Nitish | Pixr8 News

29Jan By NitishNo Comments

News

BBC to Cut 450 Newsroom Jobs

BBC will axe 450 newsroom jobs as part of plans to adapt "to changing audience needs" and meet its savings target, the broadcaster announced on Wednesday. "The BBC has to face up to the changing way audiences are using us," Fran Unsworth, director of news and current affairs, said in a statement. "We have to adapt and ensure we continue to be the world's most trusted news organisation, but crucially, one which is also relevant for the people we are not currently reaching," she added. The British Broadcasting Corporation, which has an 80 million pounds ($104 million, 95 million euro) savings target, said it was spending too much on "traditional linear broadcasting and not enough on digital". The "Victoria Derbyshire" morning show will be axed, with other job losses coming from ...

23Jan By NitishNo Comments

FUNDING

Bike Rental Startup Bounce Raises $105 Million Funding

Bangalore-based bike rental startup Bounce has raised $105 million in Series D funding round led by Accel Partners and Facebook Co-founder Eduardo Saverin's B Capital Group. Existing investors Accel Partners India, Falcon Edge, Chiratae Ventures, Omidyar Network India, Maverick Ventures, Sequoia Capital India, and Qualcomm Ventures also participated in this round of funding. The new funding round will soar Bounce valuation upto $520 million and takes the total capital raised to $194 million. The current funding will to focus on deeper Electric Vehicle (EV) integration and a platform play, and will push towards profitability. Vivekananda H.R, CEO and Co-founder of Bounce, said, "Our growth to 1,20,000 rides a day, in a little over a year and largely in one city, underlines th...

22Jan By NitishNo Comments

FUNDING

Samya.AI Raises $6M in Seed Funding led by Sequoia India

CHICAGO, Jan. 22, 2020-- Samya.AI, an enterprise Revenue Growth AI SaaS company has raised $6 million in seed round funding led by Sequoia India. Samya's other initial investors include Ashish Gupta (Founder of Junglee.com and Helion VC), Deb Henretta (Partner, G100 Companies and Ex-Group President, P&G), Arijit Sengupta (Founder of Kradle Ventures and Antuit Inc), Deborah Kops (Ex COO and Board Member of Antuit Inc and Ex CMO of WNS) and Sandeep Sugla (Founder of Marketsandmarkets Inc). Samya.AI has been founded by Shailendra Singh, Deepinder Dhingra and Pavan Palety, experienced leaders who have previously held leadership positions at organizations including IBM, Noodle.ai, Mu Sigma and MarketsandMarkets. Shelly Singh and Deepinder Dhingra have been instrumental in scaling Mu ...

Digit Insurance Gets Irdai Nod to Raise USD 84 Million

21Jan By NitishNo Comments

FUNDING

Digit Insurance Gets Irdai Nod to Raise USD 84 Million

General insurance start-up Digit Insurance has received approval from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) to raise USD 84 million (about Rs 600 crore) from equity investors A91 Partners, Faering Capital, and TVS Capital. The new round of investment will take Digit's total funding to USD 224 million (about Rs 1,600 crore), the company said. This is one of the largest funding rounds in the domestic general insurance space, the company, which offers a portfolio of products across motor, travel, property and health insurance, claimed. Within two years of operation, Digit now serves more than 5 million customers and has achieved close to USD 300 million of annualized premium and has 1.2 percent market share in general insurance industry. In addition ...

Zomato acquires Uber Eats India Operation

21Jan By NitishNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Zomato acquires Uber Eats India Operation

Zomato has acquired the Indian business of Uber Eats in an all-stock deal that will give Uber 9.99 percent stake in the Indian food delivery and restaurant discovery platform. Uber Eats in India will discontinue operations and direct restaurants, delivery partners, and users of the Uber Eats apps to the Zomato platform, effective Tuesday, a statement said. "India remains an exceptionally important market to Uber and we will continue to invest in growing our local Rides business, which is already the clear category leader. We have been very impressed by Zomato's ability to grow rapidly in a capital-efficient manner and we wish them continued success," Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber, said in the statement. In a regulatory filing to BSE, Info Edge (India) a shareholder in Zomato sa...

20Jan By NitishNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Apple acquires Xnor.ai for $200 million

Apple has acquired Seattle-based AI start-up Xnor.ai, which specializes in low-power, edge-based artificial intelligence tools for $200 million. However, the acquisition deal is yet to be confirmed by Apple but it said that, “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.” Xnor.ai has a software tool that uses artificial intelligence to recognize objects. This software is used directly from an iPhone rather than from the cloud. These image recognition tools can become standard features for future iPhones and webcams. This acquisition resembles Apple’s purchase of Seattle startup Turi in 2016. Turi's software helps large and small organizations make better sense of the data they collect. In 2014, Appl...

