaker, to produce Sony’s debut Tamil feature, Deadline reports. Currently untitled, the film will star Sivakarthikeyan and will be written and directed by Rajkumar Periasamy.
The project will be produced by Sony, Kamal Haasan and R Mahendran, and co-produced by God Bless Entertainment, according to Deadline.
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India has its own National Startup Day now. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in online interaction with several startups over the weekend, designated January 16 as the country’s startup day. He called on entrepreneurs to “innovate for India and innovate from India.” The government is focused on institutionalising innovation, reducing silos, and assisting innovators, he tweeted later.
India gets National Startup Day
India has its own National Startup Day now. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in online interaction with several startups over the weekend, designated January 16 as the country’s startup day. Later, in a series of tweets, Modi said that “this is India’s techade,” and the government would focus on institutionalising innovation, reducing silos and assisting innovators.
India’s startups are changing the rules of the game. They are the economic backbone of the new India, he said, and called on entrepreneurs to “innovate for India and innovate from India.”
Facebook could face a $3 billion class-action suit in the UK
Facebook will face a £2.3 billion ($3.14 billion) class-action suit in Britain on behalf of the 44 million users of the social networking platform from Meta—previously called Facebook—BBC reports.
Liza Lovdahl Gormsen, the competition expert seeking to sue Facebook, alleges that Meta accessing UK users personal data in return for the free use of Facebook is an unfair price. She intends to bring the case to the country’s Competition Appeal Tribunal.
Facebook "abused its market dominance to impose unfair terms and conditions on ordinary Britons, giving it the power to exploit their personal data”, Lovdahl Gormsen tells BBC.
FTX sets up a $2 billion venture fund to invest in crypto startups
FTX, a crypto derivatives exchange, has set up a $2 billion fund to invest in crypto-industry startups, Amy Wu, who heads the fund, said in a tweet. FTX Ventures is one of the industry's largest funds and the full funding came from FTX and its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, CoinDesk reported, citing Wall Street Journal, which broke the news.
Investments from the fund could be as low as $100,000 and as high as hundreds of millions of dollars. Wu, who joined FTX this month from Lightspeed Venture Partners, said the fund could deploy all of the money by next year, depending on whether it gets the right opportunities. In October, FTX raised $420.7 million and was valued at $25 billion, according to CoinDesk.
Wordle’s un-intended consequence leads to money for charity
Even as Apple cracks down on fakes of the suddenly popular browser-only free word puzzle game, Wordle, a developer who had created an unrelated app five years ago, with the same name, started seeing a spike in downloads, which he attributed to the popularity of the browser-based one, Gamespot reports.
Since his app was monetised, developer Steven Cravotta—who had stopped working on it—contacted the developer of the popular browser-based game, Josh Wardle, and they decided on giving away the money from the older app to charity. And Boost! West Oakland, a charity focused on after-school tutoring and mentoring for kids in the area, is the beneficiary, according to Gamespot.
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After a revised filing by the US FTC, Facebook, now Meta Platforms, must face the US government’s monopoly lawsuit alleging that the company abused its dominance and should be broken up, a judge ruled, Bloomberg reports. Japanese scientists have made a mask that glows if the coronavirus is detected. China’s experimental nuclear fusion reactor sets a new record.
Facebook to face US antitrust lawsuit
Facebook, now Meta Platforms, must face the US government’s monopoly lawsuit alleging that the company abused its dominance and should be broken up, a judge ruled, Bloomberg reports. US District Judge James Boasberg in Washington on Tuesday denied Facebook’s motion to dismiss the Federal Trade Commission’s revised antitrust complaint, which the agency refiled after the judge in June dismissed the case.
Boasberg, who started his opinion by writing, “Second time lucky?,” said the FTC’s allegations are “far more robust and detailed than before.” “The FTC has now alleged enough facts to plausibly establish that Facebook exercises monopoly power,” the judge wrote, according to the Bloomberg report.
A Covid-19 mask with ostrich cells that glows when the virus is present
Scientists from Kyoto University have developed a face mask made with ostrich antibodies that glow under ultraviolet light when coronavirus is present, Dezeen magazine reports.
A removable filter placed in the mask glows when exposed to coronavirus after being sprayed with a chemical liquid and exposed to ultraviolet lights. The efficiency of the filter's detection was confirmed in a clinical trial where test subjects wore the masks for eight hours.
Yasuhiro Tsukamoto, leader of the Kyoto University research group, told Dezeen that he came up with the idea after realising that ostriches are highly resistant to disease thanks to their strong immune system.
Bolt raises $709 million in funding
Bolt, a startup that operates on-demand ride-hailing, shared cars and scooters; and restaurant and grocery deliveries—has raised €628 million ($709 million), at a valuation of €7.4 billion ($8.4 billion), TechCrunch reports. The company will use the money to continue expanding to new geographies and to bring more consumers and partners to its ‘super app,’ according to the report.
China’s experimental nuclear fusion reactor sets record
China's ‘artificial sun,’ a nuclear fusion reactor, has set a new world record after superheating a loop of plasma to temperatures five times hotter than the sun for more than 17 minutes, according to Space.com, which cites Chinese state media.
The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak, or EAST, nuclear fusion reactor maintained a temperature of 158 million degrees Fahrenheit (70 million degrees Celsius) for 1,056 seconds, according to Xinhua News Agency, space.com reports. The core of the real sun, by contrast, reaches temperatures of around 27 million F (15 million C).
The achievement brings scientists a small yet significant step closer to the creation of a source of near-unlimited clean energy.
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Messaging wars — Google’s RCS versus Apple’s iMessage
A recent Wall Street Journal feature on how teens in the US are using Apple’s iMessage as a status symbol spotlighted another front on which the iPhone maker is at loggerheads with Google—messaging. Hiroshi Lockheimer, senior vice president of Android, tweeted that Apple is deliberately holding back from supporting the RCS, or rich communication services, on its walled-in iMessage platform.
RCS was originally developed by GSMA, the telecom operators’ global industry group, but Google bought an RCS provider in 2015 and developed and popularised it as the next generation phone-number based messaging platform that would replace the SMS. Emails that became public in the Apple versus Epic Games lawsuit also showed that Apple’s strategy of not supporting RCS was a deliberate one, The Verge points out.
Starlink’s satellite dishes have turned cat warmers
Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet company is benefitting an unexpected set of users, of the feline variety. In cold weather, cats have found a comforting resting place atop the satellite dishes that Starlink consumers have on their roofs, one customer Aaron Taylor pointed out in a tweet on new years day, with a photograph of five cats huddled up on his dish.
‘Cat on a hot satellite dish,’ The Guardian quipped, in its headline, inspired by the Tennessee Williams play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof that became a famous movie as well. What’s happening, apparently, is that the Starlink dishes are engineered to give out a bit of heat to melt the snow that collects on them, and cats are known to take comfort wherever they find it.
Gameto—a startup that wants to defeat menopause
Gameto, a biotech startup solving the problem of accelerated ovarian ageing, has raised $20 million in series A funding led by Future Ventures, and participation from several other firms and angel investors, the company said in a press release.
New York and Boston based Gameto was founded a year ago by Dina Radenkovic, a Serbian medical doctor turned entrepreneur, who has trained in the UK and the US. The startup is building a platform for ovarian therapeutics to initially address menopause and improve assisted fertility, and then initiate drug discovery and a computational platform to study ovarian ageing.
Eventually, Gameto wants to make menopause optional.
Take-Two buys Zynga in $12.7 billion deal
Take-Two Interactive, the maker of Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, is buying Zynga, maker of FarmVille and Words With Friends, in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $12.7 billion, CBS News reports.
Zynga shareholders will receive $3.50 in cash and $6.36 in shares of Take-Two common stock for each share of Zynga outstanding stock at closing. Take-Two said on Monday it anticipates $100 million in annual cost savings, according to CBS.
CCI seeks feedback on Google’s payments policies
The Competition Commission of India will seek a detailed report from app developers explaining the impact of Google’s payment policies on their balance sheet and also suggest an alternative payment mechanism if possible, Economic Times reports.
Google is seeking to enforce its policy of limiting developers to solely use its billing system for in-app sales of digital goods, on which it charges up to 30 percent commission. It has, however, pushed the deadline for Indian app developers to integrate with Google Play’s billing system to Oct. 31 from March 31, 2022, according to ET.
India’s Competition Commission is also looking into similar practices by Apple on its App Store. Last year, South Korea became the first country to ban these practices.
TCS, Infosys to report Q3 results on Jan. 12
Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys, India’s top two software services companies, will announce their fiscal third-quarter earnings results on Jan. 12, for the three months ended Dec. 31, 2021, according to press releases by the companies. India’s top IT companies are expecting the accelerated investments into digital technologies and cloud computing, following the Covid pandemic, to continue.
Tata Consultancy will also consider a share buyback, when its board of directors meet on Jan. 12, according to the company.
Avataar, Rupifi raise funding from Tiger Global
Avataar, a computer vision tech provider, focused on the spatial visual discovery, has raised $45 million in series B funding led by Tiger Global. Existing investor Sequoia Capital India joined in. The money will help the startup develop its product further in the direction of a metaverse experience.
Separately, Rupifi, which offers a buy-now-pay-later product to businesses, has raised $25 million in Series-A funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Tiger Global. Existing Investors Quona Capital and Ankur Capital joined in, along with Better Capital.
Rupifi was started in 2020 by Anubhav Jain, Ankit Singh and Jawaid Iqbal. With this latest round, Rupifi will expand its operations to build a complete B2B checkout product for marketplaces and omnichannel mobile-first B2B payments solutions for merchants, distributors and sellers.
BMW says it’s developing a digital ink to make colour-changing cars
BMW is developing a digital ink technology that will allow owners to change the colour of their cars at the touch of a button, the German carmaker announced at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show that ended on Saturday.
BMW is calling the technology iX Flow. It features an E Ink, which offers the prospect of a future technology that uses digitalisation to adapt the exterior of a vehicle to different situations and individual preferences, environmental conditions and even functional requirements, the company said.
At the start of 2022, we bring you a series of episodes pulling together the five most interesting predictions we found in multiple areas of tech. Today, we look at life sciences tech, where Covid-19 has changed everything. Pushed by the pandemic, the application of digital technologies and AI to life sciences research has accelerated big time, and that will continue into 2022 and more broadly as well.
1. We will likely move to the endemic phase of Covid-19
In 2022, we will move more to the endemic phase of SARS-CoV-2 infection, where we continue to learn to live with the virus,” Elizabeth McNally, director of the Center for Genetic Medicine and the Elizabeth J. Ward Professor of Genetic Medicine at the Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine, says on Northwestern University’s website.
Although there are many concerns about new variants, especially Omicron, at this stage it seems like those who are vaccinated and “boostered" are not likely to become very sick after being exposed to the virus. The greatest risk remains for those who choose to avoid vaccination, she says.
2. New and refined methods focusing on the immune system
As clinical trials for immune-related therapies in cancer continue to increase, there will be a sharper focus on the immune system in 2022, according to Fios Genomics, a bioinformatics company. Various techniques for the prediction of the immune composition of tumours from bulk data have been developed in the last couple of years and 2022 will see those techniques further refined.
3. Epigenetics research will become more popular
Human genome research has traditionally focused on the coding regions of the genome. but, this disregards up to 99 percent of the whole genome. Since these regions contain important regulatory elements that control gene expression, and scientists are becoming more aware of their importance in human diseases, interest in epigenetics—the study of changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression rather than alteration of the genetic code itself—will increase in 2022, according to Fios Genomics.
4. Increased interest in research into superbugs
In 2022, there will be a renewed focus on the fight against superbugs and antimicrobial resistance (AMR), according to Pistoia Alliance, a non-profit outfit funded by the drug companies AstraZeneca, GSK, Novartis and Pfizer.
Drug-resistant diseases could cause 10 million deaths each year by 2050 and damage to the global economy will be as catastrophic as the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, according to the United Nations. By 2030, antimicrobial resistance could force up to 24 million people into extreme poverty.
5. Life Sciences R&D to become more efficient
The combination of digital process automation, AI and machine learning and content services are beginning to become the game changer it promised to be, Ferdi Steinmann, a life sciences industry specialist at OpenText, a Canadian information management tech company, writes in a blog post. A recent survey by Aris Global, a drug discovery tech platform provider, found that 83 percent of Life Sciences respondents said they were using some form of automation in R&D, he notes. 2022 will see intelligent automation become more prevalent, especially in areas such as manufacturing, quality and commercialisation.
At the start of 2022, we bring you a series of episodes that pull together the five most interesting predictions we found in multiple areas in tech. Today we look at high-performance computing, in which the processing power of a billion-billion calculations per second is close to reality. As to quantum computing, real-world problem solving is still far away, experts say.
1. High-performance computing on the cloud will go mainstreamHigh-Performance Computing (HPC) in the cloud has reached the mainstream, according to a report by Market Watch, which projects that the market for cloud HPC will rise from $6.9 billion in 2020 to $146 billion by 2027. The major factors driving the growth of the cloud HPC market are - complex applications management, the emergence of the big data market, & the adoption of the pay-as-you-go model.
IBM, Microsoft, Google, Dell, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Penguin Computing, Sabalcore Computing, Adaptive Computing, Gompute, & Univa Corporation are among the companies leading the market.
2. And so HPC-as-a-service will find tractionMany vendors have moved from selling equipment to providing HPCaaS, & its rise is linked to the emergence of the cloud as an HPC solution, according to Verdict. The trend towards HPCaaS is, therefore, benefitting cloud players such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, & Alibaba although traditional HPC vendors are also offering HPCaaS.
HPCaaS can be a compelling option for end-users as it puts intense data processing & workloads that require high-performance within reach of companies that lack the necessary capital to hire skilled staff & invest in hardware. HPCaaS brings HPC capabilities to those companies that cannot afford to develop HPC knowledge & infrastructure in-house.
3. Exascale HPC will arriveThe high-performance computing (HPC) industry for a decade has been planning for the arrival of exascale systems—supercomputers that can process at least one exaflop or a quintillion (a billion billion) calculations per second. After years of planning, innovations & missed deadlines, the world is ready to fully embrace exascale computing, according to The New Stack.
In the US, the first of three planned exascale systems—Frontier, which will be powered by AMD Epyc processors & Radeon Instinct MI200 GPUs—is being assembled at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory & is expected to deliver a performance of 1.5 exaflops. On the heels of that will come Aurora, which will run on Intel’s new 4th Generation Xeon Scalable Sapphire Rapids CPUs & Xe-HPC Ponte Vecchio GPUs. It’s expected to be completed later in 2022 at the Argonne National Lab.
4. Quantum computing will continue baby stepsAs to quantum computing, the technology is steadily improving, but it will likely continue to boast more media coverage than practical applications in 2022, experts at consultancy Deloitte predict. Fewer than a dozen companies worldwide will be using QCs as part of their day-to-day operations & only for a limited number of use cases, mainly around optimisation problems. The 2022 revenues for QC hardware, software, & QC-as-a-service will likely be less than $500 million.
5. Investments in QC will likely remain strongInvestor interest will likely continue to be strong, according to Deloitte. VCs invested more than $1 billion into the sector in 2021, & one company even went public with a multibillion-dollar valuation. Further, investment in quantum by governments, including China, India, Japan, Germany, Netherlands, Canada, & the US, will likely bring the total to more than $5 billion for the year, Deloitte estimates.
At the start of 2022, we bring you a series of episodes that pull together the five most interesting predictions we found in multiple areas in tech. Today we look at robotics, where vital technologies, such as simulation, are advancing and investments in others, such as tactile sensors, are set to increase. Most commentary suggests adoption will continue to be driven by industrial use cases, but robots will move well beyond factory floors.
1. A new wave of adoption of robotics will begin
Multiple technologies have matured and are just starting to work together to make the adoption of robots easier in more industry verticals than ever before. “With the growing maturation of the collaborative robotics world, there's a logical inflexion point with end users that I'm beginning to see more frequently,” Brian Gerkey, co-founder and CEO of Open Robotics says, in a report by ZDNet.
“Industries such as healthcare, e-commerce, logistics, manufacturing, and others are all adopting a second or third wave of robots,” and interoperability will be the next big challenge, he says.
2. Autonomous Mobile Robots will rise
Autonomous mobile robots will go beyond factory floors—where they help move goods—into hospitals, services and ecommerce, says Shermine Gotfredsen, global sales director at ROEQ, in The Robot Report. “We also predict more AMRs not restricted to indoor movements, featuring more rugged, outdoor manoeuvrability,” she says.
The market for autonomous mobile robots was worth just $1 billion in 2017 but is forecast to hit $7 billion in 2022, driven by increasing manufacturing automation, the growing ecommerce sector, mass personalisation of goods and a shortage of low-cost labour, according to Interact Analysis.
3. Drone delivery will take off
“2022 will be the year robot delivery finally takes off,” professor Robin R. Murphy at Texas A&M University tells ZDNet. Analysis by Murphy’s team showed that during the first year of the pandemic, drones were used for medical applications in cities delivering samples and reagents from hospitals to laboratories faster than vehicles could drive across town, according to the ZDNet report.
Drone deliveries will pick up around the world in 2022, going beyond medicines into deliveries of online purchases.
4. Robotics related tech will advance significantly
Simulation is crucial to the design and development side of things and “a million times more robots will be built in the virtual world relative to the physical world,” Deepu Talla, VP & GM of embedded and edge computing, NVIDIA, tells The Robot Report.
2022 will see the coming together of simulation, the latest AI technologies, graphics and accurate high-performance physics modelling to accelerate robot development, Talla says.
And Facebook, now called Meta, is investing in developing tactile sensors that could be driven by AI and find applications in robots. Meta AI has also partnered GelSight, a tactile imaging and sensing technology company, to commercially manufacture a sensor using tech that was designed and open-sourced by it in 2020.
5. Many more robotics startups
In 2022, venture capital investments into robotics startups will increase, says Adam Rodnitzky, co-founder and COO of Tangram Vision, in The Robot Report. He also predicts that robotics startups will emerge without having any robotics specialists on the team. This will be due to the level of maturity and completeness of the tools available for creating a robotics company from scratch.
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At the start of 2022, we bring you a series of episodes that pull together the five most interesting predictions we found in multiple areas in tech. Today, we look at blockchains, crypto and Web3, after a year in which these all saw unprecedented advancement. Experts can’t agree on whether Bitcoin will nosedive or surge to never before highs in 2022. On the whole, though, all things digitally decentralised will get a lot more attention this year.
- Bitcoin could crash to $10,000 or pop to $100,000Bitcoin, which rose to a record $69,000 in November, is headed for a crash, some experts say. Bitcoin “has no fundamental value” and is more of a “toy,” according to Carol Alexander, professor of finance at Sussex University, as CNBC reports.
Currently, at around $50,000, it could plummet to as low as $10,000 in 2022, Alexander told CNBC. Crypto believers disagree. Antoni Trenchev, a managing partner of crypto lender Nexo, expects volatility to stay but also that Bitcoin will surge to $100,000, according to Bloomberg.
2. The metaverse will grow and an NFT economy with itDriven by Meta aka Facebook, but also by metaverse startups and consumer mega-brands like Nike, the world of digital avatars will grow in 2022. And with it, an economy around NFTs or non-fungible tokens will grow—evolving from purchases of digital art to digital anything.
“The possibilities of NFTs are endless since they can be used to log ownership of any unique asset,” Alex Atallah, co-founder of OpenSea, says in a Cnet report. “We're already seeing early use-cases of NFTs being used as event tickets, software licenses, fan club memberships, or otherwise tied to interactive experiences,” he says.
3. Stablecoins will gain ground“People should start paying attention to trends in stablecoins both as a medium of payments and as a dollar digital currency,” Rachel Mayer, a vice president of product at fintech company Circle told Cnet. Use cases like cross-border payments, aid relief and instant settlement payments will further gain acceptance in 2022, Mayer said.
In the US, “stablecoins will become increasingly regulated, only allowed to hold nominally risk-free assets, if they want to connect to regulated, legal institutions,” Lyn Alden, an investment strategy advisor, said on Twitter, which was picked up in a blogpost by crypto company Coindesk.
4. A Web3 app store will happenOne noteworthy phenomenon around the underlying decentralised protocols or blockchains and crypto is being called Web3, or the next version of the worldwide web itself, which enthusiasts dream will be a completely decentralised internet.
And with Web3, will come the need for a Web3 app marketplace. “The race is on to be the app store for crypto,” Philip Gradwell, chief economist at Chainalysis, says in the Bloomberg report mentioned above. Just as people love online platforms on today’s internet, Web3 will see its own platforms, Gradwell says in the report.
5. DAOs will get more attentionThe bigger picture for crypto and blockchain enthusiasts is freedom from centralised institutional control of any form. And one powerful representation of that idea is the decentralised autonomous organisation or DAO.
