Ankita | Pixr8 News

Amazon acquired EMVANTAGE a Payment Gateway Startup

17Feb By AnkitaNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Amazon acquired EMVANTAGE a Payment Gateway Startup

Amazon.com has acquire EMVANTAGE Payments Pvt Ltd, a Noida-based online payment solutions provider for an undisclosed amount. Srinivas Rao, director of Amazon Payments India said in a press release "EMVANTAGE is a valuable addition to our team as we accelerate our payment offerings, ensuring the best in class online payment experience anywhere that customers shop with us,” As part of the deal, EMVANTAGE's team will join Amazon's payments team to develop solutions tailored for the Indian market. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2016. EMVANTAGE provides an online payment gateway, besides solutions around mobile payments and pre-paid card solutions. Amazon had recently struck a deal to buy a 26 per cent stake in Westland Ltd, a subsidiary of Tata Group’s reta...

An Indian Company Will Launch $7 Smartphone

16Feb By AnkitaNo Comments

Tech

An Indian Company Will Launch $7 Smartphone

As per the report of NDTV, local smartphone manufacturer Ringing Bells will launch an affordable smartphone called the Freedom 251 on Wednesday. The Freedom 251, will be known as India's cheapest smartphone and likely the most affordable smartphone in the world as per the price tag below Rs. 500 (approximately $7). Ringing Bells says that the smart mobile phone is in line with India Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision to connect every Indian and enrich their lives. Ringing Bells made headlines earlier this month when it launched the Smart101, a 4G capable phone at a price point of Rs. 2,999 (approximately $44). It sports a 5-inch display, a 1.3GHz quad-core SoC, 1GB of RAM, and 8GB of inbuilt storage which can be expanded using a microSD card (32GB). (Source)

Kirthiga Reddy, Facebook India Head Quits

13Feb By AnkitaNo Comments

News

Kirthiga Reddy, Facebook India Head Quits

So the results of Free Basics Failure has taken the first bite and it's none other than the first employee of facebook in India and Head of Facebook India, Krithiga Reddy. Krithiga Readdy mentioned this news on her facebook post - When my family relocated to India, we knew that we would move back to the US some day. It’s a bittersweet moment to share that the return timeframe is coming up in the next 6-12 months. Our two daughters start high school and middle school this coming year— which serves as a natural transition point to make this move back. I could not be more excited about where the Facebook business is in India, where we are going and what’s to come. Over the last six years, starting as the first employee for Facebook in India, I have had the privilege to be part of our a...

Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak Bringing Comic Con To Silicon Valley

12Feb By AnkitaNo Comments

Story

Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak Bringing Comic Con To Silicon Valley

AP, SAN FRANCISCO: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak had a front row seat as the personal computer began to reshape society. So it made perfect sense to him to bring a convention meshing technology with pop culture to Silicon Valley. The convergence will occur March 18-20 in San Jose, California, with the debut of Silicon Valley Comic Con. It's a new twist on an idea that has brought together fans of science fiction, fantasy and superheroes at packed shows held around the world for years. "I don't like doing the same thing as everyone else," Wozniak told The Associated Press Wednesday. So he teamed with four other partners to try something slightly different. Throwing technology into the mix should ratchet up the nerd vibe that ripples through all Comic Cons. A sold-out crowd of abou...

Ankit Nagori’s (Chief Business Officer) Six Years Journey At Flipkart

10Feb By AnkitaNo Comments

Story

Ankit Nagori’s (Chief Business Officer) Six Years Journey At Flipkart

In February 2010, a fresh-faced engineering graduate cold-called India’s hottest e-commerce startup at the New Delhi World Book Fair. Ankit Nagori had heard of Flipkart, a Bengaluru-based startup that had broken new ground by selling books online ever since it acquired its first customer in October 2007. Compared to the heavyweight brick-and-mortar booksellers and publishing houses that participated in the fair, which is held every year at Pragati Maidan in the national capital, Flipkart was among the smaller exhibitors. “Flipkart was a small company but it was one of the largest startups in the country,” recalls Ankit, then a Delhi lad of 24 who had completed his engineering from IIT-Guwahati in 2007. “Any entrepreneur would have loved to become something like Flipkart, even at that sm...

China & India vs USA: Alibaba Came in Rescue For Flipkart, Ready to Invest

4Feb By AnkitaNo Comments

FUNDING

China & India vs USA: Alibaba Came in Rescue For Flipkart, Ready to Invest

New Delhi: A surprise move by China’s Alibaba Group to came into the support of India's Biggest Ecom company Flipkart. As per the news report Alibaba is looking to invest in Flipkart. It has already backed Paytm and Snapdeal. Alibaba this move is to help Indian E-commerce company and eliminate US-backed Ecom companies like Amazon. There are not too many takers for India’s top e-commerce firms at their current valuations, prompting both Flipkart and Snapdeal (run by Jasper Infotech Pvt. Ltd) to approach Alibaba Group for cash, the three people said to Mint. While both have enough cash to fund their current burn rates for 12-15 months, they need to raise money this year in order to refill their fast-emptying vaults, the people added. Flipkart and Snapdeal, in particular, are facing scrut...

