Sunday, May 19

Author: Gauri Singh

Apple Launches a Clean Energy Fund in China Worth $300 Million
13Jul By Gauri SinghNo Comments
CHINA

Apple Launches a Clean Energy Fund in China Worth $300 Million

The technology giant Apple Inc. is all set to launch a clean energy fund worth $300 million in China. The main idea behind this move is to connect the suppliers with the renewable energy sources. Apple announced this on Friday, working with its suppliers for investing in renewable energy projects that could power around 1 million houses in the country through fully renewable means over the next four years. In 2018 environmental responsibility report, Apple stated, "Apple's mission has never wavered. We are here to change the world... it's why we continuously strive to do more with less—reducing our impact on the earth we all share while expanding and redefining the possibilities ahead.”     Following this move, reducing pollution has become the key priority of the ...
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Sun Mobility Partners With Tech Giant Microsoft
13Jul By Gauri SinghNo Comments
News

Sun Mobility Partners With Tech Giant Microsoft

An electric vehicles and clean energy solutions company Sun Mobility has tied up with the biggest technology player Microsoft for the purpose of setting up Smart Network for its EV energy infrastructure. In association with Microsoft, the company makes use of Microsoft’s IoT technology for connecting the 'smart battery' and the 'Quick Interchange Stations (QIS)'. Talking about the QIS, these are kiosks which would offer changeable smart battery solutions. This will assist the company to build a network of QIS, which can build a bus or two and three-wheelers by swapping a battery within five minutes. Chetan Maini, Co-Founder and Vice-Chairman of SUN Mobility said, "What we have tried to do is separate batteries from vehicles and by doing that vehicles are now cost neutral, cost of energ...
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Intel To Acquire a Chip Developer To Boost Up Operations
13Jul By Gauri SinghNo Comments
ACQUISITION

Intel To Acquire a Chip Developer To Boost Up Operations

Multinational technology firm Intel Corp has made an announcement that it is acquiring a chip manufacturer called eASIC based in Santa Clara. However, the details of the deal have not been disclosed yet. An Intel spokeswoman stated that the amount was "not material." The acquisition has basically been made to assist Intel’s efforts to diversify away from CPU chips and to boost up the technology utilization along with improved performance, cost, power and life cycles of product. “We’re seeing the largest adoption of FPGA ever because of the explosion of data and cloud services, and we think this will give us a lot of differentiation versus the likes of Xilinx. We’ll be able to offer an end-to-end lifecycle that fits today’s changing workloads and infrastructure. No one on the marketplac...
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Online Travel Company Headout Raises $10 Million
13Jul By Gauri SinghNo Comments
FUNDING

Online Travel Company Headout Raises $10 Million

Headout, a last-minute mobile marketplace has reportedly secured an amount of $10 million in a Series A funding round. The particular funding round was led by the existing investors Nexus Venture Partners and Version One Ventures. After this round, the total funding amount of the company has reached $12 million so far. The company is planning to utilize these funds for the purpose of geographical and technical expansion. The aim is to reach 100 cities across North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific by the next 18 months and enhance the technology and business teams, along with bringing in new verticals. "Until this year, Headout was available to users only in English but the company has now launched services in French, German and Spanish in select markets and is on course to have all...
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Top 5 Camera Focused Smartphones in India
12Jul By Gauri SinghNo Comments
Tech

Top 5 Camera Focused Smartphones in India

Nowadays, the main attraction of smartphones is the camera. The young population generally focuses on the camera quality and megapixels while purchasing a smartphone. The leading phone makers in the Indian market have introduced a number of phones that have a great quality camera. Here, we have a list of top 5 smartphones that lead the smartphone market in terms of the camera quality and features.     1) Google Pixel 2 XL Google’s Pixel 2 XL, today, is the best smartphone to buy if the major focus of the buyer is the camera. If the user has the required budget, then he is not required to think twice while purchasing this particular device. The Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL are meant for Android phone lovers who want the best possible camera. The company is also large and depen...
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An Investment Firm Acquires $1 Billion Stake in SoftBank
12Jul By Gauri SinghNo Comments
ACQUISITION

An Investment Firm Acquires $1 Billion Stake in SoftBank

Investment firm Tiger Global has reportedly taken over a stake worth $1 billion in SoftBank Group and this deal has taken up the shares of the latter as much as 6.8 per cent. Tiger Global stated to the investors in a letter that SoftBank's stock price had not increased over the past five years even after its holding in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba had added more than $90 billion in value. Tiger manages around $22 billion in assets and deploys capital globally in both public and private markets. The company provides its services to private funds that are pooled investment vehicles. "We continue to believe the market significantly undervalues our stock and we welcome the support from a sophisticated institutional investor like Tiger Global," SoftBank stated. Masayoshi Son’s compa...
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SoftBank’s Kabir Misra Plans to Launch a Startup Fund
12Jul By Gauri SinghNo Comments
News