DAOs are now blooming far outside the crypto world, according to Coindesk. In the US, they include a DAO intent on buying a National Basketball Association basketball team, one that wants to restore ocean health to one dedicated to increasing the wealth of women, and even one that wanted to buy a copy of the US Constitution. 2022 will see more of them, and around the world.
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At the start of 2022, we bring you a series of episodes that pull together the five most interesting predictions we found in multiple areas in tech. In this episode, we focus on AI and machine learning, which experts around the world expect will go mainstream and impact multiple industries much more significantly. From manufacturing to human language, in 2022, everything will begin to change in ways that might help us, but also challenge us.
Prediction 1: AI and deep learning will go mainstream and physicalAI, machine learning and deep learning platforms have entered the mainstream and will attain the same level of maturity as specialised data analytics, Database Trends and Analysis reports. Frameworks like PyTorch and Tensorflow will be vital.
In 2022, AI will also likely play a pivotal role in helping us solve real-world challenges—in manufacturing, supply chain and logistics, for example—The Next Web reports. AI will begin to make greater impact in areas including, healthcare, automotive and gaming, according to a blogpost by semiconductor giant Nvidia.
Prediction 2: AI for human language will surgeGPT-4, a potential new language model, brings with it hopes to dramatically improve natural language AI, according to The Next Web. Auto-generated articles that are indistinguishable from human writing, improved real-time language translation, and meta-learning capabilities are just a few ideas of what may come next. The combination of this kind of human-like capabilities and cloud computing will elevate the advancement of tech in every single industry, he says.
Prediction 3: Embedded AI—one in five organisations will invest in ‘AI inside’During the pandemic, digital natives effectively used ‘AI inside’—AI that’s embedded at the core of everything from architecture to operations—to bridge the business-to-customer divide in areas such as grocery delivery and restaurant supply-chain optimisation, according to researchers at Forrester.
In 2022, they expect traditional businesses to adopt this AI-first approach to platform and digital transformation. The more ‘AI inside,’ the more enterprises can shrink the latency between insights, decisions, and results, she says.
Prediction 4: AI for Science will take offThis area will continue to mature significantly and yield real-world impact, according to the Nvidia blogpost mentioned above. AI will deeply integrate with high-performance computing at supercomputing scale and make scientific simulations and modelling possible at an unprecedented scale and fidelity in areas such as weather and climate models. AI will lead to breakthroughs in discovery of new drugs and treatments and revolutionise healthcare. Federated learning and differential privacy will be widely adopted, making healthcare and other sensitive data-sharing seamless.
Prediction 5: Responsible AI—the market for responsible AI solutions will double.Some regulated industries have started adopting responsible AI solutions that help companies turn AI principles such as fairness and transparency into consistent practices, according to the Forrester predictions mentioned earlier. In 2022, Forrester expects the demand for these solutions to extend past these regulated industries to other verticals using AI for critical business operations. With this uptick in adoption, existing machine-learning vendors will acquire specialised responsible AI vendors for bias detection, interpretability, and model lineage capabilities.
India is offering a Rs. 76,000 crore ($10 billion) package to global semiconductor companies to create a comprehensive ecosystem for chip design, packaging and manufacturing, Economic Times reports. The funding, which will be provided over six years, is expected to bring in investments of up to Rs 1.7 lakh crore ($22 billion), India’s Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw told ET.
The minister hopes that India’s strong software and chip design ecosystem will attract global semiconductor companies. The government will not just provide infrastructure support, but also fast track clearances. Approvals are expected for a large chip manufacturing facility in the next four to six months, according to ET.
Tiger Global is backing fintech startup CreditBook. It marks the New York-headquartered hedge fund and VC firm’s first investment in Pakistan, TechCrunch reports. Among two-year-old CreditBook’s founders is Imam Jamall, one of the few women founders in Pakistan.
Other investors include Firstminute Capital, Banana Capital, VentureSouq, Ratio Ventures, i2i Ventures. Angel investors Sriram Krishnan and Julian Shapiro have also joined the $11 million pre-Series A round.
The software vulnerability discovered last week in Log4J, a popular open-source library, could be one of the worst, Wired reports, citing cybersecurity experts. The combination of severity, simplicity, and pervasiveness of the Log4J library has the security community rattled, Wired says in its report.
“It is by far the single biggest, most critical vulnerability ever,” Amit Yoran, CEO of cybersecurity firm Tenable and founding director of US-CERT—the organisation responsible for coordinating the public-private response to digital threats in the US—told Wired in an interview.
Expect Log4J exploits, which have so far been limited to crypto miners and some malware, to escalate into the realms of serious ransomware attacks, the Wired warns.
Facebook’s parent company Meta has alerted 50,000 users of Facebook and Instagram that their accounts were spied on by commercial “surveillance-for-hire” schemes around the globe, The Verge reports. The users, located in more than 100 countries, were targeted by seven entities, according to an update posted on Meta’s news page on Thursday.
Targets included journalists, dissidents, critics of authoritarian regimes, families of opposition, and human rights activists. The surveillance was uncovered in a months-long investigation in which Meta identified spying groups and removed them from the platform.
Spotify has acquired another podcast technology company, Whooshkaa, an Australia-based all-in-one platform for hosting, managing, distributing, promoting, monetising and measuring podcasts, the world’s largest music streaming company said in a blogpost.
Whooshkaa offers radio broadcasters a specialised tool that makes it simple to turn their existing audio content into on-demand podcast content. Spotify plans to soon integrate this technology into its Megaphone suite.
TranZact, a startup offering a SaaS-based digital transformation tool for SMEs has raised $7 million in Series A funding, the company said in a press release. The funding was led by San Francisco-based Tribe Capital with participation from Prime Venture Partners, Gemba Capital and existing investor Kae Capital. Several noted angel investors also participated.
Investment in climate tech is continuing to show strong growth as an emerging asset class, with a total of $87.5 billion invested in the second half of 2020 and the first half of 2021, accounting and consultancy firm PwC says in a new report, State of Climate Tech 2021. H1 2021 saw record investments, over $60 billion. This represents a 210 percent increase from the $28.4 billion invested in the previous 12 months. Climate tech now accounts for 14 cents of every venture capital dollar, PwC says.
However, there’s an opportunity to shift capital towards solutions with untapped climate impact potential. Of the 15 technology areas analysed in the PwC report, the top five—which represent over 80 percent of future emissions reduction potential—received only 25 percent of climate tech investments between 2013 and H1 2021.
WhatsApp is running a pilot programme to bring digital payments to rural India, the Meta company said in a press release on Wedesday. Under the pilot programme, WhatsApp has adopted 500 villages in the Indian states of Karnataka and Maharashtra, where it will bring its ‘payments on WhatsApp’ feature to villagers—the feature uses India’s popular Unified Payments Interface.
The pilot called ‘Digital Payments Utsav’, started on the 15th of Oct, 2021 in Kyathanahalli village in Mandya district of Karnataka, where on-ground facilitators familiarised villagers with various aspects of digital payments including signing up for UPI, setting up a UPI account and safety best practices of using digital payments, the company said in a press release.
Google has told its employees they will lose pay—and will eventually be fired—if they don’t comply with the company’s Covid-19 vaccination policy, according to internal documents, CNBC, which reviewed the documents, reports.
Employees had until Dec. 3 to declare their vaccination status and upload documentation showing proof, or to apply for a medical or religious exemption, according to a memo circulated by Google’s leadership, CNBC reports. After that date, Google would start contacting employees who hadn’t uploaded their status or were unvaccinated, as well as those whose exemption requests weren’t approved.
Employees who haven’t complied with the vaccination rules by the Jan. 18 deadline will be placed on “paid administrative leave” for 30 days. After that, the company will put them on “unpaid personal leave” for up to six months, followed by termination, according to CNBC.
New criminal offences and major changes have been proposed in the UK's landmark Online Safety Bill, which seeks to regulate social media and big tech companies, BBC reports. A new parliamentary report calls for adding scams and offences, like sending unwanted sexual images and promoting violence against women and girls.
A named senior manager at the big tech companies should also be made personally liable in court for failures, it said, according to BBC. The draft bill and this report both lay out exemptions for journalism, public interest, and free speech, but critics — such as Adam Smith Institute, a think tank — fear that may not be enough, according to the BBC report.
Minecraft, a platform that started as a simple video game that became a canvas for millions of players to create their own content, got its one-trillionth view, The Verge reports. YouTube, in collaboration with Minecraft developer Mojang, is celebrating an unprecedented trillionth view with a snapshot of the game’s unique and transformative history on the platform, according to The Verge.
Elon Musk is Time Magazine’s ‘Person of the Year’ for 2021. Musk’s startup rocket company, SpaceX, has blasted past Boeing and others to own America’s spacefaring future. His electric car company, Tesla, controls two-thirds of the multibillion-dollar electric-vehicle market it pioneered. It is valued at $1 trillion, the magazine points out.
That has made Musk, with a net worth of more than $250 billion, the richest private citizen in history. His interests include robots, solar power, cryptocurrency, climate tech, brain-computer implants and underground tunnels to move people and freight at high speeds.
In the future Musk envisions, robots perform all the labour, and goods and services are abundant, so people work on what they love. “There’s, like, plenty for everyone, essentially,” he says in Time’s profile of him. “There’s not necessarily anyone who’s the boss of you. I don’t mean to suggest chaos, but rather that you’re not under anyone’s thumb. So you have the freedom to do whatever you’d like to do, provided it does not cause harm to others.”
NSO Group, the Israeli spyware company—whose software was used to target human rights activists, journalists, government officials and others, around the world—is in danger of defaulting on its debts. It is exploring options that include shutting its controversial Pegasus unit and selling the entire company, Bloomberg reports.
NSO has held talks with several investment funds about refinancing or outright sale. The prospective new owners include two American funds that have discussed taking control and closing the Pegasus spyware unit.
Under that scenario, the funds would then invest about $200 million in fresh capital to turn the know-how behind Pegasus into strictly defensive cyber security services and perhaps develop the Israeli company’s drone technology, according to Bloomberg.
Apple is being investigated by the US Department of Labor over claims that it retaliated against an employee who complained of workplace harassment and unsafe working conditions, according to a Reuters news digest of the FT report, which is behind a paywall.
Ninjacart, a supply chain company for fresh produce, has raised $145 million from Flipkart and its US-based parent, Walmart, in what could be the biggest funding round for an Indian agri-tech startup, Economic Times reports.
This is Flipkart’s third investment in Ninjakart, according to ET. It first invested an undisclosed amount in the Bengaluru-based startup in 2019 and then added around $30 million late last year, with Walmart.
Manish Maheshwari, a former Twitter India boss, is leaving Twitter to start an ed-tech venture, TechCrunch reports. Maheshwari had recently moved to San Francisco to work at a different division within the company. He is in talks with potential investors to raise funds for a new Bangalore-headquartered ed-tech startup that promises to deliver MBA courses in four months, according to some of the investors to whom he has pitched the new startup.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Twitter account was “briefly compromised” on Sunday, according to a statement from his office. Modi, whose handle @narendramodi has more than 73 million followers on Twitter, is among the most followed figures on the microblogging social media platform.
Suspicions of a hack were prompted after a tweet was posted from his handle that claimed India had adopted Bitcoin as legal tender. India is set to introduce proposals in the parliament this month to ban private cryptos in the country and start a central bank digital currency.
“The matter was escalated to Twitter and the account has been immediately secured. In the brief period that the account was compromised, any Tweet shared must be ignored,” the prime minister’s office tweeted from its handle @PMOIndia on Sunday.
Prime Minister Modi’s account was "not compromised due to any breach of Twitter’s systems,” the company said, according to Economic Times. "There are no signs of any other impacted accounts at this time,” Twitter said, according to ET.
A widely accessible software vulnerability was reported four days ago by researchers at Lunasec, an open-source data security company. The researchers are calling it Log4Shell, and they describe it as a ‘zero-day’ vulnerability found in software code called Log4j 2 that was “ubiquitous.” The piece of software is written in the hugely popular programming language Java that is used by businesses and organisations around the world.
A zero-day exploit is one that people don’t know about but is known to the hackers who discovered it, so there are literally zero days to fix it, cybersecurity company Norton says on its website.
As to Log4Shell, “Many, many services are vulnerable to this exploit. Cloud services like Steam, Apple iCloud, and apps like Minecraft have already been found to be vulnerable,” according to Lunasec’s blogpost.
Computer emergency response teams in New Zealand, at Deutsche Telekom, and the Greynoise web monitoring service have all warned that attackers are actively looking for servers vulnerable to Log4Shell attacks, TechCrunch reports. Security patches are available for this vulnerability, but the Log4j’s popularity makes the flaw a serious problem.
Meanwhile, a Microsoft Teams bug on Android phones prevented some users from making emergency calls in the US, according to a BBC report over the weekend. One user posted online that he was prevented from calling 911 — the emergency number in the US — when his grandmother may have been having a stroke, according to the report.
Google was able to verify the bug itself and is working on a fix. "We believe the issue is only present on a small number of devices with the Microsoft Teams app installed when the user is not logged in, and we are currently only aware of one user report related to the occurrence of this bug," Google said.
The rare glitch was caused by an "unintended interaction" between the Teams app and the Android operating system, according to the report.
In more Microsoft news, the Windows software maker will get unconditional anti-trust regulatory approval in Europe for its $16 billion bid for artificial intelligence and speech technology company Nuance Communications, Reuters reports. This would be Microsoft’s second biggest purchase after its $26.2 billion LinkedIn purchase in 2016.
The Nuance deal would boost Microsoft’s presence in cloud services for healthcare and it has already secured regulatory go ahead in the US and Australia, according to the news agency. Nuance is known for its pioneering speech technology and helping launch Apple's Siri virtual assistant. Its software is used by 77 percent of US hospitals, according to Reuters.
US President Joe Biden signed an executive order on December 8 outlining a multi-billion-dollar plan for the federal government to achieve ‘net zero’ by 2050, The Verge reports. Under the plan, the US government will switch to electric vehicles, upgrade federal buildings, and use the power of the government to shift to cleaner forms of electricity.
The government will stop purchasing petrol-powered passenger cars in 2027 but would only achieve 100 percent electric vehicle purchases by 2035. Biden’s order will direct the government to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 65 percent by the end of the decade before reaching full carbon neutrality by 2050.
Amazon has been fined € 1.13 billion ($1.28 billion) by Italy's anti-trust regulator, CNBC reports. The Italian competition regulator, AGCM, has found that Amazon abused its market dominance by promoting its own logistics service, called Fulfilment Amazon. It claimed businesses had to use the FBA service to access benefits such as selling products with Prime delivery and participation in Black Friday sales. Amazon said, it "strongly disagrees" with the decision, and would appeal.
Instagram's chief Adam Mosseri has called on US lawmakers to help regulate the platform, at a Senate hearing on December 8, which examined the harmful impact of social media on the mental health of teen users, BBC reports. Mosseri argued that Instagram is actively working to address the app's negative effects. However, he called for the creation of industry-wide regulations to police how social media platforms can operate.
Inrupt, a startup co-founded by Tim Berners-Lee—widely credited as the leading figure in the creation of the internet—has raised about $30 million in Series A funding, TechCrunch reports.
Forte Ventures led Inrupt’s new round, the two said on Thursday, but both declined to disclose the size of the deal. The round saw participation from all existing investors, including Akamai Technologies and Glasswing Ventures, as well as new investors Allstate and the Minderoo Foundation’s Frontier Technology Initiative.
At Inrupt, Berners-Lee, the creator of the standards of the world wide web, and co-founder John Bruce are attempting to “reshape the internet” by building a platform that gives users control of their data.
Miro, a visuals-based collaboration software maker, is seeking $17 billion in a new round of venture capital funding, Financial Times reports. The 10-year old startup describes itself as an online whiteboard platform for team collaboration. Miro’s ‘infinite canvas’ enables teams to lead engaging workshops and meetings, design products, and brainstorm ideas.
Miro claims 25 million users worldwide, including more than 100,000 enterprise customers and 95 percent of the world’s 100 biggest companies. Miro was founded by Andrey Khusid and Oleg Shardin in 2011.
Meanwhile, Pleo, a Danish startup that makes expense management tools aimed at SMBs, has raised $200 million in fresh funding that doubles its value to $4.7 billion, TechCrunch reports. Jeppe Rindom, Pleo’s co-founder and CEO, said it will use the money for acquisitions, accelerating expansion to new markets, adding more functionality to its product. Pleo helps SMBs issue company cards and better manage how employees spend money.
Indian architect Balkrishna Doshi has been awarded the Royal Institute of British Architects' Royal Gold Medal for 2022, Dezeen magazine reports. Awarded annually by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and personally approved by the Queen, the Royal Gold Medal celebrates those who have shaped the "advancement of architecture”. Doshi was selected in recognition of his 70-year career and his influence on the direction of architecture in India.
General Bipin Rawat (63), India's first Chief of Defence Staff, his wife Madhulika, and 11 other military personnel were killed in a helicopter crash on Wednesday. The Russian-made Mi-17V5 helicopter crashed near Coonoor municipality, in the Nilgiri Hills, in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The exact cause of the crash, which happened in foggy weather around noon, isn't clear yet, and an investigation is on.
After taking off from the Sulur air force base in Coimbatore, where the General had arrived from Delhi, the chopper was on its way to the Defence Services Staff College in Wellington, where he was scheduled to deliver a lecture. The crash happened only 10 minutes from the destination, according to news reports.
Air Force officer Group Captain Varun Singh is reported to be the sole survivor of the crash.
The heavily wooded hilly terrain of the crash site made rescue operations difficult, with the nearest road several kilometres away. Rescuers had to trek to the site, and there was no access to fire engines or even piped water. Locals helped, carrying water in buckets and pots, according to various news reports.
The Indian Army confirmed that Brigadier LS Lidder, Lieutenant Colonel H Singh, Wing Commander PS Chauhan, Squadron Leader K Singh, Junior Warrant Officers Das and Pradeep A, Havildar Satpal, Naik Gursewak Singh, Naik Jitender, Lance Naik Vivek, and Lance Naik S Teja were the other defence personnel killed in the crash, according to The Hindu.
Wing Commander PS Chauhan, Commanding Officer of the 109 Helicopter Unit (the Knights) at Air Force Station, Sulur, and Squadron Leader Kuldeep, piloted the crashed chopper, according to The Hindu.
“I am deeply anguished,” India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Twitter. “Gen. Bipin Rawat was an outstanding soldier. A true patriot, he greatly contributed to modernising our armed forces and security apparatus. His insights and perspectives on strategic matters were exceptional. His passing away has saddened me deeply. Om Shanti,” the prime minister said.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is expected to make a statement in the parliament on Thursday. Condolences have come in from around the world. In a Pentagon statement, US Secretary of Defence Lloyd J Austin III, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley and Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said they were “deeply saddened” by the general’s death. “As India's first chief of defence, he made a lasting impact on the Indian military and reinforced our strong military-to-military relationship between the US and India," they said.
General Bipin Laxman Singh Rawat (63) was born in a family of military officers. His father, Laxman Rawat, was a lieutenant general in the Indian Army. Bipin Rawat attended the National Defence Academy and the Indian Military Academy, where he received the ‘sword of honour.’ He was commissioned into the Indian Army as a second lieutenant in 1978.
In 2016, he was appointed India’s 27th Chief of Army Staff. He was the third officer from the Gorkha Brigade to become the chief of the Army Staff, after Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw and General Dalbir Singh Suhag. In January 2019, he was named India’s first Chief of Defence Staff. That same year, during a visit to America, General Rawat was inducted to the United States Army Command and General Staff College International Hall of Fame.
The general’s highly decorated distinguished service included several strategic military initiatives in India, along our borders, and on international peace-keeping missions in Africa. The mortal remains of the General and his wife are to be brought to New Delhi today, and the funeral is to take place on Friday. They are survived by two daughters.
Facebook, now called Meta, is being sued for more than $150 billion by dozens of Rohingya refugees in the UK and US, accusing the social media giant of allowing hate speech against them to spread, BBC reports.
They are demanding this compensation, claiming Facebook's platforms promoted violence against the persecuted minority in Myanmar and that the internet company didn’t do enough to safeguard against being used as a platform for spreading hate in the country. An estimated 10,000 Rohingya Muslims were killed during a military crackdown in Buddhist-majority Myanmar in 2017, according to BBC.
Amazon Web Services, the world’s biggest cloud services provider, had an outage on Tuesday centred around its US-East-1 region (data centre), taking down Netflix, Disney+, some news sites, and affecting businesses and services around the world. The company’s status page reported increased error rates across multiple services that have now mostly all been resolved. Outside the US, AWS’s management console and support centre were affected.
5G is being touted as a game-changer around the world, but one of the first potentially serious problems with 5G has already surfaced in the aviation industry.