2Feb By AnkitaNo Comments

FUNDING

Sequoia raised Largest VC Fund Approx $920 Million to Invest in Indian Startups

Sequoia Capital, Silicon Valley's top-tier VC fund closed fresh $920 million fund. Funds will largely invests in Indian startups. The fresh funds takes Sequoia's total investment assets to more than $3 billion in India. This is the biggest raise by any VC fund for India-specific investments, cementing Sequoia's leadership position in the domestic early-to-growth stage investing space. TOI had reported on September 8 last year about Sequoia Capital, a backer of companies like Just Dial, Freecharge, Zomato, Oyo Rooms, among others, being on the road to raise its fifth India fund. At the time, Sequoia was looking to shore up $800 million. Sequoia, which had backed tech giants like Google and Apple in their very early stages, will see the new fund invest in Indian and south-east Asian...

1Feb By AnkitaNo Comments

FUNDING

Indian Student From Yale Received Funding From Mark Cuban

Shaan Patel the MBA student from Yale University’s School of Management received $250,000 investment from famous Entrepreneur Mark Cuban for 20% of his SAT prep company. The funding pitch happened on America's favourite startup show "The Shark Tank". It took a lot of fast talk on TV to get that money and he had to give up twice as much of his company as he originally wanted. But he left with an endorsement and cash from Shark Tank’s highest profile entrepreneur. 2400 Expert Sat Prep, Patel’s startup, has racked up $1.2 million in revenues in the past four years. Patel claims that his in-person and online courses, which respectively retail for $999 and $599, boast an average SAT improvement of 370 points. The Story of Investment at Shark Tank- But most of the investors at Sha...

Big Blow For Paytm & Mobikwik- IRCTC Barred Usage of E-wallets between 8AM to 12PM

30Jan By AnkitaNo Comments

News

Big Blow For Paytm & Mobikwik- IRCTC Barred Usage of E-wallets between 8AM to 12PM

The railway ministry on Thursday announced new rules for booking of online tickets through the IRCTC website, which will be effective from February 15. It has barred usage of e-wallets and cash cards between 8 am and 12 noon, besides reducing the maximum number of ticket bookings allowed to an individual user to six in a month from the current 10. The ministry of railways’ decision could affect Paytm and Mobikwik’s plans to get train travellers to use their mobile wallets. Only last month Gurgaon-based One MobiKwik Systems Pvt Ltd, which runs Mobikwik, had said that it expects to facilitate railway ticket bookings worth Rs 1.75 crore in the next six months. Indian Railways had chosen Mobikwik as its primary wallet for IRCTC Connect Android App. Paytm, run by One97 Communications L...

Worried Analysts Question Amazon’s Logistics Plans

29Jan By AnkitaNo Comments

News

Worried Analysts Question Amazon’s Logistics Plans

In the wake of Amazon.com Inc's disappointing financial results that sent shares plunging Thursday, analysts blamed rising costs to deliver goods, which increased to $4.5 billion in the quarter, up 24.4 percent from the same quarter last year. And they sharply questioned the company's plans to continue to make heavy investments in logistics, even at the expense of profits. They wondered why it was planning to buy more assets like trucks, and reportedly to lease jets, and worried it planned to spend the money to take on shippers like United Parcel Service Inc. "The so-called (earnings) miss was half fulfillment and half marketing," said Michael Pachter, a managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities. The growing popularity of Prime, which promises free, two-day del...

Apple Acquired Education Technology Startup LearnSprout

29Jan By AnkitaNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Apple Acquired Education Technology Startup LearnSprout

Apple Inc announced that it has acquired an education technology startup called LearnSprout in a drive to expand it's initiative to make the iPad the future of education. LearnSprout, and their CEO Franklin Chien have been working diligently on creating a new type of educational software, which is already used in 2,500 school districts within the United States. The acquisition is possibly an important one for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), as they have already been pushing education tools for the iPad into school districts around the nation. As for the price that Apple paid, or just what their plans may be to integrate LearnSprout into their current educational framework, the company refused to say. “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discus...

Foxconn Invests in Home Automation Firm WiZN Systems

29Jan By AnkitaNo Comments

FUNDING

Foxconn Invests in Home Automation Firm WiZN Systems

Bangalore-based home automation startup WiZN Systems has raised an undisclosed amount in an angel round of funding led by Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group, according to a report in The Economic Times. Kanwaljit Singh, cofounder of FireSide Ventures, and a few other angel investors too participated in the funding round. As part of the investment deal, Foxconn, the maker of Apple iPhone, will manufacture the initial set of hardware devices for WiZN. Moreover, Rahul Chowdhri, former partner at venture fund Helion Ventures, will join the startup’s board as a non-executive director. Founded in 2014 by the former Texas Instruments employee, WiZN Systems’ technology helps connect everyday things to the internet and makes them wise. eGlu, a family of products powered by the company’s tec...