SoftBank’s Kabir Misra Plans to Launch a Startup Fund

SoftBank’s managing partner Kabir Misra is reportedly in the advanced stages of launching a startup fund worth $200-250 million, which will focus on startups situated out of India, USA and Southeast Asia. According to the anonymous statements, Misra will make early-stage to mid-stage investments in US, India and Southeast Asia. Softbank will be the anchor limited partner in the deal. “While SoftBank is likely to be on the advisory board of the new fund, it will look at sub-$20 million investments to avoid conflicts with the SoftBank Vision Fund,” stated a report. It has also been reported that after the closing of the fund, Kabir Misra will resign from his position in SoftBank, because of some personal reasons. The fund’s motive is to basically give importance to the mid-stage investm...
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Nspira Management Raises Around $75 Million Funds
12Jul By Gauri SinghNo Comments
FUNDING

Nspira Management Raises Around $75 Million Funds

Hyderabad-based education service provider Nspira Management announced that the company has secured around $75 million in a funding round led by Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia. Banyan Tree Growth Capital II also participated in the funding round. As part of the recent transaction, a fund managed by Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia has invested about $ 67 million of primary capital into the company for a minority stake. “We will be deploying the funds to scale our business geographically, increase our client base, develop cutting-edge education products, modernise our facilities and scale up our digital business,” Puneet Kothapa, MD of Nspira Management said. “We will also opportunistically evaluate inorganic opportunities that are synergistic with our core business and help us...
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Baidu Partners With US Chipmaker to Bolster Project Apollo
12Jul By Gauri SinghNo Comments
CHINA

Baidu Partners With US Chipmaker to Bolster Project Apollo

Amercian data conversion and signal processing company Analog Devices (ADI) has entered into a collaboration memorandum of understanding (MOU) with China’s biggest technology company Baidu, for the purpose of improving and developing the Chinese company’s autonomous driving technologies. The partnership was taken forward on Tuesday and it is expected to bolster the autonomous driving solutions for Project Apollo, Baidu’s autonomous driving system platform, including sensor fusion, algorithms and ecosystem partners. The US and the Chinese company will together share resources and set up sensing and navigation applications such as RADAR and LIDAR for Project Apollo, and also and digital signal processing (DSP) products. “ADI offers groundbreaking advantages in autonomous driving, cabin e...
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Infibeam Brings in Payment Acceptance Via UPI App Intent
12Jul By Gauri SinghNo Comments
News

Infibeam Brings in Payment Acceptance Via UPI App Intent

Ahmedabad-based e-commerce conglomerate Infibeam has launched a new UPI App Intent for the acceptance of payments and flow for CCAvenue payment gateway merchants. UPI App Intent processes the transactions on native mobile apps with the help of existing UPI supported apps such as Tez, BHIM, PhonePe etc that are downloaded on the customer’s phone. This aims to provide the customers with a quick and smooth payment experience. Most of the UPI apps and even UPI enabled bank apps have added support for the app intent flow. This will avoid the need for having and installing multiple apps for making transactions. Vishwas Patel, Director of Infibeam Avenues said, “We had launched UPI acceptance for businesses and have been offering P2M payments (customer to merchant) on UPI since 2016. The c...
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Bengaluru-based Mitra Biotech Raises $40 million
12Jul By Gauri SinghNo Comments
FUNDING

Bengaluru-based Mitra Biotech Raises $40 million

Mitra Biotech, a Bengaluru-based oncology solutions firm has reportedly secured funds amounting to $40 million (about Rs 270 crore) in a Series-C funding round. The following round was led by Northpond Ventures based in Maryland. The existing investors that participated in the funding round were Accel Partners, Sequoia Capital, Sands Capital Ventures, RA Capital Management and Tata Capital. “Northpond is excited to join Mitra, as the CANscript platform has the potential to meaningfully improve how we treat cancer patients,” said Michael P Rubin, CEO at Northpond Ventures. The funds so raised will be utilized by the company for commercial and trade expansion. A part of funds will also be used for completing the required data generation to get reimbursement coverage for a broad category...
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VR Startup SmartVizX Secures Rs 10 Crores Funds
11Jul By Gauri SinghNo Comments
FUNDING

VR Startup SmartVizX Secures Rs 10 Crores Funds

A Noida-based VR (virtual reality) startup SmartVizX has reportedly raised funds amounting to Rs 10 crores ($1.45 million) in a pre-series A funding round. This funding round was led by YourNest Venture Capital and Indian Angel Network‘s IAN fund. The company plans to use the funds so raised in boosting up the product team and also set up extra and additional capabilities to the product. Also, a part of funds will be utilized for international expansion as stated by Tithi Tewari, who is the managing director of the company. Along with this, SmartVizX has also announced the inauguration of Trezi, which the company has claimed to be the first VR-based platform for architecture and interior design collaboration. In this regard, Tithi said, “SmartVizX is the first Indian company to offe...
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