Aeroplanes rely on radio altimeters to tell how high they are above the ground to safely land when pilots can’t see. The US Federal Aviation Administration is instructing 6,834 of them to not do thatat certain airports because of 5G interference, The Verge reports.
The FAA ruled that those thousands of US planes (and some helicopters) won’t be able to use many of the guided and automatic landing systems—that are designed to work in poor visibility conditions—if they are landing at an airport where there’s deemed to be enough 5G interference that their altimeters aren’t reliable, according to The Verge.
Microsoft is rolling out a dark mode for its Notepad app, the company said in a blogpost. The feature is being rolled out to Windows Insiders in the Dev channel. Other additions include a redesigned find and replace experience and support for multi-level undo—another top community feature request, Dave Grochocki, Principal Program Manager Lead – Windows Inbox Apps, said in the blog post.
In more Microsoft news, the company has launched a cybersecurity skilling programme in India that aims to skill over 100,000 people in 2022. The programme is designed to provide hands-on experience in the fundamentals of security, compliance, and identity, and includes certification. Microsoft will conduct these courses with its partners, including Cloudthat, Koenig, RPS, and Synergetics Learning. The course modules are designed to support all levels of learners.
Grip Security, a Tel Aviv-based startup that helps companies protect their data in SaaS applications, has raised a $19 million Series A funding round led by Intel Capital, TechCrunch reports. YL Ventures, which led the company’s $6 million seed round earlier this year, also participated in this round, which brings Grip's total funding to $25 million.
MoEngage, a customer engagement platform provider, has raised Series D funding of $30 million led by Steadview Capital, with participation from the company’s existing investors Multiples Alternate Asset Management, Eight Roads Ventures, F-Prime Capital and Matrix Partners India, according to a press release. MoEngage will use the money to continue to invest in AI-powered and insights-driven cross-channel engagement solutions.
A BBC investigation based on interviews with former Byju employees and customers has revealed several allegations against India’s most valuable startup, according to a report by the BBC. Byju’s has denied the allegations.
Disgruntled parents allege they were misled by sales agents. They said they were lured into contracts by agents who convinced them of an urgent need only to go incommunicado a few months after the sale, making it difficult to get a refund, according to BBC.
Former employees complained of "pushy managers", claiming there was a high-pressure sales culture that emphasised aggressive targets. Sales staff have been marked absent and seen their salaries docked for not meeting targets. The aggressive culture has also affected both the physical and mental health of some staff, the report says. There are also hundreds of complaints in online consumer and employee forums against the company, according to BBC.
Byju’s has said its products are only sold to parents interested in them, and that it has a strong set of employee welfare policies, according to the BBC report.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said $443 million will be spent on land conservation and restoration and efforts to reduce environmental burdens on marginalised communities via his Earth Fund’s next round of grants, The Verge reports.
This year, the fund has pledged more than $3 billion for similar initiatives. In 2020, Bezos promised $10 billion — about 5 percent of his current net worth — towards tackling climate change this decade.
The grants include $130 million to advance the Justice40 initiative in the U.S.; $261 million to further the 30x30 initiative to protect 30 percent of land and sea by 2030, with a focus on the Congo Basin and Tropical Andes; and $51 million to support land restoration in the U.S. and Africa, the Earth Fund said in a press release.
Pinterest is further investing in creator tools and video. The company has acquired a video creation and editing app Vochi for an undisclosed sum. The company will be bringing in both the IP at Vochi and its 40-person team, including its founders, to expand Pinterest’s set of video creation tools and to help its creators make more dynamic videos, according to TechCrunch.
“The Vochi app gives creators the ability to apply high-quality effects based on computer vision on objects in a video instantly,” Ilya Lesun, CEO & Co-founder at Vochi, said in a press release. “These technologies are unique in the industry, and we’re excited to bring them to an even larger audience as a part of the Pinterest team.”
WhatsApp is adding new functionality to its disappearing messages feature, which lets users set messages in a chat to automatically be deleted after a set period of time, the company said in a blogpost. WhatsApp says users will now have the option to turn on disappearing messages automatically for all their new one-on-one chats so that all future messages will be automatically deleted from the service. WhatsApp also says it’s giving users more options for how long before a message is deleted.
Epic Games has created The Matrix Awakens, an interactive tech demo built in Unreal Engine 5. A teaser for the interactive Matrix experience appeared yesterday, and the tech demo will be available on PS5 and Xbox Series X / S consoles, The Verge reports. You can pre-install the demo right now (29GB) on PS5 or Xbox Series X / S, and it will launch during The Game Awards on December 9th.
Members of the original movie team, including Lana Wachowski, have worked with Epic Games to create The Matrix Awakens. The Xbox store listing promises “a wild ride into the reality-bending universe of The Matrix that features performances by Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss.”
Elon Muskis being allowed to “make the rules” himself for the world’s space tech industry, Josef Aschbacher, European Space Agency’s new chief, warns in an interview with Financial Times. Musk’s private space company SpaceX and the satellites unit Starlink have won regulatory approval in the US to send up tens of thousands of satellites into low-earth orbits, to provide satellite-based internet connections around the world.
“Space will be much more restrictive [in terms of] frequencies and orbital slots,” Aschbacher said according to the Financial Times report, which is behind a paywall, but was also cited by other news sites. “You have one person owning half of the active satellites in the world. That’s quite amazing. De facto, he is making the rules. The rest of the world including Europe … is just not responding quick enough,” Aschbacher warned.
Clearview AI is just certain administrative fees away from getting a US federal patent for its controversial facial recognition technology, Politico reports. The patent would be the first to cover a so-called ‘search engine for faces’ that crawls the internet to find matches, according to the report.
Clearview’s software has already scraped billions of public images from social media to help law enforcement match images in government databases or surveillance footage. Critics say the company is doing this without the knowledge of consent of anyone.
Now, some of those critics also fear that codifying Clearview’s work with a patent will accelerate the growth of these technologies before legislators or regulators have fully addressed the potential dangers, according to Politico.
Curefit Healthcare, which operates the fitness platform Cultfit, has raised $145 million in a funding round led by food delivery company Zomato, Economic Times reports.
Accel, South Park Commons, Singapore’s Temasek Holdings and Curefit's co-founder Mukesh Bansal also participated in the round, according to ET.
Curefit is now valued at about $1.5 billion, up from $800 million in March 2020, according to ET.
Sense, an HR tech startup that helps some of the world’s largest staffing and recruitment agencies fill blue-collar vacancies quickly, has raised $50 million in series D funding, led by SoftBank, TechCrunch reports. The Silicon Valley startup, founded by Indian American entrepreneur Anil Dharni, has raised its valuation to $500 million in the process, according to TechCrunch.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One), is the title of the highly anticipated sequel to the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. This was revealed in the first trailer for the sequel that is out now from Sony Pictures. The surprise is that the upcoming adventures of Miles Morales will actually be a two-part affair, The Verge points out.
According to the official description, the upcoming sequel will “transport Brooklyn’s full-time, friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man across the Multiverse to join forces with Gwen Stacy and a new team of Spider-People to face off with a villain more powerful than anything they have ever encountered.”
LinkedIn has started supporting Hindi—the first Indian regional language on the professional network—to support 600 million Hindi language speakers globally, the company said in a press release. With the launch of Hindi, LinkedIn now supports 25 languages globally. As part of the phase 1 rollout of LinkedIn in Hindi, members will be able to access their feed, profile, jobs, messaging, and create content in Hindi on desktop and their Android and iOS phones. The platform will also continue to add more Hindi publishers and creators in the coming weeks to boost member engagement and conversations in Hindi.
Big Tech is preparing to legally challenge certain provisions in India’s data protection bill if lawmakers accept and adopt all the recommendations of the Joint Committee of Parliament in the final legislation, Economic Times reports. The biggest point of contention is a proposal to classify social media platforms as publishers as it places the onus for user-generated content on internet companies. That could impact companies including Facebook, Google’s YouTube, Twitter, and WhatsApp—all of whom stand to lose the safe harbour or immunity currently provided by the Information Technology Act, 2000.
Someone drained funds from multiple cryptocurrency wallets connected to the decentralised finance platform BadgerDAO on Wednesday, The Verge reports. According to the blockchain security and data analytics Peckshield, which is working with Badger to investigate the heist, the various tokens stolen in the attack are worth about $120 million. While the investigation is still ongoing, members of the Badger team have told users that they believe the issue came from someone inserting a malicious script in the UI of their website.
Timnit Gebru, the Google AI researcher who was fired controversially a year ago, has launched a new research institute to ask questions about responsible use of artificial intelligence that she says Google and other tech companies won’t, Wired reports. Gebru is now the founder and executive director of Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research. “Instead of fighting from the inside, I want to show a model for an independent institution with a different set of incentive structures,” she says.
In more Google news, the internet search giant is planning to launch its smartwatch next year, Slashdot reports, citing a report from Insider, which is behind a paywall. "Two employees said a spring launch was possible if the latest testing round is a success, however, all sources stressed that details and timelines were subject to change depending on feedback from employees testing the device," reports Insider. The device, which is internally codenamed ‘Rohan,’ (from the Lord of the Rings maybe) will showcase the latest version of Google's smartwatch software to customers and partners, according to Slashdot.
Tesla says it plans to ship a smaller version of its Cyberquad EV, named 'Cyberquad for Kids' in four weeks, MobileSyrup reports. While the Cyberquad—which cost $1900—maybe targeted for kids, Tesla's Head of Design says that adults can ride it as well. The company's website states that the little quad has 15 miles (24 km) of range and can go up to 10mph (16km/h). Its battery takes around five hours to charge, according to the report.
At its re:Invent conference, Amazon Web Services announced two new initiatives to make machine learning more accessible to anyone interested in learning and experimenting with the technology. The first is a $10 million scholarship programme to make AI and ML education accessible to poor students around the world. It will benefit 2000 students every year. Top 500 students, after a first Udacity nano degree, will get a shot at a second one and mentorship from experts at Amazon and Intel.
The second initiative is about increasing access to machine learning through Amazon SageMaker Studio Lab, which gives everyone access to a no-cost version of Amazon SageMaker—an AWS service that helps customers build, train, and deploy machine learning models.
“The two initiatives we are announcing today are designed to open up educational opportunities in machine learning to make it more widely accessible to anyone interested in the technology,” said Swami Sivasubramanian, Vice President of Amazon Machine Learning at AWS.
US lawmakers have called executives of eight major cryptocurrency firms to testify before a congressional committee on December 8, BBC reports, as the government scrutinises the sector further. Coinbase's Alesia Haas, Circle's Jeremy Allaire and Bitfury's Brian Brooks are among the executives asked to testify, according to BBC.
This will be the first time companies representing the controversial sector have been questioned in this way.
Square, a fintech company co-founded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, is changing its name to Block, the company said Wednesday. Dorsey quit Twitter earlier this week, where he was part-time CEO, while also being CEO of Square.
“The change to Block acknowledges the company’s growth,” the company said in a press release. “Since its start in 2009, the company has added Cash App, TIDAL, and TBD54566975 as businesses, and the name change creates room for further growth. Block is an overarching ecosystem of many businesses united by their purpose of economic empowerment, and serves many people—individuals, artists, fans, developers, and sellers.”
Microsoft has released a cheaper, standalone version of its Teams collaboration software, Teams Essentials, aimed at smaller businesses.
“We know how difficult the past 20 months have been for small businesses. They’ve had to demonstrate extreme flexibility to adapt, often with limited access to tools and technology,” Jared Spataro, corporate vice president for Microsoft 365, said in a blogpost. “Teams Essentials is built specifically to meet the unique needs of small businesses, enabling them to thrive in this new era of work.
”Teams Essentials includes group meetings for up to 30 hours, meetings with up to 300 people, and 10GB of cloud storage per user. A subscription will cost $4 in the US, and Rs. 100 in India, per person per month.
CRED, a fintech company founded by entrepreneur Kunal Shah, is buying Happay, which provides corporate expense management in India. The acquisition is expected to be a cash and stock deal potentially valuing Happay at approximately $180 million, the company said in a press release.
While Happay will operate as a separate entity, the team will work closely with CRED to tap its ecosystem, build distribution, add products and expand the business. Happay’s 230-member team will get all the benefits extended to CRED team members, including its ESOP programme, the company said in the release.
Facebook’s parent company, Meta, has been ordered to sell Giphy by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority, BBC reports. Meta, until recently known as Facebook, bought the GIF-sharing search engine last year in a deal reportedly valued at $315 million. Meta planned to integrate Giphy's database of GIFs with Instagram, according to the BBC report. But the CMA ruled the purchase unfair to competing for social-media platforms. In May 2020, when Meta announced its acquisition of Giphy, it said 50 percent of the GIF search engine's traffic already came from Facebook platforms—half of that from Instagram. Giphy also provides GIFs to competitors such as TikTok, Snapchat and Twitter.
Facebook’s cryptocurrency head David Marcus is leaving the company, The Verge reports. The former PayPal executive joined Facebook in 2014 to run Messenger but eventually took over plans to launch a new cryptocurrency and wallet. These were known at the time as Libra and Calibra, respectively, but are now called Novi. “While there’s still so much to do right on the heels of hitting an important milestone with Novi launching—and I remain as passionate as ever about the need for change in our payments and financial systems—my entrepreneurial DNA has been nudging me for too many mornings in a row to continue ignoring it,” Marcus said on his Facebook page and Twitter. Novi’s VP of product Stephane Kasriel, previously an early PayPal employee and the CEO of Upwork, will take over the leadership.
Twitter has banned users from sharing photos or videos of private individuals without their permission on its platform, the company said in a blogpost. Twitter is updating its existing private information policy and expanding its scope to include “private media.” Under its existing policy, publishing other people's private information, such as phone numbers, addresses, and IDs, is already not allowed on Twitter. This includes threatening to expose private information or incentivising others to do so.
Microsoft has been asked by shareholders to publish a report on sexual harassment within the company, CNBC reports. Shareholders approved a proposal asking the company’s board to publish a report on the effectiveness of its workplace sexual harassment policies in a rare vote of support for an activist initiative. Microsoft’s board had recommended that shareholders vote against the proposal, but it received 77.97 percent of all votes, according to a regulatory filing. The decision comes a year and a half after Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates stepped down from his seat on the company’s board. Reports at the time had said that Gates had tried to start a relationship with an employee in 2000—prompting a board investigation. The proposal asks for the details of investigations on executives—including Gates—as well as the number of cases the company has looked into and what was done about them.
Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 11T 5G Android smartphone has been launched in India. The phone was previously launched in China alongside two other new Redmi Note 11 series phones last month, Android Central reports. Xiaomi's latest budget 5G phone has a 6.6-inch LCD with a 90Hz refresh rate and a 240Hz touch sampling rate. It is equipped with MediaTek's 6nm Dimensity 810 chipset, paired with up to 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The phone is expected to go on sale in India from December 7 for a starting price of ₹16,999 (about $227), according to Android Central.
Mark Papermaster wears multiple hats within AMD—where he is chief technology officer and executive vice president—and in the semiconductor industry and forums such as the IEEE. Papermaster is one of the people credited with AMD’s turnaround over the last decade—a turnaround for which CEO Lisa Su became a widely acclaimed business leader. In conversation with Forbes India, Papermaster talks about what helped AMD, the future of semiconductors, the company’s work in India, and his advice to aspiring engineers
India’s telecom ministry has advised people to not buy Starlink connections because the company doesn’t have a license yet to sell its satellite internet connections in the country. Two months ago, Starlink—owned by Elon Musk—announced that it is starting services in India and was taking bookings.
The government of India has asked the company to comply with the Indian regulatory framework for rendering the satellite-based communication services and refrain from booking/rendering the satellite internet services in India with immediate effect, the Department of Telecom said in a tweet on Friday.
Facebook, Twitter, and other social media companies will have to hand over the names and details of the people behind any accounts used for trolling, in Australia, if a new defamation law is approved by the country’s lawmakers, ABC News reports.
Under the law, proposed by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, social media companies will be legally liable for the content they publish from users. It removes liability from individuals and companies that manage pages. The legislation will be released in draft form this week and is expected to be introduced in the Australian parliament early next year, according to ABC News.
Xiaomi, one of the world’s biggest Android smartphone makers, is building an electric car manufacturing factory in Beijing. It will be capable of producing 300,000 cars a year, Reuters reports. According to the report, the factory will be built in two phases and will be ready for mass production by 2024.
Slice, a fintech startup in Bangalore that wants to reinvent credit cards for Indian millennials, has raised $220 million in a new round of funding and turned unicorn in the process, TechCrunch reports. The Series B investment was co-led by Tiger Global, Insight Partners, and other investors, including Blume Ventures, who joined in. Slice also made news in October by starting a three-day workweek for full-time employees.
(02:41) Interview: Prakash Ramamurthy, chief product officer at Freshworks, on what makes a great product manager
Girish Mathrubootham, Freshworks’s founder, wasn’t ready to relinquish the role of product head until he found Prakash Ramamurthy, a bit under two years ago — as he was looking for people to put his company on its next phase of growth. In today’s interview, Prakash talks about how Freshworks stays relevant to its smallest customers, even as it adds bigger and bigger enterprises to its customer roster.
America has blocked more Chinese firms from accessing US technology, adding the names of eight tech firms to a list called the ‘entity list’, BBC reports. The companies were helping the Chinese military’s quantum computing efforts, according to the report. The US has also blocked individuals and entities from Russia, Japan, Singapore, and Pakistan. The entities blocked in Pakistan are related to the country’s “unsafeguarded nuclear activities or ballistic missile programme,” a US commerce department official said, according to BBC.
Spotify is testing a TikTok-style vertical feed of music video clips, with a discover tab on its app’s opening page. The update was discovered by Chris Messina—widely credited as the inventor of the hashtag—who posted a short video on his Twitter page showing the new feature.
A UK judge has set December 16 as the deadline for home secretary Priti Patel to decide if the extradition of Mike Lynch, co-founder of a British software company Autonomy, should be allowed, Financial Times reports. Lynch is accused in the US of tricking Hewlett Packard into paying $5 billion more for his company in an $11.7 billion deal in 2011 at a 79 percent premium to the market value that was widely criticised as too high.
Samsung is ending its Galaxy Note series, Android Police reports. The company has not released a Note smartphone for 2021 and hasn’t included one for its 2022 lineup either, Android Police says, citing ET News, a South Korean tech news site. Features of the Note may be included in Samsung’s S22 Ultra, according to the report.
(02:23) Interview: Lava Kumar, co-founder and chief product officer at Entropik Tech on emotion AI
You might think twice about making faces at your smartphone because the technology to interpret that already exists and companies are using it to sell you that next dress you didn’t know you wanted or to add another data point to your profile they are storing away. In today’s interview, Lava Kumar, co-founder and chief product officer at Entropik Tech, talks about his company’s emotional AI products that can interpret facial expressions, eye movements and even brain signals.
Instagram’s head, Adam Mosseri, will testify before America’s top lawmakers in a senate subcommittee hearing in early December about the platform's harmful impact on young users, CNN reports. Mosseri is the most high-profile executive from Meta, as Facebook is now called, to agree to testify since Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen released hundreds of internal company documents, according to CNN.
Apple will be switching to its own 5G modems in 2023 instead of using technology from Qualcomm, Nikkei reports. Apple’s modems will be made by TSMC—the chip maker that already supplies Apple’s A-series processors and M1 system-on-chip semiconductors. Apple has been working on reducing its reliance on Qualcomm for vital semiconductor components for several years. The two companies have also contested court battles.
Coinbase, America’s biggest crypto exchange, has acquired crypto wallet startup BRD, to get the founders on to its own wallet team, the company said on Twitter. The BRD team will help accelerate web3 adoption and BRD’s founders bring deep expertise in self-custody for crypto wallets, Coinbase said in its tweet. BRD has millions of users including in India.
BigBasket, India’s biggest online groceries company, is entering offline retail and has opened its first store in Bangalore, the company said in a press release. The company acquired by the Tata Group this year, expects to open 200 stores by 2023 and 800 by 2026.
TomTom, a geolocation technology company, has opened a 100,000 square feet state-of-the-art facility in Pune that can accommodate up to 1000 employees, the company said in a press release. The centre is one of TomTom’s largest offices worldwide and a strategic engineering hub, according to the company. Staff can decide if they need to use the office based on the type of work at hand.
NASA has launched a spacecraft that will intentionally collide with a distant asteroid in the world’s first full-scale mission to test technology for defending Earth against potential asteroid or comet hazards, the US space agency said in a press release on Wednesday. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), launched on Wednesday on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from a base in California.
DART is part of NASA’s larger planetary defence strategy. It is built and managed by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. Its goal is to slightly change the asteroid’s motion in a way that can be accurately measured using ground-based telescopes. It will show that a spacecraft can autonomously navigate to a target asteroid and intentionally collide with it—a method of deflection called kinetic impact.
