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Former Indian Captain Sourav Ganguly Becomes Influencer on LinkedIn

7Mar By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

News

Former Indian Captain Sourav Ganguly Becomes Influencer on LinkedIn

10 years after his retirement from Cricket, Sourav Ganguly, former captain of the Indian National team joined LinkedIn on Monday as a LinkedIn Influencer, a program that comprises of 500+ leaders, thinkers, and forerunners of multiple industries and platforms. Ganguly is only the second Indian cricketer to join the platform after legendary Sachin Tendulkar’s debut on the professional social network in 2017. In spite not being able to play in the IPL this year, Ganguly is now featuring alongside some very famous names such Narendra Modi, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Priyanka Chopra, Oprah Winfrey, Justin Trudeau, Sachin Tendulkar in a totally different league. He will be sharing thoughts that he believes will help the members of the platform stay one-step ahead of their time and motivate...

SEBI Directs Tata Motors to Investigate on “Whatsapp Leak of Financial Information”

7Mar By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

INDIA

SEBI Directs Tata Motors to Investigate on “Whatsapp Leak of Financial Information”

Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) announced on Tuesday that it expects Tata Motors Ltd to investigate on the leak of financial results for the quarter end (October-December) 2015 on Whatsapp ahead of its official release. Tata Motors is expected to complete the probe within three months and submit a report to SEBI within seven days, the board said. This decision comes after SEBI’s investigation against the automaker company revealed that the figures circulating on Whatsapp prior to the formal release of financial results were matching the actual numbers. In reaction to the announcement by SEBI, a spokesperson from Tata Motors said, “Tata Motors would like to state that it is fully committed to ensuring confidentiality of such price sensitive information. This lapse pertai...

How Vizag City Will Become Capital of Blockchain

7Mar By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

Tech

How Vizag City Will Become Capital of Blockchain

Recently India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi was surprisingly full of praise towards blockchain’s development potential and was critical about the need for “rapid adaptation” to this technology. While Governments are usually skeptical about Cryptocurrency, the transparency that blockchain technology offers will surely be beneficial in India which is a victim of 69% bribery rate and was ranked most corrupted nation in Asia in 2017. Loan frauds systematically reach $2 billion every year, resulting in usual increase in interest rates on business loans by up to 20%. According to investopedia, "A blockchain is a digitized, decentralized, public ledger of all cryptocurrency transactions. Constantly growing as ‘completed’ blocks (the most recent transactions) are recorded and added to it in c...

Sequoia Refuels Finova Capital with $6 Mn Investment

6Mar By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

FUNDING

Sequoia Refuels Finova Capital with $6 Mn Investment

Finova Capital Pvt. Ltd, a non-banking financial company based in Jaipur has obtained a $6 million (Rs 6.5 crore) investment by existing investor Sequoia Capital. “They have scaled fast while maintaining high portfolio quality and delivered profits. This has encouraged Sequoia to double down on its investment in Finova and support its next leg of growth,” stated GV Ravi Shankar, Managing Director, Sequoia India Capital Advisors. Finova Capital already obtained a prior investment in a Series A round from Sequoia Capital in September 2017. The amount of the investment was however unrevealed. Mohit Sahney, CEO of Finova Capital explained that the company is trying to invest in technology and expansion, hence the funds will be use for this purpose and to increase their operations. ...

6Mar By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

FUNDING

MedGenome Labs Receives Series C Funding From HDFC

MedGenome Labs, a genetic diagnostics company announced on Monday that they closed in on a Series C round funding of $40 million (Rs266.11 crore) from investors HDFC Ltd, HDFC Life and HDFC Asset Management. The company specializes in genomic testing and a genome is the genetic material of an organism. It has all the instructions to make the muscle cells and neurons. A statement from the company explains that MedGenome will use the funds to further develop their clinical genomic testing market by entering semi-urban cities (Tier-II and Tier-III towns). They aim at providing clinical tests like non-invasive pre-natal screening (NIPT) and newborn genetic testing to the masses. In an official statement, MedGenome stated they are also considering setting up more genetic centers in hos...

Facebook Testing ‘Voice Clips’ Status Updates in India

5Mar By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

Tech

Facebook Testing ‘Voice Clips’ Status Updates in India

Facebook is currently prototyping ‘Voice Clips’ which might become a brand new way of sharing post on the Social Media platform. The feature termed “Add Voice Clip” will appear on the status update composer menu. With this feature, users will be able to record short audio clips and share to their friend list. The trial period started in India, with an Indian user being the first to use it. By including this mode of status sharing, Facebook hopes its users will be enthusiastic about sharing thoughts orally rather than by using words. They are also launching this feature to facilitate users that struggle with non-native language keyboards by enabling them to talk instead of type. "We are always working to help people share and connect with their friends and family on Face...