Hyundai and Kia Invest $110 Million in Electric Vehicle Startup

17Jan By NitishNo Comments

Automobile, FUNDING

Hyundai and Kia Invest $110 Million in Electric Vehicle Startup

SEOUL, South Korea, Jan. 16, 2020 -- Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Motors Corporation invest USD $110 million in a new partnership with Arrival, a UK-based electric vehicle startup. Through the partnership, Hyundai and Kia plan to introduce competitively priced small and medium-sized electric vans and other products for logistics, on-demand ride-hailing and shuttle service companies. Arrival's scalable electric platform can be adapted for multiple vehicle categories and types which Arrival, Hyundai and Kia will explore for the development of a range of Purpose Built Vehicles (PBV). The partnership with Arrival will help Hyundai and Kia meet the rapidly growing demand in Europe for eco-friendly commercial vehicles, and accelerate the brands' transformation from car mak...

Former Flipkart Cofounder Sachin Bansal Acquire DHFL General Insurance

10Jan By NitishNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Former Flipkart Cofounder Sachin Bansal Acquire DHFL General Insurance

Sachin Bansal-led Navi Technologies will acquire DHFL General Insurance Ltd (DHFLGI) for 100 crores Indian rupees. DHFLGI, Wadhawan Global Capital Ltd and Navi Technologies had entered into a share purchase agreement dated January 2, 2020, for the transaction, according to a notice in a newspaper. "...the acquirer (Navi) proposes to acquire 19,00,50,000 equity shares representing 100 per cent of the paid-up equity share capital of the company (DHFLGI) from the seller by way of secondary transfer of shares," it added. The notice said DHFLGI has made an application to the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) seeking its approval for the proposed transaction. It added that the proposed transaction is scheduled to be consummated after the expiry of 15 d...

Chai King Raises $1 Million From Chennai Angels

8Jan By NitishNo Comments

FUNDING

Chai King Raises $1 Million From Chennai Angels

Chennai, 8 Jan 2020: The Chennai Angels invested 1 million USD in Chai Kings-Chennai’s largest Chai Retail chain along with Hyderabad Angels and TiE India Angels, who have also participated in this round. “We are very excited to partner with Chai Kings in the bridge round. We believe the company has a strong leadership team with immense potential to grow and expand across India. The new investment reiterates our commitment towards building a sustainable and scalable Indian QSR.”, said Mr. Piyush Bhandari who lead the investment from TCA. “We are happy with the success and progress of our brand “Chai Kings” in Chennai and this funding round will help us expand into newer cities. We hope to enter Coimbatore, Bangalore and Hyderabad in this current year and get closer to our target o...

BYJU’S reduces loss to Rs 8.82 crore in FY19; revenue up at Rs 1,305.92 cr

17Dec By NitishNo Comments

BUSINESS

BYJU’S reduces loss to Rs 8.82 crore in FY19; revenue up at Rs 1,305.92 cr

New Delhi, Dec 17, 2019: India's Online education startup BYJU''S has reduced its loss to Rs 8.82 crore, while registering manifold in revenue from operations, according to regulatory documents. Think & Learn Pvt Ltd, the entity that runs BYJU''S, reduced its loss to Rs 8.82 crore in the fiscal ended March 2019 from a loss of Rs 37.15 crore in FY18, documents sourced by Paper.vc showed. Revenue from operations also increased to Rs 1,305.92 crore in FY19 from Rs 471.18 crore in FY18, it added. Its total income increased to Rs 1,366.98 crore in FY19 from Rs 500.21 crore in the previous financial year, the document showed. In a statement, BYJU’S said its net revenue increased from Rs 490 crore in FY17-18 to Rs 1,341 crore with a net profit of Rs 20 crore in FY18-19. Its gr...

Payoneer to Acquire Payment Streamline Platform optile

13Dec By NitishNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Payoneer to Acquire Payment Streamline Platform optile

New York, United States & Bangalore, Karnataka, India: Payoneer, the leading digital payment platform acquire Munich-based streamlines payment acceptance platform optile. Founded in 2010, optile’s open payment ecosystem puts merchants in control of their business with the flexibility to add payment options and partners as their needs evolve, boosting conversion and improving customer experience. optile’s payment orchestration platform (POP) is designed for businesses to scale faster to new markets, consolidating all the players of the global payment market together in one unified layer, ensuring transparency, flexibility, redundancy, and independence.Scott Galit, CEO of Payoneer said, “Payoneer and optile share a belief that in today’s fast-changing digital world filled with e...

Logistics Platform Shadowfax Raises $60 Million from Flipkart & Others

9Dec By NitishNo Comments

FUNDING

Logistics Platform Shadowfax Raises $60 Million from Flipkart & Others

Bengaluru, Dec 9, 2019: Flipkart, India's leading eCommerce platform now owned by US-based Walmart has led a $60 million Series D investment round in logistics platform Shadowfax. The investment come as a part of their strategy to expand hyperlocal delivery capabilities. Eight Roads Ventures, Nokia Growth Partners, Qualcomm Ventures, Mirae Asset Naver Fund and World Bank backed IFC investment group also participate in this round. Flipkart already partnered with Shadowfax to fulfil its logistics requirements across various categories in its e-commerce business. "At Flipkart, we are focused on redefining customer experience, and hyperlocal is a key element to enable this transformation," said Kalyan Krishnamurthy, Chief Executive Officer, Flipkart. "We have seen strong syne...