Interview: Ankit Tomar, CTO and Sachin Agrawal, COO at Bizongo on plans to make the company an exports facilitation platform
Bizongo started as a simple way for small manufacturers to find orders more efficiently. Today it has evolved into something of an ‘operating system’ for manufacturers of custom-designed goods to manage many of their supply-chain needs. In today’s interview, Ankit Tomar and Sachin Agrawal, two of the three co-founders at Bizongo talk about how their tech platform will eventually catalyse and facilitate exports from India.
India may ban private cryptocurrencies and launch a central bank digital currency, according to a parliament bulletin released on Tuesday. The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021, is among the proposed laws that will be taken up when the parliament meets for its winter session starting November 29.
According to the bulletin, the bill seeks “To create a facilitative framework for the creation of the official digital currency to be issued by the Reserve Bank of India. The Bill also seeks to prohibit all private cryptocurrencies in India, however, it allows for certain exceptions to promote the underlying technology of cryptocurrency and its uses.”
Apple has filed a lawsuit against NSO Group and its parent company to hold it accountable for the surveillance and targeting of Apple users, the iPhone maker said in a press release. The complaint provides new information on how NSO Group infected victims’ devices with its Pegasus spyware. To prevent further abuse and harm to its users, Apple is also seeking a permanent injunction to ban NSO Group from using any Apple software, services, or devices.
NSO Group creates sophisticated, state-sponsored surveillance technology that allows its highly targeted spyware to surveil its victims. These attacks are aimed at a very small number of users, and they impact people across multiple platforms, including iOS and Android.
SenseTime, one of China’s biggest AI solution providers, is a step closer to its initial public offering, according to TechCrunch. SenseTime has received regulatory approval to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Founded in 2014, SenseTime was christened as one of China’s four ‘AI Dragons’ alongside Megvii, CloudWalk, and Yitu.
Atom Bank, an online bank in the UK, has introduced a four-day workweek for its 430 staff without cutting their pay, BBC reports. Employees now work 34 hours over four days and get Monday or Friday off, when previously they clocked 37.5 hours across the whole week.
Inspired by the Covid-19 pandemic, the move will help retain staff and improve their wellbeing. However, employees will have to work longer hours on the days they are coming to the office.
(03.27) Interview: Hemant Mohapatra, partner at Lightspeed, on prospects of crypto startups in India and south-east Asia
India has a nascent but growing cryptocurrency and blockchain sector, with at least two startups already crowned unicorns on the back of a strong venture capital investor interest. In today's interview, Hemant Mohapatra—a partner at Lightspeed, which is among the VC firms that have backed the crypto sector for several years now, discusses his new comprehensive report on the prospects of crypto startups in India and south-east Asia.
Britain has passed a law requiring new houses and buildings to install electric vehicle charging points from next year, BBC reports. This will see up to 145,000 charging points installed across the country each year. New supermarkets, workplaces and buildings undergoing major renovations will also come under the new law. The UK is switching to EVs, with petrol and diesel car sales banned from 2030.
Niantic, the maker of the popular augmented reality game Pokémon GO, has raised $300 million from Coatue at a valuation of $9 billion, the company said in a blogpost on Monday. The company that initially spun out of Google, will use the funds to invest in current games and new apps, expand its Lightship developer platform, and build out its version of what it calls the real-world metaverse.
“We’re building a future where the real world is overlaid with digital creations, entertainment and information, making it more magical, fun and informative,” said John Hanke, Niantic’s Founder and CEO.
Jina.ai, an open-source startup in Berlin, that uses neural search to help its users find information in their unstructured data (including videos and images), has raised $30 million in Series A funding led by Canaan Partners, TechCrunch reports. New investor Mango Capital, as well as existing investors GGV Capital, SAP.iO and Yunqi Partners also participated in this round.
DuckDuckGo, the maker of the privacy-focused browser and app of the same name, is beta testing an app-tracking blocker for Android phones, the company said in a blogpost. People can join the private waitlist by downloading the app or updating to the latest version, navigating to app tracking protection in the privacy section under settings, and clicking on the ‘join the private wait list’ option.
Once active, the app-tracking blocker will detect when your Android apps are about to send data to third-party tracking companies found in DuckDuckGo's app tracker dataset, and block those requests.
El Salvador, which recently became the first country to make Bitcoin legal tender, plans to build a Bitcoin city at the base of a volcano, with the cryptocurrency used to fund the project, its president has announced, BBC reports. The city will be circular to represent the shape of a coin and will be built near the Conchagua volcano to take advantage of its geothermal energy to power Bitcoin mining, according to the report.
(03:28) Interview: Ashwathnarayan CN, Karnataka’s minister for science and tech, higher education, information tech, biotech, and skill development
The government of the state of Karnataka is making efforts to expand the tech ecosystem concentrated in Bengaluru, beyond the state’s capital city, which has become India’s tech capital. In today’s interview, Ashwathnarayan CN, the state’s minister for science and tech, higher education, information tech, biotech, and skill development, articulates some of the ways the government is making progress on this front.
Brazil has seen an alarming acceleration in the destruction of its Amazon rain forests, fresh data from the country’s National Institute for Space Research shows, Deutsche Welle reports. The data shows a rapid reversal in the slowdown in the rate of deforestation—increasing by 22 percent in just the last year—in the south American nation, ever since president Jair Bolsonaro came to office in 2019, according to the report.
America lags China and Russia in hypersonic missile technology and it has some “catching up to do very quickly,” according to a top US Space Force official, Politico reports. The US is “not as advanced as the Chinese or the Russians in terms of hypersonic programs,” General David Thompson, vice chief of space operations, said during his appearance at the Halifax International Security Forum, Politico reports. Both China and Russia have recently tested hypersonic missiles that fly at least five times the speed of sound and can glide and navigate to targets in a way that makes current radar technology powerless in detecting them.
Microsoft is adding shopping and security features to its Edge browser ahead of the holiday shopping season in the US and Europe, the company said in a recent blog post. Shopping related features include the ability to keep track of price changes—and get alerts—on products that users have browsed recently. And Microsoft is piloting ‘easy update’ a feature that lets you update your passwords quickly.
Adele Adkins, the British singer-songwriter of hits such as ‘Someone Like You’ and ‘When We Were Young’, has coaxed Spotify, the world’s biggest music streaming service, to drop the shuffle option that used to be the default when you tapped on its play button, BBC reports. People should listen to her songs in the order that she intended, Adele tweeted, after Spotify pushed the shuffle feature inside a menu, making playing songs in order the default. ‘Anything for you’, Spotify tweeted back.
(2:40) Interview: Sateesh Andra, managing director at Endiya Partners, talks about his hopes for India’s nascent deep tech sector
Sateesh Andra is an entrepreneur-turned-investor with extensive experience across multiple funds, backing tech ventures at storied firms like DFJ, and now at his own VC firm Endiya Partners, where he is a managing director. In today’s tech conversation, the onus is on the investors to back deep-tech founders in India, and on the entrepreneurs to build those playbooks, Sateesh says.
A coalition of America’s top justice officials—comprising several state attorney generals—is leading a nationwide investigation into how Instagram knowingly harms children. Meta Platforms, formerly known as Facebook, is providing and promoting Instagram to children and young adults despite knowing that such use is associated with physical and mental health harms, according to a statement from Maura Healey, one of the state Attorneys General who is co-leading the investigation.
Led by founder CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, or Meta, remains defiant, tech sites such as The Verge have pointed out. Meta even plans to eventually launch an Instagram for children under the age of 13. The company said it would only “pause” that plan after severe opposition from lawmakers across the US.
Google has released more features on its products and platforms, aimed at making them more accessible to users in India, including additional local language support, and a way for small businesses and merchants to quickly build an online storefront. In Google search, people can now listen to results being read out to them in their language—available in Hinglish, Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, and Tamil.
On the Google Pay app, in what Google says is a first for Google globally, the company has added support for ‘Hinglish’—a conversational hybrid of Hindi and English. And MyShop—a functionality available to merchants using the Google Pay for Business app provides merchants a quick store builder tool, where they can add images, descriptions, and prices within minutes and then share the link, through the Business Profile, across Google products and beyond Google on social media.
Tata Consultancy Services, one of the world’s biggest IT services companies, found that many finance leaders in companies around the world relied more on instinct than on data, in a survey of 750 such senior executives.
Half of the respondents said they are unable to deliver short term forecasts without making significant errors—if they can do it at all, TCS said in a report based on the survey.
More than two thirds of those who took the survey plan to invest in cloud-based systems, and will invest in data and analytics technologies for their financial planning and analysis teams in the next year, according to TCS.
(2:34) Interview: Rahul Nanwani, co-founder and CEO, ImageKit on staying bootstrapped, being profitable and focused on the product
Rahul Nanwani and his two co-founders quit their jobs at a travel company four years ago to build a product that would allow people to quickly make changes to images to suit their needs—like cropping it right for uploading onto to a website. In today’s tech conversation, Rahul gives us a quick update on their bootstrapped company, ImageKit, which is profitably helping customers around world process billions of images.
US President Joe Biden’s administration is offering funding to drug companies including Pfizer and Moderna to expand mRNA Covid-19 vaccine capacity by a billion doses by the second half of 2022, Bloomberg reports. Announced on Wednesday, the plan is also aimed at building the capacity to address any future pandemic, according to Bloomberg.
Oxfam and others have accused the world’s biggest drug companies of profiteering by selling to rich countries as most people in low-income countries around the world haven’t been fully vaccinated.
Arbo Works, a fintech company started by eight former Google executives, has found backing in Sequoia Capital India and 120 angel investors from among some serious practitioners of AI and top tech executives, Caesar Sengupta, who’s leading the startup, said in a blog post on Thursday.
The value of the funding hasn’t been disclosed, but TechCrunch reports that it is an eight-figure investment.
Sengupta previously led payments and the next billion users initiative at Google. His work included launching Google Pay in India. Arbo Works, based in San Francisco and Singapore, will be an AI-led fintech company.
European nations are a step closer to agreeing on the Digital Markets Act. It is aimed at preventing big tech companies from abusing their dominant positions, Financial Times reports. The agreement, reached among the European Parliament’s main political parties, paves the way for a vote on the package next week.
If the act became law, it could apply to companies including Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Netherland’s Booking and China’s Alibaba, according to the report.
(2:21) Interview: Sri Satish Ambati, founder and CEO of H2O.ai, on his journey from math olympiads to one of the best known AI cloud platforms
Sri Satish Ambati’s AI journey started in school with math olympiads. It culminated in the founding of one of the world’s best known AI cloud platforms. In today’s interview, Ambati talks about ‘explainability,’ bringing AI to the edge and the next steps at his company H2O.ai.
Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna—three of the world’s biggest Covid vaccine makers—are making an estimated $1000 every second in profits even as the world’s poorest go unvaccinated, according to a press release from Oxfam, a UK-based non-profit development organisation. The estimate is based on a report by the People’s Vaccine Alliance. The Alliance has 80 members including the African Alliance, Global Justice Now, Oxfam, and UNAIDS. Pfizer and BioNTech have delivered less than one percent of their total vaccine supplies to low-income countries, while Moderna has delivered just 0.2 percent. Meanwhile, 98 percent of people in low-income countries have not been fully vaccinated, according to the release.
Britain is moving into phase two of its investigation of Nvidia’s proposed $54 billion takeover of UK chip designer, Arm, after the first phase of the probe by the country’s competition authority revealed concerns of both competition and national security, according to a government statement. This could pose a setback to Arm’s majority owner, SoftBank Group. The deal, when announced in September 2020, was pegged at $40 billion in cash and stock but has since risen in value to $54 billion. UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has found that the acquisition “may result in a substantial lessening of competition” across four key markets: data centres, Internet of Things, automotive, and gaming, according to the statement. The authority now has 24 weeks, plus an additional eight weeks, if needed to conclude its investigations. Arm’s chips go into several devices including Apple’s iPhones. The deal is also under scrutiny in Europe and China.
Infosys and MIT Technology Review's custom publishing division Insights has launched The Cloud Hub—a forum offering insights and learning from successful cloud transformations to help global enterprises accelerate their cloud journey, the Indian IT services company said in a press release. The Cloud Hub aims to create a community of experts from the industry, including practitioners, providers and influencers, to debate key challenges and opportunities surrounding one of the biggest technology disruptions that the world is witnessing.
(03:03) Interview: Hotmail’s co-founder Sabeer Bhatia on his latest venture, ShowReel, to bring ‘purposeful’ short videos to millions
Even as a new generation of entrepreneurs is trying to reinvent email—think Rahul Vohra, at SuperHuman or Bhavin Turakhia with Titan—Sabeer Bhatia, the original email entrepreneur, continues to seek his next big challenge. In today’s interview, Sabeer tells Forbes India about ShowReel, which he hopes is timed right to bring “purposeful” short videos to millions of users.
Paradigm, a crypto-focused VC firm, has raised a $2.5 billion fund, the industry’s largest to date. It is bigger than the $2.2 billion crypto fund Andreessen Horowitz announced in June. It cements Paradigm’s position as a leading crypto investor, The Information points out. “We’ve immersed ourselves in the frontier of protocol research and the culture of Web3,” Paradigm’s partners Fred Ehrsam and Matt Huang said in a blog post. Ehrsam previously co-founded America’s biggest crypto company Coinbase and Huang is a former Sequoia Capital partner.
Meanwhile, in India, a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the weekend, showed that government departments differed from the Reserve Bank of India in their respective positions on cryptocurrency, Economic Times reported. Most government departments were in favour of regulating cryptocurrencies whereas the RBI is said to have reiterated its preference for a crypto ban, citing concerns over financial stability.
Microsoft will soon update Windows 11 to block redirection of taskbar search results to browsers other than its Edge browser, Engadget reports. The workaround was popularised by EdgeDeflector—an app that allows Windows users to bypass some of the built-in browser restrictions found in Windows 10 and 11. Companies such as Mozilla and Brave had planned to implement similar workarounds to allow users to open Start menu results in their respective browsers, according to Engadget. Now they may not be able to do so. This move “places Microsoft in the same user-hostile and anticompetitive category as Big Tech competitors like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google,” said Paul Thurrot, who runs the technology news and analysis site Thurrot. “This behaviour needs to be examined by antitrust regulators in the United States, EU, and elsewhere,” he wrote.
Roblox will invest $10 million to support the development of educational video games using its platform, David Baszucki, the video gaming platform maker’s founder and CEO, said in a blog post on Monday. According to The Wall Street Journal, the move is a way for Roblox to expand its reach beyond its pre-teens and teens userbase. The company had about 47 million users in the third quarter this year—about half are less than 13 years of age.
(3:24) Interview: Sanjay Nekkanti, founder and CEO, Dhruva Space on making space-grade solar panels in India for the global market
India isn’t known for hi-tech hardware, but a small number of startups are trying to change that by making varied products from computer vision modules to wireless equipment. In today’s interview, Sanjay Nekkanti, founder and CEO of Dhruva Space, talks about manufacturing space-grade solar panels in India for the global market.
Technology is not just an enabler, it has become central and strategic to banking. New financial products, such as buy now pay later, are becoming all the rage. The idea of open banking is also catching up, with pieces of software called open application program interfaces allowing third-party fintech startups to provide innovative financial products and services built around established banks. In this conversation, Sanat Rao, CEO of Infosys Finacle, unpacks some of these emerging trends
SoftBank Group may invest as much as $10 billion in India next year, chief executive Rajeev Misra said in a virtual conference on Thursday, TechCrunch reports. SoftBank, which returned to Flipkart with a fresh investment this year, has already invested $3 billion in Indian companies this year. In India, the group will look for the right companies at the right valuations to invest between $5 billion and $10 billion in 2022.
US President Joe Biden on Thursday signed into law, the Secure Equipment Act, to prevent Chinese companies that are seen as security threats from receiving new equipment licenses from US regulators. According to the Reuters report, this will affect companies such as like Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corp.
The signing comes days before Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are expected to hold a virtual summit. The new law requires the Federal Communications Commission to no longer review or approve any authorisation application for equipment that poses an unacceptable risk to America’s national security, according to the report.
Spotify Technology has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Findaway, a digital audiobooks distribution company, as Spotify expands its business beyond music and podcasts.
Findaway’s technology infrastructure will enable Spotify to quickly scale its audiobook catalogue and innovate on the experience for consumers; simultaneously providing new avenues for publishers, authors, and independent creators to reach new audiences around the globe.
A91 Partners, a Mumbai VC firm has closed its fund II at $550 million as it seeks to invest in the next generation of emerging Indian startups, general partner Gautam Mago said on Twitter. While it was started only in 2018, the young VC firm is an investor in well known Indian startups such as Oyo, Ola, Freshworks, CarDekho, Sugar, Capital Float, and CueMath.
Wipro, India’s fourth-biggest IT services company, has launched Click-Shift-Drive—a contactless car-buying solution that addresses the complete automobile buying journey. Scalable, flexible, and rapidly deployed, the end-to-end solution enables automakers and dealers to offer everything from research and loan approval to purchase and delivery, the company said in a press release.
Click-Shift-Drive incorporates a range of Salesforce technologies. Wipro also partnered with ThreeKit 3D & Augmented Reality to provide an augmented reality component so buyers can visualise a virtual rendering of the automobile in their own driveway.
(3:42) Interview: Shashank Kumar, co-founder and CEO of DeHaat, on India’s biggest agri startup funding so far, and plans ahead
Perseverance is finally paying off for some of India's agri-tech startups, where founders patiently toiled away, having started their businesses long before the idea of a startup was fashionable in India. Last month, when DeHaat announced a $115 million funding round, it was the biggest fundraise by an agri startup in India so far. In today's interview, Shashank Kumar, co-founder and CEO of DeHaat, returns to this podcast to talk about the ongoing change in the Indian agri startup scene and plans ahead at his company.
The US and China made a surprise joint announcement on Wednesday at the ongoing COP26 UN climate summit, pledging to work together to find concrete measures to combat climate change, Bloomberg reports.
The two sides agreed to accelerate their efforts to cut emissions—including methane gas—and curb illegal deforestation, China’s special climate envoy Xie Zhenhua told reporters, according to Bloomberg.
Rivian Automotive, an electric pick-up truck and SUV maker backed by Amazon and Ford Motors, raised $11.9 billion in the biggest US IPO this year. The strong listing also valued the company at about $100 billion, taking its market capital higher than Ford.
The company, started in 2009 by RJ Scaringe, has beaten rivals including Ford and General Motors to design and make a pick-up truck, and is due to start rolling out its SUV in December and a delivery van in 2023, BBC reports. Amazon will be the first to buy the delivery vans.
In more IPO news, FSN E-Commerce Ventures, more popularly known for its online beauty and fashion brand, Nykaa, made a spectacular debut in Mumbai on Wednesday, making its founder Falguni Nayar the wealthiest self-made billionaire woman in the country.
Nykaa’s shares opened at Rs. 2001 on the Bombay Stock Exchange, which was a 79 percent premium on the issue price of Rs. 1125, MoneyControl reports. The listing valued the online beauty and fashion business at more than Rs. 1 trillion, or about $13.4 billion.
The European General Court upheld a €2.4 billion ($2.7 billion) antitrust fine against Google’s parent company Alphabet for anti-competitive behaviour, rejecting the internet giant’s appeal against the 2017 fine.
The court ruled that Google abused its dominance in online search to illegally promote its own shopping comparison service over rivals and upheld the EU’s fine, Courthouse News Service reports.
Twitter is putting together a team to build crypto, blockchain, and other decentralized technologies, Tess Rinearson, the engineer who’s joined the company to lead the team, tweeted.
Twitter Crypto will serve as a centre of excellence for all things blockchain, Rinearson said. To start with, the team will look into how Twitter can support the growing interest among creators to use decentralised apps and virtual goods and currencies. Twitter is hiring for roles in engineering and product development in this team.
(4:00) Interview: Prateep Basu, co-founder and CEO of SatSure on plans ahead at the space tech startup in Bengaluru
Prateep Basu was an ISRO engineer for a few years before turning entrepreneur with SatSure, the satellite services company he co-founded. In today's interview, Prateep gives us a quick update on the company's efforts thus far, in building a decision intelligence platform for multiple sectors that uses satellite data.
DoorDash, a US food delivery giant, is acquiring Finland based Wolt in an all-stock deal worth €7 billion, or $8.1 billion, the company said in a press release. The acquisition “will accelerate our product development, bring greater focus to each of our markets and improve the value we provide to consumers, merchants, as well as Dashers and couriers around the world,” Tony Xu, co-founder and CEO of DoorDash said in the release.
Wolt was founded in 2014 by Miki Kuusi, who will run DoorDash International and report to Xu. The Finnish company has over 4,000 employees across 23 countries.