BigBasket Goes Offline, Will Open its Retail Stores

5Mar By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

News

BigBasket Goes Offline, Will Open its Retail Stores

While almost every companies try to move their offline business online, BigBasket is trying the opposite approach. One month after $300 million funding round by Chinese multinational Alibaba, BigBasket is looking to cash in on the offline market by implementing kiosks that will stock fruits, vegetables and other daily grocery items. The offline kiosks will be mostly set up around residential areas and office centers. BigBasket is looking to further implement themselves in the lives of their customers by putting forward a subscription programme for daily requirements such as milk and bread. This system will also increase the purchasing frequency of the users. They have already started a trial for this new service on a separate app called BB instant. Hari Menon, founder and CEO of BigB...

Zuckerberg Sells $500 Million of Facebook Shares in February

5Mar By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

USA

Zuckerberg Sells $500 Million of Facebook Shares in February

Fully committed to his philanthropy work for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), Mark Zuckerberg sold about $500 million worth of Facebook stock in the shortest month of the calendar, according to SEC filings. This rather odd move however does not come as a surprise as Zuckerberg made his intentions public in September 2017. Mark Zuckerberg’s stock exit comes with a plan. Indeed, he wishes to transfer his Facebook fortune to his philanthropy work for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Two security filings revealed that Zuckerberg sold 685,000 shares worth 125.4 million in the last few days of February. This takes his total sales of the month to about 2.7 million shares worth $482.2 million. These sales are the next step in a process Mark laid out in September to fund the Chan Zucke...

World’s Richest People Lost a Combined 107 Billion in a Week!

3Mar By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

USA

World’s Richest People Lost a Combined 107 Billion in a Week!

It must have been a nightmare week for some of the world’s richest people. Especially Mark Zuckerberg since he endured the biggest fall after losing $3.2 billion as large cap stocks disappointed for a forth-consecutive day. The losses of Facebook Inc.’s CEO tops those of Spain’s Amancio Ortega and Mexico’s Carlos Slim who both became poorer by $2.4 billion as of 1 p.m. in New York. Since the opening of markets on Monday, Alphabet Inc.’s Larry page and Sergey Brin each lost above $2 billion on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. In total, the 500 richest people on Earth lost a massive $170 billion, which accounts for more than the entire market capitalization of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. or Lockheed Martin Corp. American billionaires’ saw a combined $34 billion erased making them the mos...

Zomato Co-Founder Steps Down after a Decade

3Mar By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

News

Zomato Co-Founder Steps Down after a Decade

Zomato’s co-founder Pankaj Chaddah took to twitter to announced his resignation from the company ending a decade of service. Chaddah will now take a little break but aspires to “move on to something new.” In a letter posted on the company’s blog intended to his fellow employees, he stated “I have been thinking of moving on for some time now, but I didn't want to leave when the company really needed me to be around". Admitting that the company was going through a bad phase in the last two years, he added, “now that the company is in good shape, I think it’s a good time.” Indeed, this news comes as a shock for many but his resignation cannot come at a better time. A few days ago, China’s Alibaba Group Holding Ltd invested $150 in the food search and delivery app, valuing the comp...

Paytm UPI Transaction Acquire 40% of Market Share

3Mar By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

News

Paytm UPI Transaction Acquire 40% of Market Share

Despite February being the shortest of the month, UPI (Unified Payments Interface) has seen a massive rise in the use of service. Indeed, in India alone, 170 million transactions has been made across the multiple mobile payment platforms available. UPI allows individuals to perform instant money transfer across different banks through their mobile phones. Paytm claims to be the highest contributor to the rising amount of UPI transaction in the country with over 6.8 Cr transactions in the month of February alone, the company announced in a note. As such, the Indian mobile wallet application claims the most shares of this new market with over 40% users utilizing this interface. “We have the largest share of UPI transactions within three months of launch,” said Deepak Abbot, senior vice-pr...

2Mar By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

FUNDING

Urban Ladder Receives $12 Million Funding Boost

Online Furniture retailing startup urban ladder raised $12 million from Kalaari Capital, SAIF Partners, Sequoia Capital and Steadview Capital. Two anonymous individuals close to the company shared the information about the company funding. They Urban Ladder will keep trying to lure investors in the company so as to raise more capital for another six months. “So far external investor appetite hasn’t been great and they haven’t been getting the valuation they’ve been asking for, which is why they had to do an internal bridge round,” one of the anonymous said. In January of last year, Urban Ladder raised $15 million funding from the same set of investors. They stated that this money would be use to build an omni-channel strategy. They would open branded stores in main market and it w...