Facebook, for the first time, disclosed the prevalence of bullying and harassment on its platform, saying such content was seen between 14 and 15 times per every 10,000 views on its site in the third quarter this year, meaning the July to September period. The company said in its quarterly content moderation report that bullying and harassment content was seen between 5 and 6 times per 10,000 views of content on Instagram.
Apple must comply with an order to let developers add external payment options, judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled denying the company’s motion for a stay, The Verge reported. Gonzalez had made this ruling in September in a case between Epic Games and Apple related to the iPhone maker’s App Store policies.
NASA is pushing back its target date for its next crewed lunar landing to 2025 instead of 2024 as originally planned, the US space agency said in a press release. NASA blames the delay on recent lawsuits over contracts for the agency’s lunar lander, as well as various delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The human lunar return is being planned under a programme called Artemis. NASA hopes to land the first woman and the first person of colour on the Moon this decade while working to figure out sustainable ways to live and work on the lunar surface. The programme involves the Space Launch System, a massive new rocket NASA has been developing for the past decade to send people into deep space and near the Moon in a new crew capsule called Orion, according to The Verge.
(3:44) Interview: Kartikeya Bhardwaj, founder of SpoofSense on live face detection technology and beyond
Face biometrics is increasingly being adopted as a means of authentication, be it just to mark attendance, or to authorise access to sensitive data. Correspondingly, spoofs are also increasing. In today's interview, Kartikeya Bhardwaj tells Forbes India about his company SpoofSense, which offers a technology to detect if a camera is seeing a real live person or if someone is trying to use an image of another person to trick the camera.
Kartikeya has recently been backed by 100x.VC and has raised some additional angel funding to build out his team. Eventually, SpoofSense, as the product is also called, can be expanded to include voice biometrics as well, he says.
America and Japan have reopened their borders, easing entry bans imposed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The US has reopened its borders to fully vaccinated travellers, ending restrictions imposed by former President Donald Trump in March 2020 that had affected non-US citizens from over 30 countries, BBC reported on Monday.
Ending a de facto ban on foreign visitors due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Japan will allow business visitors, international students, and technical trainees to enter the country, Nikkei reported on Monday. The mandatory self-isolation for fully vaccinated business travellers could be as few as three days, according to the report.
Daniel Ek, the Swedish entrepreneur founder of Spotify, who is now also famous for taking on Apple and Google for the way they run their app stores, has made the first investment from the € 1 billion ($1.16 billion) fund he started last year.
Ek’s funding vehicle, Prima Materia, has invested € 100 million in Helsing, a defence tech startup that produces live maps of battlefields, Financial Times reported. Helsing’s AI software will integrate data from infrared, video, sonar and radio frequencies data from sensors on military vehicles, to create a real-time picture of battlefields, according to the report.
IBM has opened a client innovation centre in Mysuru, the eighth such facility in India, the company said in a press release. The innovation centre is part of IBM Consulting and specialises in design, software engineering, and analytics. IBM aims to hire more than 10,000 staff for its innovation centres, in the current quarter globally.
H2O.ai, the AI cloud provider in Silicon Valley, has closed $100 million in Series E funding led by Australia’s largest bank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) with participation from Pivot Investment Partners. Founded by Indian American entrepreneur Sri Ambati, H2O.ai has now raised about $250 million. The latest investment values the company at $1.7 billion, H2O said in a press release. Existing investors include Nexus Venture Partners, Crane Venture Partners, Goldman Sachs and NVIDIA.
The company’s AI cloud is used by enterprise customers around the world, and it will use the latest funding to expand its operations.
(3:21) Interview: Abhishek Bansal, founder and CEO of Shadowfax on his vision for a comprehensive gig economy platform
Last-mile delivery is a rapidly growing segment of the logistics and supply chain industry, around the world. The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the demand for quick deliveries of online purchases, food and medicines. Today 30-minute deliveries are not uncommon and some startups are looking at even quicker fulfilment of orders.
That said, Abhishek Bansal, founder and CEO of Shadowfax, a fast-growing third-party logistics startup, thinks that the picture is much bigger than just deliveries. And to that end, Shadowfax has overhauled its app, used by delivery personnel across the country to find their next gig. In today's interview, Abhishek talks about his vision for a gig economy platform where people can find short term work ranging from delivery jobs to even software development.
Apple has recruited another former Tesla engineer to build its electric car team, Bloomberg reported on Sunday. The latest hire is Christopher Moore, a software engineer, who will report to Stuart Bowers, another former Tesla executive who joined Apple last year. Bowers had led Tesla’s Autopilot team before leaving Tesla in mid-2019, according to Bloomberg.
Meanwhile, Tesla’s founder and the world’s richest person Elon Musk, polled his Twitter followers on whether he should sell 10 percent of his stock ostensibly to pay taxes. Some critics tweeted back that wealth shouldn’t be a way to avoid taxes and that Musk’s reason that unrealised gains didn’t hold water is that he’s able to take out bank loans on the stock.
Google’s parent company Alphabet has set up a new company to use artificial intelligence to find new drugs. The new company, Isomorphic Labs, will be based in Britain and use the AI developed at DeepMind—the UK AI company that Google acquired in 2014.
Isomorphic Labs is “a commercial venture with the mission to reimagine the entire drug discovery process from first principles with an AI-first approach and, ultimately, to model and understand some of the fundamental mechanisms of life,” Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of DeepMind, said in a blog post on Thursday last week. Hassabis is also the founder and CEO of Isomorphic Labs.
While the new company was announced last week, it was incorporated in February, according to a filing with Companies House, Britain’s company registry, CNBC reported.
WhatsApp could be developing a ‘Communities’ feature, WABetaInfo reports. The feature could give group admins more control over the groups, including creating groups within groups. WABetaInfo also posted some screenshots to show that currently, the feature looks like group chats and that it also seems to be end-to-end encrypted.
Admins can invite other people to join the community. Users can be manually added or they can join using a ‘Community Invite Link,’ if the admin has shared it privately or publicly, according to the report.
(2:54) Interview: Raghunandan G, founder and CEO of Zolve, on plans after a $40 million Series A funding
In February, the entrepreneur turned investor Raghunandan G had announced that he was starting a new venture—this time a fintech startup that would offer cross-border services to Indians going abroad to study and work. Recently, Raghu, as he’s known to everyone, raised a $40 million Series A round with big names like DST Global and Tiger Global backing his company, called Zolve, which already had marquee early-stage investors like Accel and Lightspeed, from its seed round.
Response to Zolve has been beyond expectations and having started with Indians moving to the US, the company is quickly gaining traction as an operation that could tap other corridors around the world as well, he told Forbes India in a recent conversation.
Facebook has rebranded itself as Meta. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sees the future of the business being built increasingly around the virtual world of metaverse that the company is investing heavily into. Zuckerberg was widely anticipated to reveal the new name at the company’s annual Connect event. Meta will now be the parent company of businesses that comprise the family of apps including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and other services such as the Facebook Reality Labs, which includes the metaverse effort. The name change also follows a series of revelations about the undesirable impact of Facebook—with its close to 4 billion users —as a platform for spreading hate and misinformation that were brought to the fore by a former product manager turned whistleblower Frances Haugen.
Apple reported its fiscal fourth-quarter and full-year results and said it was moving closer to its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2030. The fiscal year 2021 was one in which Apple sales rose 29 percent and the company made inroads into emerging markets. The maker of iPhones doubled its business in India and Vietnam, CEO Tim Cook said in an earnings call. Apple’s fiscal year 2021 that ended September 30, was also one in which supply constraints due to the ongoing semiconductor chip shortage, and disruptions due to the Covid-19 pandemic hurt sales and profits. In the September quarter alone, Apple sales were lower by $6 billion due to these constraints, Cook told CNBC in an interview.
Amazon reported its fiscal third-quarter results, which showed the online retail giant has slowed down as America opens up after the pandemic. Online sales for the quarter rose only 3 percent during the September quarter, compared with 13 percent in the previous quarter and about 40 percent each in multiple quarters preceding that. Overall sales rose 15 percent helped by the continued strong performance at Amazon Web Services, the cloud computing unit, which grew almost 40 percent.
Lightspeed Venture Partners, a well known Silicon Valley VC firm that has multiple investments in the Indian startup scene as well, is raising more than $5.5 billion for early- and late-stage investments, The Information reports. The fresh pool of capital represents the largest fundraising yet for the 20-year old firm that made early bets on Snap and Affirm.
(3:22) Interview: Tauseef Khan, co-founder and CEO of agri-tech startup Gramophone, on plans ahead after fresh funding
Covid-19 accelerated the adoption of technology even in India’s agri and farm sectors, where previously, despite greater rural penetration, smartphones were not being used by many. The increased adoption is now helping agri startups bring more services to the farmer’s doorstep—from seeds and fertilisers to scientific advice to marketplaces for selling their produce. In today’s interview, Tauseef Khan—co-founder and CEO of Gramophone, an agri-tech startup based in Madhya Pradesh—tells us about expansion plans in a more digital Bharat, after a fresh round of funding.
India successfully tested its surface-to-surface ballistic missile Agni-5 on Wednesday. According to a statement by the Ministry of Defence, it can strike targets at ranges up to 5,000km with a very high degree of accuracy. The successful test of Agni-5, which can carry nuclear bombs, is in line with India's stated policy to have credible minimum deterrence that underpins the commitment to ‘no first use,’ the defence ministry said in the statement.
Merck, an American drug company, will give out the formula for its Covid-19 pill—which could potentially save lives among those at higher risk of hospitalisation from the coronavirus infection—to other pharmaceutical companies worldwide. The drug, known as Molnupiravir, has shown promise in treating the disease. Merck signed the first agreement to license its production with the Medicines Patent Pool—a United Nations-backed public health organisation working to increase access to and facilitate the development of life-saving medicines for low- and middle-income countries.
China has built a quantum computer 10 million times faster than Google’s Sycamore, reports Indiatimes. Created by researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China and led by Pan Jianwei, the quantum computing system is called, Zuchongzhi 2.1—after a mathematician from the 5th century. The world’s biggest tech companies including Google, IBM and Honeywell, as well as several startups are in a race to build commercial quantum computers that use qubits, which can exhibit multiple quantum states rather than the binary states of 1 and 0 in current computers.
Snap has hit 100 million monthly active users in India of the Snapchat app, co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel said in a virtual event on Wednesday. According to a report by TechCrunch, the company is striking deals with Android smartphone makers, TV channels Sony and Zee TV and e-commerce company Flipkart to expand its reach in the subcontinent. Snap has over 500 million monthly active users worldwide.
Acko has raised $255 million in a new funding round led by General Atlantic and Multiples Private Equity, valuing the four-year-old insurance company at $1.1 billion, Economic Times reports. Canada’s largest pension fund, CPPIB, and Lightspeed Growth as well as existing investors Intact Ventures and Munich Re Ventures also participated in the funding round. Acko will use the money to expand into health insurance, according to ET.
(3:22) Interview: Mohit Yadav, co-founder of REVOS on a peer-to-peer charging network
India is on the cusp of an EV revolution and several emerging startups are building various parts of the ecosystem. In today’s interview, Mohit Yadav, co-founder of REVOS tells Forbes India about his company’s efforts to build a peer-to-peer charging network with a smart-socket based charging point that can be used across different makes of vehicles. The P2P network also allows users to make some money by sharing their electricity.
Google’s parent Alphabet reported strong results for its fiscal third quarter that ended September 30, with better-than-expected ad sales at Google. The company reported revenues for the quarter rose 15 percent in constant currency terms year-on-year to $65.1 billion. Profits rose 68 percent to nearly $19 billion. Google Cloud saw revenues rise to almost $5 billion from $3.45 billion a year ago, with operating losses halving to $640 million.
Zolve, a digital bank, has raised Rs. 300 crore ($40 million) in Series A funding. The round was led by partners of DST Global, who have previously led rounds in prominent fintech companies such as Robinhood, Nubank, Chime, Revolut, and Wealthsimple. The round also saw participation from Tiger Global, Alkeon Capital, as well as existing investors Accel and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The 10-month old startup will use the money to scale up its services, including offering banking services to Indians going to the US. The investment values the startup by Raghunandan G, co-founder of ride-hailing service TaxiForSure, at Rs. 1,575 crore or about $210 million, according to the release.
DeHaat, an agri-tech company in Gurugram, near Delhi, has raised $115 million in Series D funding to expand its operations, Shashank Kumar, co-founder and CEO, tweeted. DeHaat sees itself as a ‘full-stack’ agri platform, meaning it aims to help farmers with everything from farm inputs and finance to scientific information and advice to selling their produce. This investment, co-led by Sofina and Lightrock, is the largest funding round for an agritech startup in India, according to TechCrunch. Temasek and existing investors Prosus Ventures, RTP Global, Sequoia Capital India and FMO also participated in the new round, which brings DeHaat’s total funding to $161 million.
In more agri-startup news, Gramophone, which also offers services similar to DeHaat, has raised $10 million in Series B funding led by Z3Partners. Gramophone will use the money to expand its operations, including acquiring other ventures, the company said in a press release on Tuesday. Existing investors Info Edge, Asha Impact, and Siana Capital also joined the funding.
Dhruva Space, a space tech startup in Hyderabad, has raised Rs. 22 crores (about $3 million) led by IAN Fund and Blue Ashva Capital, as it gears up to launch satellite-as-a-service, space-grade solar arrays and ground station solutions, in India and abroad. The company made the announcement in a press release on Tuesday. With operations in Hyderabad and Austria, Dhruva is already executing orders worth several millions of dollars and expects to add customers in the US and West Asia.
(3:40) Interview: Sangeeta Bavi, director of startup ecosystem, Microsoft India on the AI Innovate programme.
Sangeeta Bavi spends a lot of time talking to startup founders every day. The director of Microsoft India’s startup ecosystem unit started out as a developer herself and is active in multiple networks, including SaaS BOOMi. In conversation with Forbes India, Sangeeta tells us about AI Innovate, a new programme at Microsoft India, focused on helping startups take advantage of Microsoft’s AI technologies.
Greenhouse emissions continue to rise at an alarming rate, hitting new records. The economic slowdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic didn’t slow them down, the World Meteorological Organisation warned on Monday as ministers from countries around the world prepare to meet in Scotland for the COP26 climate talks. COP26 is the next annual UN climate change conference.
COP stands for ‘Conference of the Parties.' The summit will be attended by the countries that signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)—a treaty that came into force in 1994.
“Greenhouse gas levels are at new records. Again concentration of CO2 in 2020 was 149 percent of pre-industrial times; Economic slowdown from COVID-19 had no real impact; We are set for an increase much higher than the #ParisAgreement target of 1.5°C-2°C," the WMO said on its Twitter page.
Britain, which is chairing the COP26 talks, said in a press statement that there has been some progress on getting the developed nations to meet the target of contributing $100 billion each, per year, towards climate action.
Tesla hit $1 trillion in market value as America’s biggest electric car maker continues to benefit from the world’s shift towards electric vehicles. Shares in the company surged 12.6 percent on Monday after Tesla struck a $4.2 billion deal with rental car service Hertz, to supply an initial order of 100,000 electric cars and new charging infrastructure by the end of 2022. Tesla joins Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google’s parent company Alphabet in the $1 trillion club as the world’s most valuable companies.
Facebook has said that the operating profits for 2021 will be lower by $10 billion owing to increasing investments in its metaverse plan and augmented reality and virtual reality. That includes its investments in hardware products like the new 128GB Oculus Quest2 headset. The social networking company reported its fiscal third-quarter earnings results after markets in the US on Monday. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement that, starting the current quarter, the company will break out additional financial metrics for Facebook Reality Labs—which includes the augmented reality and virtual reality work—and Facebook’s ‘family of apps’—which includes Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and other services.
(3:23) Interview: Rajat Verma and Justin Lemmon, co-founders of Lohum Cleantech, on ambitions for cell manufacturing in India
Rajat Verma and Justin Lemmon found themselves next to each other due to the seating arrangements in their MBA class at Harvard Business School back in 2004. They struck up a fast friendship and eventually co-founded Lohum Cleantech, a battery solutions company for the EV and energy storage market. Forbes India caught up with the duo for a quick update on their plans. They spoke about expanding capacity in India; plans for a battery recycling factory in the US; and efforts to get closer to manufacturing the lithium-ion cells themselves in India, for which they are currently reliant on imports from China and South Korea.
Facebook, which sees India as a vital market, is also a platform used for spreading hate and misinformation in the country, Bloomberg reports, citing a 46-page research note that is part of the documents released by Frances Haugen, the former Facebook product manager who turned whistleblower.
The report — ‘An Indian test user’s descent into a sea of polarizing, nationalist messages’ — shows how little control Facebook has in one of its most important markets, where it has also invested close to $6 billion into a partnership with Reliance Industries, the country’s biggest conglomerate, according to the Bloomberg report, which is behind a paywall, but was also carried by Economic Times.
Meanwhile, Haugen gives evidence, today, to the UK Parliament’s Joint Committee on Britain’s draft Online Safety Bill. This follows her testimony to the US Congress on Oct. 5. It will be the first public evidence she has given in Europe regarding her experiences at the company and her ideas to regulate social media.
Facebook, which is expected to announce a new name for itself later this week, also reports its latest quarterly results today.
Groww, an online investment platform provider in Bangalore, has raised $251 million in its series E round of venture capital funding, tripling its valuation to $3 billion, TechCrunch reports. The investment was led by Iconic Growth, joined by Alkeon, Lone Pine Capital and Steadfast as well as existing investors Sequoia Capital India, Ribbit Capital, YC Continuity, Tiger Global, and Propel Venture Partners.
Groww was founded in 2016 by four former Flipkart employees. It has now raised more than $390 million so far, and was valued at $1 billion in April this year.
Clear, which makes the popular tax filing platform ClearTax for consumers, has raised $75 million in series C funding, led by Kora Capital, Stripe, Alua Capital, Think Investments and existing investors. The funds will be used to accelerate Clear’s expansion into lending and payments for business customers, and into international markets.
Clear’s cloud platform grew five-fold in the last 18 months, adding more than 3000 large enterprise customers. It also saw a surge in usage with over one million small businesses on the platform, which now processes more than 10 percent of India’s business invoices with a GMV of $400 billion, according to the company. Clear recently acquired yBANQ to expand into B2B payments.
(3:18) Interview: Shashank Kumar, co-founder and CTO, Razorpay, on RBI’s rules, and finding and nurturing talent in India.
When Shashank Kumar and Harshil Mathur teamed up to start Razorpay, most folks asked them why they were starting another payments gateway, and the duo had little knowledge of the financial sector in India, he recalls. Today, the Bengaluru company has become one of India's best known fintech successes, and a rapidly expanding platform for digital banking, lending, insurance, payroll management and a growing list of other financial services for a large number of customers.
I caught up with Shashank for a quick update, and he spoke about topics including RBI's new rules and how Razorpay attracts and retains talented people. Here's more from our conversation.
Ericsson is one of the world’s biggest telecom equipment makers, already supplying gear to more than half of the world’s telecom operators rolling out 5G networks. The Swedish company has had a presence in India since 1904. Spanning operations and R&D, today it has more employees in India than at home. As India prepares for 5G, the opportunity ahead will unleash tremendous innovation enabled with 5G, Magnus Ewerbring—chief technology officer for the Asia Pacific at Ericsson—tells Forbes India in an interview.
But, it will also take time for mass adoption, given the decadal evolution of each wireless standard. Ewerbring points out that even though 5G has been rolling out in different markets around the world for the past 30 months(some 176 live commercial 5G networks are operating already and Ericsson is a supplier to 97 of them), 4G wireless will still have more subscribers in 2026 than 5G.
By the end of 2026, Ericsson forecasts 3.5 billion 5G subscriptions globally, accounting for around 40 percent of all mobile subscriptions at that time. 4G will remain the dominant mobile access technology by subscription over the forecast period. During Q1 2021 (Jan-March), 4G subscriptions increased by approximately 100 million, worldwide, exceeding 4.6 billion, equaling 58 percent of all mobile subscriptions.
As more subscribers migrate to 5G, it is projected to peak during the year at 4.8 billion subscriptions before declining to around 3.9 billion subscriptions by the end of 2026. The net addition of mobile subscriptions was low during Q1 2021 at 59 million. According to the latest mobility report by Ericsson, this is likely due to the pandemic and associated lockdown restrictions. India had the most net additions (+26 million), followed by China (+6 million) and South Africa (+2 million).
India could have as many as 330 million 5G mobile subscribers by 2026, Ericsson projects in its report. The company estimates that 5G mobile subscriptions worldwide will exceed 580 million by the end of 2021, driven by an estimated one million new 5G mobile subscriptions every day. The forecast, which features in the 20th edition of the Ericsson Mobility Report, shows that 5G will become the fastest adopted mobile generation.
In India too, "the technology is there, the equipment is there. What we need now is to have the radio spectrum becoming available on reasonable terms for the operators to launch their services,” Ewerbring says.
PayPal, is looking to buy Pinterest—a platform that allows people to collect and share content about their interests—as the US payments giant moves to expand into online commerce. PayPal could pay about $70 dollars a share, valuing Pinterest at $39 billion, according to Bloomberg.
Facebook is planning to change its name next week to reflect its focus on building the metaverse, and ambition to be seen as much more than a social media company. Facebook has already announced plans to hire 10,000 people in Europe to advance its plans to build a metaverse—a virtual world on the internet in which people could have digital avatars for work and play.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to talk about the name change at the company’s annual Connect conference on October 28, but it could be announced sooner, according to The Verge. The change is seen as something similar to how Google restructured itself to become one of the companies under parent Alphabet.
Facebook, could similarly be one of many products under a parent company overseeing units including Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus.
Apple is conducting a series of more than 100 online live sessions for developers, called Tech Talks. It is also offering 1,500 office hours, over the next eight weeks to provide developers access to information, tips and tutorials on its latest technologies.
Tech Talks will provide an opportunity for developers to directly connect with Apple experts to learn more about new technologies, ask questions, and receive one-on-one guidance. They will also serve as a new way for developers to share direct feedback with Apple team members about their experiences building and distributing apps on the App Store, Apple said in a press release.
Sessions will be conducted online from Apple locations around the world in multiple time zones, including Bangalore, Cupertino, London, Mexico City, São Paulo, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, Tel Aviv and Tokyo.
According to a report by Razorpay, based on data from its customers, startup salaries in India have jumped over the last six months. The pandemic caused many startups to freeze performance appraisals and increments last year. But between April and September this year, the scenario has reversed. Edtech, fintech, and electronics are some of the sectors that witnessed a significant increase in salary spends, according to Razorpay.
Total salary spends rose 43 percent, based on data of 25,000 employees from 360 startups in more than 15 sectors that use Razorpay’s products and platforms.
Some of the other findings include a 52 percent increase in organisations that disbursed bonuses; a 30 percent increase in employee headcount; a 14 percent increase in employee headcount in entry-level roles; and a 50 percent rise in reimbursements in the last 6 months.
(3:39) Interview: Anand Prasanna, managing partner at Iron Pillar on Indian startups going global
Anand Prasanna's investment career has led him to back companies in India, China and then back in India across multiple marquee investment firms. Over the last five years, Anand and his fellow partners at the VC firm Iron Pillar have been backing startups with an Indian heritage that have found customers worldwide. I spoke with Anand about Iron Pillar's strategy of finding companies at the Series B stage and beyond, helping them to tap multibillion-dollar market opportunities. He also has some advice for aspiring VC investors.
Google released its Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro smartphones on Tuesday, which are equipped with some of the AI capabilities that the internet search giant has to offer. Most notably, the new phones have an AI-powered camera system so big that it takes up an entire bar across the width of the phones, jutting out on the back.
The phones run on Google’s Tensor processor, a system-on-chip designed by Google. Reports in August suggested the chip was based on an Exynos chip from Samsung. The Pixel 6 starts at around $600 dollars and the Pixel 6 Pro will set you back by about $900 dollars. The phones will be available in the US from October 28.
Aiven, an open-source data management startup in Finland, has more than doubled its valuation to $2 billion in fresh fundraising, the company’s CEO Oskari Saarenmaa said in a blog post. Aiven has raised $60 million in an extension of a Series C round in which it had raised $100 million in March. The company had been valued at $800 million at the time. The company’s investors include World Innovation Lab, IVP, Atomico, Earlybird, First Fellows, Lifeline Ventures and Salesforce Ventures.
Zoho Corporation, an India-US software products company that makes business management and office productivity software, has introduced six new apps, three new services and seven major platform enhancements in Zoho One—the company’s flagship suite of products.
The new release helps businesses solve disjointed data challenges and close communications gaps across silos, so they can become more productive, adapt more quickly to remote and hybrid work models, and be better prepared for growth, Zoho said in a press release.
ConveGenius, a Singapore-India ed-tech company, has raised $5 million in funding to develop a conversational AI platform, the company said in a press release. The pre-seed round was led by new investors, BAce Capital, Heritas Capital and 3Lines Venture Capital and existing investors, Michael and Susan Dell Foundation.
Convegenius.AI aims to expand its products on Whatsapp and other Conversational AI-based channels horizontally, to service more customers across different verticals and allow developers to launch their solutions on the platform.
Devnagri, a startup that offers an Indian language translation engine of the same name, with its focus on business customers, has raised $600,000 in seed funding from Venture Catalyst, Inflection Point Ventures and other co-investors.
Nakul Kundra and Himanshu Sharma, the founders of Devnagri, want to make the internet accessible to Indians in their own languages. The platform combines neural machine translation with machine learning and a community to help with translations. Its AI-human combination can help businesses scale their operations in local languages at lower costs and faster and more accurate translations, according to the company.
(3:52)Interview: Mayur Relekar, CEO of Arcana Network, a blockchain tech company
Mayur Relekar is probably third time lucky with his startup Arcana Network, a blockchain technologies company in Bengaluru that is building a decentralised storage and data privacy platform for developers on the Ethereum network. Relekar and his founders belive the future belongs to decentralised finance and applications and they have raised some funding to build out their first commercial product.
India is revising its space industry policies and is also in the process of bringing in new ones to increase private industry participation, K Sivan, chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation and secretary, department of space, said. He was speaking at the inaugural session on ‘Future of space — international participations and collaborations' at the India pavilion in Dubai’s Expo 2020 trade fair. The policies will enable ISRO to collaborate much more with India’s space tech startups.
Pawan Goenka, chairman of, Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) said that India aspires to launch a dozen missions every year as against four or five currently. He also added that the country is working on reusable launch vehicles and other advanced applications.
Apple has unveiled its new MacBook Pro equipped with new processors, the M1 Pro and M1 Max that feature a 16-core Neural Engine. Available in 14-inch and 16-inch models, MacBook Pro delivers superior processing, graphics, and machine learning performance without compromising on battery life, Apple said in a press release. The new MacBook Pro also features a Liquid Retina XDR display, a wide range of ports for advanced connectivity, a 1080p FaceTime HD camera, and the best audio system in an Apple laptop. The MacBook Pro starts at about $2000, with orders open now and shipping to customers starting October 26.
Tata Consultancy Services has been selected as a strategic partner by Cainz Corporation, Japan’s leading home improvement company, to accelerate its digital transformation, improve customer experience, and drive growth, India’s top IT company said in a press release.
CAINZ operates 226 stores across 28 prefectures nationwide, making it the largest home improvement retailer in Japan. TCS will set up a new global development centre for Cainz and bring in agile development of software solutions for the retailer, including ‘Find in Cainz’ a mobile app.
Bumble, an online dating app company that allows women to make the first move, has found the next set of women leaders to support through its ‘moves making impact’ feature, the company said in a press release.
Launched in 2019, ‘moves making impact’ is a product feature where Bumble gives back on behalf of every person who makes the first move on its app. Bumble users can choose one of three causes — human rights, women’s health, or inclusive arts and culture — that they want to support through making the first move.
The programme offers up to $60,000 for each woman leader with additional funding from the company over the next 12 months based on the number of first moves made on Bumble that are associated with their cause. The donations will be made to each woman through Vital Voices, a non-profit organisation.
(3:09) Interview: Dhyanesh Bhatt, CEO, GramCover on tapping tech to bring insurance to rural India
Much of rural India doesn’t have any access to insurance, be it agriculture related or personal health cover. And the problem represents a massive opportunity for new tech-enabled insurance startups. I spoke to Dhyanesh Bhatt, CEO of one such company, GramCover, to learn a bit more about how tech can help bring insurance to those who need it in rural India, with innovations that make cover both relevant and affordable.
China has amped-up its military technology race against the US, demonstrating advanced space capabilities with the test of a new hypersonic missile in August, the Financial Times reports. The missile missed its target by about 24 miles, but the test demonstrated China had made “astounding progress” on hypersonic weapons and was far more advanced than US officials realised, according to the report.
Hypersonic missiles fly at low-altitude trajectories at more than five times the speed of sound. The missile tested by China is said to be of a type that is manoeuvrable and does not follow a fixed trajectory, making it harder to track and defend against. The FT’s report is behind a paywall, but was cited by Business Insider.
Meanwhile, Microsoft’s LinkedIn unit is shutting down its current localised version in China due to “a significantly more challenging operating environment and greater compliance requirements,” the company said in a blog post last week. LinkedIn will open a new jobs app, called InJobs, that will not have the social media features of a feed or sharing any posts or articles, according to the company.
Klarna, a Swedish fintech startup built around a buy-now-pay-later product, is introducing a number of changes to its product in the UK, as British financial regulators prepare to tighten rules on the fast-growing practice of offering loans on the go to consumers typically for ecommerce purchases. Buy now pay later is surging in markets including India, where Amazon, Flipkart and Paytm all offer the product.
Backed by some of the world’s biggest investors, including SoftBank Group, Klarna has risen to become one of the world’s most valuable startups. Among the changes it is implementing is stronger credit checks. Klarna said in a press release that it will also introduce the option for users to pay for things in one go, and make it more clear to users that buy-now-pay-later is basically a loan that they will have to repay.
Arcana Network, a blockchain startup that offers a decentralised storage and data privacy platform for Ethereum and EVM compatible app developers, has raised $2.3 million in fresh funding, the company said in a press release. The investment was led by Republic Crypto and Woodstock Fund, and also saw participation from Digital Currency Group, Hyperedge, Paradigm Shift VC and others.
Arcana was founded by Mayur Relekar, Aravindh Kumar, and Abhishek Chaudhary in 2019. It will use the money to expand its team, strengthen its product portfolio, build a community of developers and launch its XAR token.
Interview: Canada’s Startup Visa — a gateway to the US for Indian startups(3:26)
One of the ways Indian startups could crack the North American market is to start with Canada, where a startup-friendly visa programme allows entrepreneurs to tap a vibrant local ecosystem of finance as well as STEM talent, Esha Chopra, director for strategy and marketing at the Toronto Business Development Centre, tells Forbes India in our interview today.
Founders can find flexibility in terms of not only the stipulations for their business but also on the family front, as they can bring in spouses and children and get on a faster path to permanent residency status, Esha says.
IBM has announced a suite of environmental intelligence software that uses AI to help organisations prepare for and respond to weather and climate risks, the company said in a press release. Apple’s next hardware event is set for October 18, 2021, according to invites it sent out on Tuesday. In our tech conversation, we ask Fred Rafilson—chief I/O psychologist at Talview—what Indian startups can do to hire the best and retain them.
IBM has announced a suite of environmental intelligence software that uses AI to help organisations prepare for and respond to weather and climate risks, the company said in a press release on Tuesday. The software can help companies streamline and automate the management of environmental risks and operationalise the underlying processes—including carbon accounting and reduction—to meet environmental goals.
The software suite uses existing weather data from IBM, advanced geospatial analytics already in use by companies around the world, and new innovations from IBM Research. According to the company, the offering is the first to bring together artificial intelligence, weather data, climate risk analytics, and carbon accounting capabilities in this way.
Apple’s next hardware event is set for October 18, 2021, according to invites it sent out on Tuesday, The Verge reports. Apple is widely expected to launch new MacBook laptops, a redesigned, higher-end Mac Mini, and the third-generation AirPod earphones.
The new MacBooks would be the latest step in Apple’s transition away from Intel processors, replacing them with an Arm-based chip called the M1X that Apple designs itself, according to The Verge. The event will stream live on Apple’s website at 10 a.m. PT or 10:30 p.m. Indian standard time.
Eightfold AI, a talent intelligence platform provider, has struck a partnership with Tata Consultancy Services, the companies said in a press release. Through this alliance, TCS will offer services for the Eightfold Talent Intelligence Platform and develop innovative joint solutions to help customers improve talent management outcomes, retain top performers, upskill and reskill the workforce, recruit top talent more efficiently, and reach diversity goals.
Open, an SME-focused neo-banking platform provider has raised Rs 735 crore ($100 million) in a Series C round. The funding was led by Temasek and saw participation from Google and SBI Investment, one of Japan’s leading venture capital firms. Existing investors Tiger Global and 3one4 Capital also participated in the round.
Open plans to use the funding to further strengthen and accelerate its new product lines. These include Zwitch, its embedded finance platform and BankingStack, the cloud-native SME banking platform for financial institutions which is currently deployed at over 15 banks in India. Over the next year, Open aims to expand its base to 5 million SMEs and markets in South East Asia, Europe and the US.
(3:32) Companies around the world spend billions of dollars on hiring the right people and retaining them. Increasingly, psychologists are playing a role across these processes to help enterprises better understand what motivates people as Gen Z enters the workforce. I spoke with Fred Rafilson, chief I/O Psychologist at Talview, on what companies can do with recruitment and retention of the best talent in a mobile-first world, and the emerging trends in this area.
OneWeb, a satellite communications company backed by India’s Bharti Airtel, has partnered with NewSpace India—the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation—to use ISRO’s PSLV rockets and the heavier GSLV-MkIII launch vehicles to place its satellites in space in 2022. VC firm 100x.VC is calling on women founders to pitch for funding. In our tech conversation, we speak to Tapan Barman, CEO of Mihup Communications on the company’s latest virtual interactive analyst.
OneWeb, a satellite communications company backed by Bharti Airtel, has partnered NewSpace India—the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation—to use ISRO’s PSLV rockets and the heavier GSLV-MkIII launch vehicles to place its satellites in space in 2022, the Financial Express reports.
A non-binding letter of intent between OneWeb and NewSpace India was unveiled at the launch of the Indian Space Association in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, according to the report. OneWeb is building a constellation of nearly 650 satellites and has already put 322 satellites into orbit.
Services will begin this year in the Arctic region including Alaska, Canada, and the UK. By late 2022, OneWeb will offer its high-speed, low latency connectivity services in India and the rest of the world, according to FE.
100x.VC, a Mumbai venture capital firm and accelerator for early-stage startups, is calling on women founders looking for backers to pitch to the firm’s partners on October 18th at 5 pm. Interested women entrepreneurs can register themselves with the firm for the event, according to a post on LinkedIn by Shashank Randev, one of the partners at the firm.
Shashank’s post has a link to a Google form as well, which interested candidates can use to register themselves.
GramCover, an insurance startup, has raised $7 million co-led by Siana Capital and Inflexor Ventures in a Series A round. The fundraise also saw the participation from Stride Ventures along with existing backers Omidyar Network India, Flourish Ventures and Emphasis Ventures.
The five-year-old startup specialises as a tech-enabled marketplace for insurance focused on rural India. It facilitates policy purchases for crops, motor, livestock, and health. The company has sold insurance covers worth Rs 1.10 billion in premiums.
The fresh capital will be used to strengthen its technology and products and scale up the business and support functions, the startup said in a press release. Unitus Capital was the financial advisor to the company on the transaction.
Lunchclub, a video-based professional networking platform provider, is looking to expand into India, Economic Times reported. The company uses AI and machine learning algorithms to match people based on their professional interests. Users can accept weekly one-on-one video meetings with new connections via a mobile app and the website. Lunchclub aims to add 100,000 users by December, according to ET.
(3:30) Conversational AI is making inroads into several sectors, from cars to call centres. I spoke to Tapan Barman, co-founder and CEO of Mihup Communications—a Kolkata startup that offers its voice AI technology to companies including Tata Motors, ICICI and Swiggy—about the company’s latest version of a virtual interactive analyst.
Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest software services company, kicked off the fiscal second quarter earnings season on Friday. It reported revenues of $6.33 billion for the three months ended September 30. Revenues grew 15.5 percent over the same period one year ago, in constant currency, the company said in a press release after the close of Mumbai trading on Friday. Profits rose 14 percent to $1.3 billion. And in our tech conversation, we speak with Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur Jahangir Mohammed, founder and CEO of Twin Health (2:30).
Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest software services company, kicked off fiscal second-quarter earnings season on Friday, reporting revenues of $6.33 billion for the three months ended September 30. Revenues grew 15.5 percent over the same period one year ago, in constant currency, the company said in a press release after the close of Mumbai trading on Friday. Profits rose 14 percent to $1.3 billion.
During the quarter, the company won large orders from customers including Swiss Re, ZF, Transport for London, Cordis, Carrefour Belgium and MTN South Africa. The company ended the quarter with nearly 529,000 employees.
Apple is appealing the September ruling in the lawsuit that was brought against it by Epic Games, in which a California judge ruled that the iPhone maker can’t prevent developers from including payment systems outside the App Store, The Verge reports. That ruling was part of a verdict that Apple had called a ‘resounding victory’ for itself. The ruling was set to become effective in December, but with the appeal, it will likely get pushed back, according to The Verge.
Tiger Global, a New York-based hedge fund, venture capital and private equity company, is in advanced talks to lead a $100 million funding round at Slice, a Bangalore fintech startup, TechCrunch reports. Other investors could include Insight Partners, Ribbit Capital and Greenoaks, according to the report.Slice has previously raised around $30 million and was valued at under $200 million in a round earlier this year, according to TechCrunch. The company, which is looking to expand India’s credit card market, counts Blume Ventures, Gunosy Capital and Better Capital among its investors.
Ola Electric, the electric vehicle unit of ride-hailing company Ola, has raised $200 million in an investment that values the business at more than $5 billion, according to a Press Trust of India report that appeared in Economic Times. The new investment comes days after the company raised $200 million at a post-money valuation of $3 billion. The latest funding round saw the participation of existing investors and some US-based bluechip tech funds, according to ET.
Jahangir Mohammed is your quintessential serial tech entrepreneur, with a finely honed knack for identifying problems that offered large market potential if they could be solved with the right technology-led solutions. Twenty-five years after he left India for the US, he sold his second company, Jasper Technologies, a Silicon Valley-based internet-of-things company, to Cisco for $1.4 billion.
It was then, that his “life’s work” started, he told me in a zoom call over the weekend. His latest venture is Twin Health, a medical services business that combines the latest in AI and medical sciences to treat and even reverse diseases like diabetes in many cases. As the name suggests, part of the solution is around developing a digital twin of each patient’s metabolism.
According to a report by India’s ministry of education—called Initiatives by the School Education Sector in 2020-21—large sections of school-going children in seven large states don’t have access to digital devices, the Indian Express reports. These states are Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttarakhand. Google Ads team has announced that advertisers, publishers, and YouTube creators can no longer monetise content that denies the existence of climate change. In our tech conversation, BrainSightAI’s founders explain how AI can help treat schizophrenia
CoinSwitch Kuber, a crypto exchange startup in India, has surged in privately-held value to $1.91 billion after it raised $260 million in series C funding from marquee US VC firm Andreessen Horowitz. The funding mark’s the first investment in an Indian startup for a16z, as the VC firm is popularly known. Telangana is testing an e-voting app. The Mom Project raises $80 million. In our tech conversation, we speak to the founders of 2am VC on their India investments
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder and CEO, was roundly criticised by US lawmakers on Tuesday at a hearing for employee-turned-whistleblower Frances Haugen. Haugen had gathered evidence from the company's own research on how the social networking giant was harming young people. Notably, US senator Richard Blumenthal said, "Big Tech now faces the Big Tobacco jaw-dropping moment of truth", according to multiple reports on the hearing. In our tech conversation, we talk to Ravi Annavajjahala, CEO at AI chip company Deep Vision, on expansion in India
Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp all had major outages for many hours on Monday. On Tuesday, they issued statements that services were coming back online gradually. The first lawsuit blaming a death on a ransomware attack has been filed in the US. Byju's is raising more money. In our tech conversation, we talk to the founders of GalaxEye, about their plans for a low earth orbit constellation of satellites
Jeff Bezos is investing in an Indonesian ecommerce startup, Ula, via his family office Bezos Expeditions, TechCrunch reports. Oyo Hotels and Homes filed its draft prospectus with India's capital markets regulator on Friday aiming to raise Rs 8,430 crore ($1.2 billion) through an initial public offer of shares. Google has abandoned its plan to offer a banking service, Plex, less than a year after launching it, Wall Street Journal reports. And in our tech conversation today, Arun Natarajan at Venture Intelligence puts the massive money flow into India's internet unicorns in perspective.
Ola Electric, the EV unit of ride-hailing business Ola, has raised over $200 million led by Falcon Edge, Softbank and others, at a valuation of $3 billion, the company said in a press release. Founder Bhavish Aggarwal also tweeted that the money will help Ola Electric accelerate its development of electric motorcycles and four-wheelers. In our tech conversation, Dev Roy—chief innovation and learning officer at Byju’s—unpacks a new innovation lab
At its Search On Livestream event, Google showcased some of the features that will roll out in the coming months. One of them is the capability to search visually, allowing for more context-based results that would be more useful. Amazon has launched a home assistant robot called Astro. CredAvenue raised $90 million in series A funding round led by Sequoia Capital. In our tech conversation, we talk to Kris Nair, founder of Kawa Space
It was about 10 years ago that Shekhar Kirani took a flight from Bangalore to Chennai, and spent the better part of the day talking to a couple of young entrepreneurs before taking an evening flight back. He had been introduced to them by a colleague and the partner at Accel was looking to find out if the VC firm should invest in them. The two entrepreneurs—Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy—came from simple backgrounds and hadn’t attended any of India’s Institutes of Technology or top business schools. They had experience working at Zoho, a small software products company at the time, which helped but many would have rejected them, Kirani says. There was something about the duo and their fledgling venture, called Freshdesk at the time, that convinced Kirani Accel should go ahead and bet on them. And Freshdesk, which would eventually become Freshworks, got its first million dollars in VC money with Kirani joined the company’s board. He certainly couldn’t have imagined then, that the little Chennai outfit would go on to deliver Accel’s first US IPO from its Indian portfolio—and an India-founder-led software products company at that. Forbes India caught up with Kirani, a day after he returned from attending Freshworks’s billion-dollar IPO on the Nasdaq. We spoke about everything from what was going through his mind on the floor of the exchange to how Mathrubootham had matured as an entrepreneur, and what it takes to succeed as a VC investor
Instagram's head Adam Mosseri said the Facebook unit will "pause" development of a version of the photo and video sharing app targeted at children, dubbed 'Instagram Kids'. However, Instagram will continue to develop and integrate parental supervision features into the existing app, Mosseri said in a blog post, while also arguing YouTube and TikTok had children's apps. In our tech conversation, Krishna Kumar—founder and CEO of Cropin—unpacks his company's multiple agri-tech cloud software products
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launches the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission today at 11 am via video conferencing. The main components of this platform include a health ID for every citizen that will also work as their health account to which personal health records can be linked and viewed via a mobile app. Healthcare Professionals Registry and a Healthcare Facilities Registries will act as a repository of all healthcare providers across both modern and traditional systems of medicine. And in our tech conversation today, we catch up with Akhil Aryan, the co-founder and CEO of ION Energy
Apple users of the lightning connector will likely be the most affected if a proposed rule to make the Type-C USB connector a common charger standard is adopted as a law in Europe. The European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, Thursday said it is putting forward legislation to establish a common charging solution for all the relevant devices. That, and in our tech conversation today, the founders of Extrapolate Advisors unpack their data-as-a-service platform, called DataSutram
Freshworks became perhaps the first Indian-founder-led cloud software venture to publicly list in the US, on September 22, after a successful initial public offering on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Shares of the company, which listed under the symbol FRSH, were 32 percent higher at $47.55 at the close of normal trading on the exchange. The shares rose to over $49 in after-hours trading. In tech conversation, we catch up with the founders of a new networking platform for professionals, entrepreneurs and angel investors, CoffeeMug.ai
Freshworks will become perhaps the first Indian founder-led cloud software venture to become a publicly listed company in the US, on Wednesday. The company will sell its shares at $36 each—on strong demand — after initially setting a range of $28 to $32 and then raising it $32 to $34. At $36 a share, Freshworks will raise about $1 billion and have a market value of $10 billion. In our tech chat, Kanan Rai speaks about her experience as a non-techie woman building businesses within Google
Pfizer and BioNTech have said that the first test results of their Covid-19 vaccine tested on children, age group of 5 to 11 years, showed the vaccine to be effective. The Covid-19 vaccine was well tolerated, with side effects generally comparable to those observed in participants in the age group of 16 years to 25 years, the companies said in a press release. In our tech conversation today, Narayan Prasad Nagendra, COO of SatSearch, explains the new space tech opportunities for Indian companies
Google has adopted anti-competitive, unfair, and restrictive trade practices in the mobile operating system and related markets in India, the investigative arm of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) has said following an investigation that started in April 2019. That, and SpaceX's first civilian crew returns, and in today’s tech conversation, we speak to Vasanth Kamath, founder and CEO of smallcase, on the company’s evolution into a powerful tech platform
Byju’s, an EdTech company and India’s most valuable startup, is acquiring Tynker—a coding platform for children in the US—to accelerate its expansion in America. Tynker’s creative coding platform has been used by over 60 million kids and 100,000 schools in 150 countries. a16z may invest in CoinSwitch. In our tech conversation, Ultraviolette Automotive’s founders give us an update on their electric performance bike F77
On Wednesday, India’s government announced a relief package and a series of structural reforms for the cash-strapped telecom sector. Union Minister for IT and Communications, Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the cabinet has approved 100 percent Foreign Direct Investment in the telecom sector through automatic route—from 49 percent earlier. In our tech conversation, we talk to Amagi’s co-founder and CEO Baskar Subramanian
India and Singapore will link their digital payments systems to enable “instant, low-cost fund transfers,” making cross-border transactions between the two countries very convenient. According to the central banks of both countries, India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and Singapore’s PayNow network will be linked by July 2022. Apple unveiled its iPhone 13 models on Tuesday. In our tech conversation, we speak with Abhinav Shashank, co-founder and CEO of healthcare data management unicorn Innovaccer
Change comes from within, and that is what Tata Consultancy Services—one of the world’s biggest IT services providers—has been undergoing, even before Covid-19 struck. In this free-ranging conversation with Forbes India, CEO Gopinathan articulates what it takes to change an organisation that has more than half a million employees—most of them engineers. The aspiration is to set the company on to its next phase of evolution, to retain and build on its engineering prowess, but also to step up much more as a trusted strategic business advisor
Messenger RNAs, or mRNAs, that became famous because they can fight Covid-19, as German company BioNTech showed in its vaccine, can fight cancer too, the company has found. BioNTech has just started human tests of a cancer treatment that uses mRNAs, which was found to completely shrink tumours in mice. Apple must allow developers to point to their own payment options, a judge ruled in California. In our tech conversation today, we talk to Varun Babbar, managing director of Qlik India
The Tata Group has been given the go-ahead by India’s Cabinet Committee on Security for a new military transport aircraft that it is making in collaboration with Airbus—marking it the first such military aviation contract given to a private enterprise in India, where the sector is dominated by the state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. In tech conversation, we talk to the founders of Sanas.ai on their AI software that attempts to make people’s accents more intelligible to each other
Hyundai Group is planning to introduce a new generation hydrogen-based fuel cell system in 2023. It is part of the automaker’s plan to achieve a fuel cell vehicle price point comparable to a battery electric vehicle by 2030. Climeworks, a direct air capture CO2 trap maker is switching on its first large plant on Wednesday. In our tech conversation, we talk to Aneesh Reddy, co-founder and CEO of Capillary Technologies about an acquisition in the US
Tata Consultancy Services will soon ask its staff to be based in their “work cities” as India’s biggest IT services company prepares to bring work back to the offices. TCS has vaccinated more than 90 percent of its over half a million employees with at least one shot against Covid-19, Milind Lakkad, the company’s global head of human resources told Forbes India in a recent interview. In our tech conversation, Sumit Gwalani—one of the developers of Google Pay and now a co-founder of epiFi Technologies—explains the account aggregator framework
While solar power is widely accepted as a clean energy source, and hydroelectric projects have both advantages as clean energy and drawbacks in terms of the impact on the environment around them. According to those in the industry, advances in wind power are making it an increasingly important option. We bring you a conversation with Renjith VK, a wind turbines specialist at GE, and Arvind Bansal, CEO at Continuum Green Energy, which operates India’s largest wind-solar hybrid farm, on the state of wind power in India
Apple is facing an antitrust complaint in India for allegedly abusing its App Store’s dominance by forcing developers to use its proprietary in-app payments system. The allegations are similar to a case Apple is facing in Europe, where regulators are probing the iPhone maker’s imposition of an in-app fee of 30 percent for the distribution of paid digital content, and other restrictions. In our tech conversation, Acceldata’s Rohit Choudhary unpacks his data observability platform
Amazon’s new CEO Andy Jassy expects to hire 55,000 recruits in corporate and tech roles worldwide in the coming months. Of the new jobs, over 40,000 will be in the US, and the rest in countries including India, Germany and Japan. Apple will allow reader apps—spanning magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music and video—to link their software to external websites for payments. In our tech conversation, we learn from Whatfix CEO Khadim Batti how they boost digital adoption
Google and Apple will have to allow alternative payment systems on their app stores in South Korea, which has become the first country to ban the tech giants’ restrictive practice of forcing developers to use their payments systems exclusively and then charging them fees of up to 30 percent. In our tech conversation, Venkat Vallabhaneni at Inflexor Ventures discusses the VC firm’s new deep-tech focused fund
China has imposed strong rules to curb gaming addiction among minors in the world’s most populous nation that is also home to some of the world’s biggest tech companies. On Monday, Chinese regulators slashed the time period players under the age of 18 can spend on online games to an hour of gameplay on Fridays, weekends and holidays. In our tech conversation, we discuss how India’s new drone rules could be a game-changer
Girish Mathrubootham never went to one of India’s premier technology schools—the IITs—nor did he attend one of its hallowed business schools—the IIMs. But, he’s just made corporate and tech history in India, with Freshworks, the company he founded more than 10 years ago, becoming the first cloud software venture started by an Indian founder to start an IPO in the US. Freshworks filed its initial registration prospectus for a listing on the Nasdaq, on August 27. Here’s a conversation with Mathrubootham, from February, shortly after Freshworks hit $300 million in annual revenue. He spoke about shifting to the US, his billion-dollar revenue ambition, thoughts on a US listing, and how Covid-19 gave him a chance to take better care of himself
Drones will now be much easier to operate in India. The central government has notified new rules that do away with several onerous requirements for those in the sector, paving the way for startups to ramp up the use of drones for everything from delivery of medicines and ecommerce purchases to aerial surveys for agriculture and conservation. In our tech conversation, Abhinav Aggarwal talks about staying bootstrapped and highly profitable at Fluid AI
Five members of an all-girl robotics team from Afghanistan have arrived in Mexico, along with several media workers, fleeing an uncertain future at home after the recent collapse of the US-backed government and takeover by the Taliban. Infosys is planning a new AI centre in Canada staffing 500. In our tech conversation, Amit Somani talks about Prime Venture’s fourth fund and hunt for a new partner
Google and Apple may no longer be able to charge their lucrative app store fees in South Korea if a plan to ban the practice in the country goes ahead. South Korea—home to Samsung Electronics—could become the first among the world’s major economies to bar Google and Apple from charging software developers commissions on in-app purchases. In our tech conversation, a peek into Zoho’s new Canvas, a no-code CRM personalisation tool
India may record an unprecedented 600,000 new infections a day if the country fails to boost the pace of vaccination and avert a third coronavirus wave, according to a new study. The National Institute of Disaster Management—which falls under the interior ministry—predicts a surge in cases as early as October. In our tech conversation, Rahul Chowdhri of Stellaris Venture Partners discusses the VC firm’s new $225 million fund
Infosys CEO Salil Parekh has been summoned by India's finance minister to explain why the new income tax portal the IT services giant developed for the country remains glitch-ridden. Infosys had to undertake emergency maintenance over the weekend and the site even went offline until Sunday night. In our tech conversation, Ajay Mandlekar—a researcher at Stanford AI Lab—unpacks 'Robomimic' a new framework to improve robots' ability to learn from humans
Amazon has rolled out India’s first celebrity voice feature on Alexa with the country’s best known movie star Amitabh Bachchan. Indian customers can choose to add Bachchan’s voice to their Alexa voice assistant on Echo devices or by pressing the mic icon on the Amazon shopping app (Android only) for an introductory price of Rs 149 for one year. Samsung has signed Alia Bhatt as brand ambassador or its Galaxy Z. And in our tech conversation today, Neil Shah of Counterpoint Research analyses Google’s smartphone strategy
Amazon has invested in Smallcase Technologies, a Bangalore startup that is making it very easy for people to invest in baskets of stocks and exchange traded funds, which it calls, well, smallcases. Amazon has joined a $40 million investment in Smallcase led by Faering Capital and Premji Invest, IT billionaire Azim Premji’s family office. And today’s conversation is a hark back to chat with Abhinav Asthana, whose company Postman has just become one of the most valued SaaS startups to be led by Indian founders anywhere
Google has announced its Pixel 5a smartphone with 5G wireless support, for $449. The latest A-series Pixel phone from Google arrives on August 26 in the US and Japan, and includes IP67 water resistance, a bigger battery than the Pixel 5, and a dual camera system. No word on availability in India yet. And in our tech conversation today, Harsh Rajat unpacks his Ethereum Push Notification Service
Tesla’s advanced driver assistance system, Autopilot, is being investigated by the US auto safety regulators after a series of crashes at emergency sites, according to multiple news reports. The investigation, by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, covers an estimated 765,000 Tesla Model Y, X, S and three vehicles from the 2014 model year onward. And in our tech conversation today, Ather Energy’s Ravneet Phokela explains why the company is open sourcing its electric vehicle charging connector
July 2021 has become the hottest month ever recorded, according to new global data released on Friday by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information. This comes on the heels of a report by the Inter Government Panel on Climate Change that added incontrovertible evidence that human activity such as burning fossil fuels has exacerbated adverse climate change. And in our tech conversation today, we talk to the founders of LocoNav
Facebook may be required to sell off Giphy if a provisional finding by Britain’s antitrust authority is confirmed. The deal may impede competition between social media platforms and the in-display advertising market, according to Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority. EdTech startup Eruditus and local language technology platform VerSe raised capital in the latest funding rounds. In our tech conversation today, CEO Krishna Depura talks about plans ahead at Mindtickle
Google and Apple, will be forced to allow third-party app stores and side-loading of apps if a new bipartisan bill in the US becomes law. The Open App Markets Act, led by three US lawmakers, would break open the business model of both companies’ app stores and the structure of their mobile operating systems. Samsung introduced Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 3 at the 'Galaxy Unpacked' event on Wednesday. And in our tech conversation today, Anand Inamdar talks about his Pune company Amoeboids, which makes enterprise apps on the Atlassian marketplace
Google is blocking ad targeting of users under 18, based on age, gender or interests. It will also turn off its location history feature, which tracks location data, for users under 18 globally. Apple is doubling down on pro camera features for the upcoming iPhone lineup. Xiaomi launched Mi Mix 4 and Mi Pad 5. In our tech conversation, billionaire Bhavin Turakhia talks up his email for business—Titan
Amazon has decided to end its relationship with one of its biggest sellers in India, Cloudtail—a joint venture between Amazon and India's Catamaran. The move comes after the US company was accused of giving preferential treatment for years to a small group of sellers. Apple will have a record year in India with sales of $3 bn in revenue. Ather has decided to share its proprietary fast-charging connector design with other OEMs, hoping to create a single EV connector standard. In our tech conversation today, a chat with Byju’s CPO Ranjit Radhakrishnan
Atlassian, is probably not a very well known company in India outside the world of software products. However, some of India’s best-known companies—from Reliance Industries to Flipkart and Ola—use Atlassian’s team collaboration software. Three years ago, Atlassian also set up its third global R&D centre in Bangalore. Mike Cannon-Brookes spoke to Forbes India about how Atlassian has grown through the pandemic and plans ahead for the India centre—which has emerged as the fastest-growing talent location for the company
Moderna, a US-based pharmaceuticals company, said a booster shot of the Covid-19 vaccine may be necessary as new variants of the coronavirus emerge. The company made the announcement as part of its second quarter earnings release on Thursday. Apple is implementing a technology to scan photo uploads to iCloud in the US screening for child abuse images. In today's tech conversation, Anand Ramamoorthy, MD of Micron Technology India, offers a glimpse into the semiconductor industry.
Flipkart, its founders and current investor Tiger Global, are facing a 100 billion rupee or $1.35 billion fine from Enforcement Directorate for alleged violation of foreign investment laws. Flipkart has said it is in compliance with Indian laws and is cooperating with the directorate. And in today’s tech conversation, Neha Satak, co-founder and CEO of Astrome, talks about commercialisation of her high-capacity wireless communications technology that could accelerate the spread of broadband internet into rural India
Google will launch its own system on chip called Tensor on the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro phones later this year, CEO Sundar Pichai said in a blogpost on Monday. The chips, which have been four years in the making, are fine tuned to deliver the best of Google’s artificial intelligence and machine learning innovations to Pixel users, Pichai said. Edtech startup Unacademy raises $440 mn; and in our tech conversation today, Dinakar Munagala, co-founder and CEO of Blaize, a semiconductor company making chips for AI talks about plans ahead, including in India
On Monday, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched e-RUPI, a cashless and contactless instrument for digital payments in the country. e-RUPI acts as an e-voucher based on a QR code or SMS string, which is delivered to the mobile phones of the beneficiaries. And in our tech conversation, Anshuman Bapna talks about his plan to train 100 million people on the crisis and the opportunity that is climate change, at Terra.do
Amazon has been fined a record €746 million, or $887 million by the European Union for violations related to ad targeting under the general data protection rules. Amazon will appeal. Google’s scientists may have created the first time crystal, which could potentially advance quantum computing. And in today’s tech conversation, Manav Garg, CEO of Eka Software talks about bringing the kind of support he never had to today’s entrepreneurs, at Together
Tata Sons is acquiring about 63.1 percent stake in Bangalore based telecom network gear maker Tejas Networks. The Tata group has signed an agreement to acquire 43.35 percent of Tejas for Rs 18.50 billion that triggered an open offer by Tata Sons to acquire shares of the company from the public. The acquisition strengthens the Tata group’s standing at a time when 5G wireless networks are rolling out around the world. And in our tech conversation, Shruti Kapoor explains how her AI bot Wingman helps salespeople close more deals faster
The Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine’s protection against severe cases of the disease holds steady after six months, according to new data released by the companies. The vaccine’s efficacy against those severe cases stayed high at 97 percent for the entire six-month stretch after people got their shots. And in our tech conversation today, Beerud Sheth talks about building Gupshup into a leader in the conversational AI space
Apple reported another set of record-breaking earnings results on Tuesday, but warned of supply constraints and that sales could be slowing down in the current quarter. The company had double-digit growth in many markets and “especially strong growth in emerging markets, including India, Latin America and Vietnam” for the June quarter, CEO Tim Cook told investors. And in our tech conversation today, Mayank Tiwari at ReshaMandi talks about digitalising the sericulture supply chain in India
Biocon Biologics, a fully integrated biosimilars company and a subsidiary of Biocon, has won an exclusive license from US-based Adagio Therapeutics to manufacture and commercialise an antibody treatment for Covid-19, based on the American company’s ADG20 monoclonal antibody, for India and some emerging markets. Byju’s is mopping up smaller competitors; and in today’s tech conversation, Venkatesh Peddi at Chiratae Ventures and Praveen Bhadada at Zinnov explain how Indian cloud software companies will get to $1 trillion in value
India is discussing a plan to create power islanding systems in several cities to protect critical infrastructure from potential attacks on the electricity grid, power minister Raj Kumar Singh said. Bengaluru, India’s tech capital, and Jamnagar, which has two of India’s largest oil refineries, are among the cities being assessed. And in today’s tech conversation, Nikhil Ramaswamy and Gokul NA at CynLr explain computer vision-based robotic automation
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey confirmed to investors that bitcoin will be a “big part” of the company’s future. Dorsey sees opportunities to integrate cryptocurrency into existing Twitter products and services. Reserve Bank of India is planning the phased implementation of India’s digital currency. And in today’s tech conversation, Priyanshu Mishra and Vidhyashankar Sriram at Crayon Data explain what AI can do with data on the shopping choices we make
Instagram is testing a new feature 'Collab' with creators in the UK and India to help them increase audience reach. Wipro announced new partnership with Celonis, an execution management company. Byju's, one of the world's biggest EdTech companies, has acquired Epic Creations for $500 million. And in our tech conversation, CTO Ajit Narayanan talks about bringing AI to consumers at online healthcare services company Mfine
Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos said it was his ‘best day ever’ on Tuesday, after he made a historic sub-orbital flight to space in a capsule, carried by a rocket—both built by his company Blue Origin. This was 21-year-old Blue Origin’s first human space flight. Swiggy raises $1.25 billion to go beyond food delivery. And in our tech conversation, part 2 of a chat with Sandeep Nailwal on the basics of Polygon's blockchain for Ethereum
HCL Technologies founder Shiv Nadar has stepped down from his position as chief strategy officer and managing director, India’s third biggest IT services company told the stock exchanges on Monday. The company has named Nadar as chairman emeritus and strategic advisor. CEO C Vijayakumar has been named managing director as well, for a term five years. In today’s tech conversation, Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon, explains the basics of the rising blockchain protocol
Lenskart has raised $220 million in an investment led by Singapore's sovereign wealth fund Temasek and Falcon Edge Capital, taking its total to $315 million. Peyush Bansal-led Lenskart is now valued at $2.5 billion and will use most of the fresh funds to expand into Southeast Asia and West Asia. In the tech conversation today, Sumit Sarawgi, MD and senior partner at BCG, talks about efforts worldwide to promote 'responsible AI'
Xiaomi has displaced Apple to become the world’s second-biggest smartphone vendor by the number of handsets sold for the April to June period, according to data from market research company Canalys. Wipro reported its best quarter ever, with sales surging in the April-June quarter. And, in our tech conversation today, Kausambi Manjita—CEO of Mason—explains the promise of ‘no code’ tech
Infosys, increased its full-year revenue forecast on Wednesday on the back of its strongest quarterly growth in 10 years, and accelerating demand ahead. India’s second biggest IT services company reported that revenues for its fiscal first quarter rose 16.9 percent from the same period a year ago, and 4.8 percent sequentially. And in our tech conversation, Pankhuri Shrivastava talks about online social commerce for women at her eponymous company
Google, has been fined 500 million euros (or $593 million) by France’s competition authority, for failing to comply with the regulator's orders on how to conduct talks with the country's news publishers in a row over copyright. Smartphone maker OPPO has released a paper on its 6G strategy; and in today’s tech conversation, Taranjeet Singh Bhamra—CEO of AgNext—talks about bringing AI to agriculture
Ecommerce company Flipkart, a Walmart unit in India, has raised $3.6 billion in an investment led by GIC, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Walmart. Competition Commission of India has approved SoftBank’s plan to put $450 million in Swiggy; Ola Electric and Hero Electric raise money for expansion; and in today’s tech conversation, Aman Sanduja talks about his ambition to build a Twitter for crypto, at his startup Moving.so
Richard Branson, the billionaire owner of the Virgin Group, made a brief flight to space on Sunday, from a spaceport in New Mexico in a plane built by his company Virgin Galactic. Ride-hailing services company Ola has raised $500 million ahead of an IPO. And in today’s tech conversation, Ashish Lachhwani, co-founder and director at Steradian Semiconductors talks about plans for the company’s 4D imaging radar technologies
Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest and one the world’s largest IT services companies, crossed the half a million employee mark in the three months ended June 30, the company said on Thursday—reporting its fiscal first quarter results. The company also hit $6 billion in quarterly revenue run rate in a period that was “personally challenging” to many, CEO and MD Rajesh Gopinathan said. Later, we also have a chat on an innovative JV between Glance and Collective Artists Network.
Ashwini Vaishnaw is India’s new minister for railways, and electronics and information technology, in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first major cabinet shuffle since he took on his second term in 2019. Vaishnaw has an MBA from the Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania and has worked with GE Transportation and Siemens. And in today’s tech conversation, Amit Anand, founding partner at Jungle Ventures, talks about why the money that has gone into the Indian startup ecosystem so far is only the tip of the iceberg
Pine Labs, which provides digital payments technologies to merchants, has closed a $600 million funding round that values the Noida fintech company at $3.5 billion. Rival PayU may be in talks to acquire BillDesk for as much as $4 billion. And in today’s tech conversation, CEO Sameer Sawarkar talks about the next phase of growth at Neurosynaptic Communications
China’s ByteDance, which is the parent company of TikTok, has started selling the AI technology of its short video app to other companies, including in India where the app is banned. And in today’s tech conversation, Pooja Goyal at Avishkaar talks about the implications of a survey finding that 95 percent of children polled recalled only male role models in STEM fields.
From an ahead-of-its-times outfit to bring technology to 'medico marketing' to a multinational tech company offering AI and NLP platforms to the world's biggest drugmakers, Indegene has come a long way. The Covid-19 pandemic, however, showed that the Bengaluru company was only getting started. In this special briefing, Manish Gupta, co-founder and CEO of Indegene, recalls the early days of Indegene, and talks about what lies ahead
Various EU countries have approved India's vaccines for arriving travellers. Those vaccinated with Covishield are now eligible for travel to Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Greece, Ireland, Spain, Iceland and Switzerland, whereas Estonia has recognised all the vaccines authorised by India. And in today’s tech conversation, we talk to Mihir Shah about how his company UE Life Sciences is making early cancer detection for women more affordable and accessible
Byju’s, India’s most valued startup, is discovering the real cost of acquiring WhiteHat Jr. A server that mostly contained data about WhiteHat Junior’s students, parents and teachers—including email addresses, phone numbers and account reset information—was left exposed. And in today’s tech conversation, Partha Narasimhan of Velodyne Lidar talks about the San Jose company’s new India design centre in Bengaluru
US drug company Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine has been approved for emergency use in India and Mumbai-based pharmaceuticals company Cipla is in talks to import it. Also in today’s tech conversation, we talk to Snigdha Kumar, a former Flipkart category head for foods. She is now CEO of her own startup—Cora Health in Bengaluru—where she is building an AI-based recommendation engine to personalise healthy food and nutrition options for consumers
WhatsApp got a breather yesterday in India, after the High Court in the southern Indian state of Kerala dismissed a writ petition that had called upon the central government to ban the instant messaging service provider for allegedly not complying with the country's revised IT rules. Also on the programme, a boy puts a hole in his mother’s bank account buying ‘weapons’ in an online battle game; and Omkar Pandharkame talks about harnessing AI to capture employee wisdom in large organisations
Zydus Cadila is in the advanced stages of trials for its Covid-19 vaccine that can be given to children aged 12 and above says NK Arora, chairman of India’s national technical advisory group on immunisation. Also on the programme, cryptocurrency exchange Binance has been banned in the UK; Telegram adds group video chat; and Anand Madanagopal talks about taking sophisticated heart health checks to the masses at Cardiac Design Labs
JioPhone Next, a made-for-India Android smartphone that is the result of a collaboration between Reliance Jio Infocomm and Google, will be released on September 10, billionaire Mukesh Ambani announced yesterday. Also on the programme, Disney+ Hotstar has over 250 positions open in India; Razorpay becomes the first payments partner for Twitter’s Tip Jar in India; and Meghna Suryakumar discusses plans ahead at her company Crediwatch
John McAfee, the creator of the eponymous antivirus software, was found dead Wednesday in prison outside Barcelona. He was 75. Also, TikTok is hoping for an India comeback. Google is tweaking security code that will change Drive and YouTube. Also on the programme, AI helps restore a Rembrandt masterpiece; and Kinner N Sacchdev, co-founder and CEO of Knorish talks about enabling the passion economy
Infosys CEO Salil Parekh and COO Pravin Rao were among the IT company’s top executives who met virtually with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday to discuss the still unresolved glitches in the new income tax portal developed by the company. Also, Google faces EU investigation over ad-tech and CCI probe over Android smart TVs; and IIT Bombay don Manoj Gopalkrishnan unpacks his Tapestry Pooling tech for mass testing for Covid-19
Amazon India and Flipkart will likely take a hit if the consumer affairs department’s proposed changes—including a ban on flash sales and curbs on scaling up private labels—get the go-ahead. Also in the programme, Byju’s raises $50 million more; Facebook starts rolling out Live Audio Rooms; and Srikanth Sola, a cardiac surgeon turned entrepreneur discusses plans ahead at his venture Devic Earth.
Mohalla Tech, which operates one of India’s largest local language content-based social media and short video apps, Sharechat and Moj, respectively, is rewarding employees with a share buyback worth $19.1 million. Also in the programme, BharatPe is said to be raising $250 million at over $2.5 billion valuation; Google is working on a ‘find my device network’; and Kushal Nahata, co-founder and CEO of FarEye talks about the plans ahead for his logistics intelligence company that recently raised $100 million in fresh funding.
In today's programme, India’s top five IT services companies will hire 96,000 people in the current fiscal year, Nasscom—the IT industry’s lobby—said in a statement yesterday, after a report by Press Trust of India about automation-led job losses, citing a report by Bank of America. Apple CEO Tim Cook says Android has 47 times more malware versus iOS; India’s wealthy could invest $30 billion in tech startups; and Girish Menon, a partner at KPMG, talks about the potential of online gaming in India
Microsoft’s independent directors unanimously elected Satya Nadella to the role of board chair yesterday, expanding the CEO’s influence in the company. Nadella, who has been CEO of Microsoft since 2014, is one of the most well-known Indian executives leading America’s biggest technology companies. Also in this programme, Mumbai’s BrowserStack is valued at $4 billion after BOND investment; and Lendingkart’s Harshvardhan Lunia discusses his efforts to finance small businesses with more digital tech
Novavax’s Covid-19 vaccine could be headed to India, with the Serum Institute of India manufacturing it. 200 million shots could become available from September to December, Times of India reports. Also in the programme, Microsoft’s Windows 11 leaks; startups Apna and Fampay raise big investments; and Piyush Shah, co-founder of InMobi, talks about group company Glance’s acquisition of ecommerce business Shop101
Novavax said yesterday that its recombinant nanoparticle protein-based Covid 19 vaccine, demonstrated 100 percent protection against moderate and severe disease and 90.4 percent efficacy overall, after Phase 3 trials. Also in this programme, Google has made its Workspace open to anyone with an account; and later, entrepreneur Harsha Moily talks about his new VC firm, and plans to invest $200 million in clean tech startups in India and Israel
Leading this briefing is news that America’s technology giants such as Apple and Amazon will have to sell or leave various businesses under wide-ranging antitrust rules proposed by US lawmakers on Friday. Also in this programme, Byju’s ongoing funding round values it higher than Paytm, and space technology startup Astrogate Labs’ CEO Nitish Singh talks about preparations for a satellite launch in March to demonstrate the company’s laser-based communications technologies.
Leading this briefing is news that Klarna Bank has raised $639 million in fresh equity funding in an investment led by SoftBank Group that values the Swedish fintech startup at $45.6 billion. Also in the programme, Tata Digital is said to be acquiring a majority stake in online pharmacy venture 1mg; and Yashraj Erande of BCG analyses the rise of digital banks in the Asia Pacific region.
Leading this briefing is news that El Salvador, the smallest country in Central America, yesterday became the first country to make Bitcoin legal tender. The country’s Bitcoin law was been approved by a ‘super majority’ Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s 39-year old president said on Twitter. Also in the programme, President Biden lifts US ban on TikTok; more women in India went online for STEM courses; and an interview with Shashank Kumar, co-founder and CEO of DeHaat on expansion plans at his agri-tech startup.
Leading today’s briefing is news that Infosys was panned yesterday after the new version of the income tax department’s e-filing portal that the IT company built didn’t work for many users. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman took to Twitter to pull up the company, and chairman Nandan Nilekani assured her the system would stabilise soon. Later on in the programme, Neil Shah, VP Research at Counterpoint Research analyses Apple’s aim of building user privacy into its long-term business strategy.
Leading today’s briefing is news that Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos plans to be one of the passengers, when New Shepard, the reusable rocket built by Blue Origin, the space company he started over 20 years ago, makes its first manned flight on July 20th. Also on the programme, Apple’s WWDC; Google to pay a fine in France; the Nevera electric hypercar; and later, we talk to Ranjith Mukundan, CEO of Stellapps Technologies on bringing the power of IoT to dairy supply chains in India.
Over the last five years, interest and investments in quantum computing have picked up considerably, with technology companies as well as national governments committing billions of dollars to developing commercial quantum computers. Heike Riel, IBM Fellow, Head of Science and Technology and Lead, Quantum, IBM Research Europe, and Gargi Dasgupta, Director of IBM Research India and CTO of IBM India and south Asia, discuss the importance of this emerging technology.
Leading this briefing is news that SoftBank Group Corp. is in talks with Flipkart to invest again, four years after it sold its stake in the Indian ecommerce company to Walmart, according to news reports. SoftBank’s Vision Fund could invest $600-700 million in Flipkart. Also in this programme, TCS commits to net zero carbon footprint by 2030; and we speak with Prasad Vanga, CEO of Anthill Ventures about the firm’s speed-scaling process for startups
Leading today's briefing is news that Urban Company, a tech-enabled home services marketplace, plans to go public in the next 18-24 months after it announced a fresh $255 million funding round Wednesday. Also in the programme, Clubhouse hires FB’s Aarthi Ramamurthy; Locus raises $50 million; and Probhir Roy Chowdhury, a partner at the law firm J Sagar Associates, says cryptocurrency regulation in India will take time, but there is a groundswell of expectation that a ban won’t happen
Leading today’s briefing is news that some of India’s cryptocurrency exchange businesses have set up a self-regulatory code, and are setting up a board to oversee its implementation. Blockchain and Crypto Assets Council, a lobby formed by these businesses, welcomed the Reserve Bank of India’s clarification to banks on Monday—you can hear more on Monday's tech brief. Also in the programme, the rise of conversational AI; and an interview with Loginext’s co-founder and CEO on automation in logistics
Leading today’s briefing is news that The Reserve Bank of India has told banks that they cannot refer to its April 2018 circular—struck down by the Supreme Court in 2020—to caution customers about trading in cryptocurrency. This comes at a time when Indian banks have been reportedly sending notices to customers, warning of penalties and account closures if it is being used for crypto transactions. The apex court’s ruling made that circular invalid, the RBI clarified. Also in this programme, we talk to Narsimha Rao Mannepalli, an executive VP at Infosys, about the company’s latest cloud findings
Leading today’s briefing is a reminder that unlimited uploads on Google Photos end today. From tomorrow, if you upload photos and videos to Google Photos, they will count towards the 15GB free limit that Google provides as a free account. Also today, Amitabh Saran, co-founder and CEO of Altigreen Propulsion Labs, talks about painstakingly building electric vehicles that work well even in India’s harsh driving conditions
Leading today’s briefing is news that Paytm, India’s biggest digital payments provider, is planning an initial share sale to raise about $3 billion, or 218 billion rupees, around November, according to Bloomberg. This would be India’s biggest IPO. Later, we talk to Mudit Dandwate and Gaurav Parchani, founders of Dozee, who have digitalised a 150-year-old technique of listening to the human heart to build a contact-less health monitor.
Leading the briefing today is news that Clubhouse has hired Justin Uberti, creator of the WebRTC standard and the Google Duo video chat app. He leaves Google after nearly 15 years at the company, where he was most recently the engineering lead for Google’s Stadia cloud gaming service. Also, Google strikes a deal to get more healthcare data; Amazon buys MGM; and we speak with edtech startup UpGrad on its recent purchase of Impartus.
Leading the briefing today is news that US biotech company Moderna’s vaccine against Covid 19 was found to be 93 percent efficacious in teens in a study of 3,700 participants between 12 years and 18 years of age. Also, IBM is opening up its quantum computers to India’s top research and tech institutes; and we talk to Tapan Barman, co-founder and CEO of Mihup Communications, which makes the voice assistant in Tata Motors’ cars.
Leading the briefing today, Zeta, a banking tech startup co-founded by serial entrepreneur Bhavin Turakia, has secured 250 million dollars in investment from SoftBank Vision Fund II. This is Zeta’s Series C funding and the deal values the startup at $1.45 billion. Also, Clubhouse Android gets a million downloads in two weeks; and we talk to Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharat Daka, co-founders of Skyroot Aerospace, about their multi-start capable space rockets
In today’s special briefing, we look at how Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest and one of the world’s largest IT services companies, is expanding its network of innovation centres under a brand and architecture called Pace. These centres are physical-digital hubs in Tokyo, New York and now in Amsterdam, bringing together the best that TCS has to offer with some of the finest universities around the world and the local startup ecosystems.
Apple CEO Tim Cook may appear in court as early as today, in a lawsuit brought against it by Epic Games, which is accusing Apple of abusing its market power with its App Store policies. Google reveals there are now over three billion Android users; and we chat with Madhav Sheth, CEO of Realme India and Europe, about the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G 5G chipset and why it makes sense to buy a 5G phone today while the network rollout is at least a year away.
Leading today’s briefing is news that India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has told WhatsApp in a letter to withdraw its privacy policy update on sharing more user data with Facebook. With the update, that became effective on May 15, WhatsApp has given itself the right to share more data on users interactions with businesses with Facebook so it can more sharply target them for ads. Also in this briefing, an interview with Yashas Karanam, co-founder and COO of Bellatrix Aerospace, on building an ‘Uberpool’ for satellites.
Leading today’s briefing is news about new privacy features that Google is incorporating into its upcoming Android 12 software for smartphones. Google previewed these features at its ongoing annual I/O conference. Also in the programme, Tata Consultancy Services’ CEO Rajesh Gopinathan sees a decade-long shift towards cloud ecosystems; how Nvidia is trying to get its chips back to gamers; and an interview with Sandip Kumar Panda, co-founder and CEO of Instasafe on ‘zero-trust' network access.
Leading today’s briefing is news that WhatsApp has confirmed to the Delhi High court that, while it will not immediately delete accounts of users who don’t accept its January privacy policy update, it will do so eventually. The court was hearing petitions filed in India challenging WhatsApp’s update. Also on the programme, AT&T strikes a deal to combine WarnerMedia with Discovery; Google I/O starts today; and an interview with Parag Naik, co-founder and CEO of Saankhya Labs, on how India can play to its software strengths by starting now on 6G.
Leading today’s briefing is a report that India’s ed-tech sector will continue to see strong growth over the next few years. Also on the programme, Elon Musk continues his crypto-market-moving tweets; Find out what Twitter Blue is; and we speak with Tauseef Khan and Nishant Mahatre, co-founders of Gramophone about their ongoing effort to build an integrated tech stack to help farmers in India with everything from farm preparation and inputs to finding the best buyers for their produce.
Top of the briefing today is news that Vitalik Buterin, cofounder of the Ethereum blockchain, donated a billion dollars towards India’s efforts to fight Covid-19. Also in this podcast, Google struck a deal to bring SpaceX’s Starlink satellite-based internet broadband to customers around the world; Apple’s laptops and computer sales surged in India in the first three months this year; and we speak with Amit Singh of cloud technology Zenlayer that has raised $50 million to expand in India and Southeast Asia
Leading today’s tech briefing is news that the US is in talks with India to find a way to manufacture Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine in India. The US is also working on a list of raw materials India needs urgently to boost vaccine production. Also on the programme, VMware gets an Indian-born CEO, and later, we talk to Rajat Verma, an entrepreneur who is keen on making lithium-ion cells in India, not just the batteries that he already manufactures. He explained why making the cells locally is very important, and how a $2.5 billion incentive plan that India approved yesterday, will help
Leading today’s tech briefing is the news that Google Pay has started allowing its users to send money across borders in partnership with two international money transfer services. To begin with, Google Pay users in the US can send money to India and Singapore, thanks to a new integration with Western Union and Wise, Google said in a blogpost Tuesday. Also in the briefing, we talk to software entrepreneur Arvind Parthiban about his new startup, backed by Matrix Partners India and Elevation Capital
Leading today’s tech briefing is an open letter from America’s state attorneys general to Facebook to abandon its plan to build a version of Instagram targeting children below the age of 13. In the letter, they wrote: “It appears that Facebook is not responding to a need, but instead creating one, as this platform appeals primarily to children who otherwise do not or would not have an Instagram account. The attorneys general urge Facebook to abandon its plans to launch this new platform.” Also in the briefing, Google provides an update on Covid-19 information on search and maps in India; Apple suppliers linked to forced labour; Flipkart may raise as much as $2 billion ahead of its IPO
Top of the news in today’s tech briefing starts with a reminder that WhatsApp’s updated privacy policy is set to become effective this weekend. Users who are yet to accept the policy will not have their accounts deleted come May 15, however, over a period of several weeks, users will get persistent prompts, lose app functionality and eventually won’t be able to use it anymore. Also in today’s briefing, Netflix is considering an online portal called N-Plus to boost audience engagement; Apple’s 14.5 iOS update which allows users to bar apps from tracking them is very popular; a cyberattack on America’s largest oil pipeline; and ClubHouse is finally rolling out to Android.
Leading today’s tech briefing is news from Google that the search giant will add a new safety section in its Play app store to make developers provide more information on the data collected and shared by their apps. Users will start seeing this section early next year, Google said Thursday. Also in this briefing, IBM’s chip design breakthrough with a two-nanometre process, Brave, a cool browser alternative to Chrome gets a playlist feature, and India’s Apna platform for blue collar workers opens up to businesses looking for frontline staff
Leading today’s tech briefing is news that the US has reversed its stance on intellectual property protection for Covid-19 vaccines. It will now back negotiations proposed by India and South Africa to waive the protections in an effort to boost production of the vaccines worldwide. Also in the briefing, former US President Donald Trump remains banned on Facebook, a look at Wipro’s tech moves, India’s 5G approvals exclude China, and a Silicon Valley startup increases R&D in India