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Amazon Pay Gets Huge Investment Ahead of Festive Season

5Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Amazon Pay Gets Huge Investment Ahead of Festive Season

The retail giant Amazon is continuing to invest considerable capital into its payments arm Amazon Pay, adding Rs 590 crore in the recent infusion. This move comes just before the festival sale of Amazon. With this, Amazon Pay is expected to offer large cashbacks to customers during the upcoming sales to attract more customers. Also, it may offer affordability products such as debit card EMI and cardless EMI to push sales of high-ticket products. “Our focus is to make digital payments the most trusted, convenient and rewarding choice for customers. We continue to explore ways to do this, in partnership with banks, processors, fintech companies and ecosystem partners,” an Amazon Pay spokesperson said. Along with this, the company also has plans to start selling insurance in India, as pe...

US-Based WeWork has Launched ‘WeWork Labs’ in India

5Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

US-Based WeWork has Launched ‘WeWork Labs’ in India

The popular co-working firm WeWork which is based in the US has launched 'WeWork Labs' in India. This has been done to help early-stage startups in the country get access to investment, resources and mentorship from its global network of members to help these fledgling companies expand their business. Apart from this, the service has also been expanded to its co-working spaces in countries like the US, China, Korea, Brazil and Israel and others. "India is among the largest start-up nations and is poised to continue growing at a significant pace. While there are programmes running in India that offer incubation and acceleration to start-ups, we believe the scale has to be increased manifold," WeWork Labs Senior Vice President and Global Head Roee Adler stated. At present, about 1,0...

SoftBank Vision Fund to Invest $250 Million in India’s Popular Logistics Firm

4Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

SoftBank Vision Fund to Invest $250 Million in India’s Popular Logistics Firm

The well-known SoftBank Vision Fund is in talks to invest $200-250 million (Rs 1,470-1,837 crore) in Indian ecommerce-focused logistics company Delhivery. The fund that was started by SoftBank’s Japanese billionaire founder, Masayoshi Son will make Delhivery’s valuation reach around $1.2 billion. This move will take the company to the unicorn club and it will become one of the most known delivery platform in the country. “They have been evaluating Delhivery seriously for the past few months but a transaction is not final yet,” said a person familiar to the matter. This investment will provide Delhivery a better capital runway, given that it comes after it was reported that the logistics firm decided to push back plans for an anticipated $350 million initial public offering, an issue i...

ZEE5 Video Streaming Platform Expands to 190 Countries

4Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

ZEE5 Video Streaming Platform Expands to 190 Countries

India’s popular online video streaming platform ZEE5 that is owned by Subhash Chandra-promoted Zee Entertainment Enterprises (ZEE) has expanded its services to 190 countries all across the globe. With this, the company has become the first Indian entertainment company to take its over-the-top (OTT) video service. As of now, only Netflix and Amazon Prime Video were the only platforms that were global but now Indian platforms are also gearing up for global presence. The launch coincided with ZEE completing 26 years of operations on October 2. “Since the time we launched ZEE5 in India earlier this year, our global viewers, as well as platform partners, have been asking us when we are going to launch globally. As our channels already reach across 72 countries outside India, we knew that a ...

Bumble is Expanding to India Backed by Priyanka Chopra

4Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Bumble is Expanding to India Backed by Priyanka Chopra

Bumble, an online dating app is reportedly expanding to India by the end of this year and has taken in actor Priyanka Chopra as partner, advisor, and investor. Prior to this, Chopra has previously partnered with the company on its business networking feature Bumble Bizz last October. She is looking to help the company with its India expansion plans. Following the deal, Anjula Acharia, a partner at Trinity Ventures and Chopra's manager, will also join the company as a strategic advisor. Also, Bumble said it has been building a local team, defining a go-to-market strategy and engaging with key partners in the market over the last nine months. In India, the app will be available in Hinglish and Hindi on iOS and Android. It will also come with yet-to-be-announced security features bey...

Infosys Ties Up with Cornell University to Train Employees

3Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Infosys Ties Up with Cornell University to Train Employees

The IT giant Infosys has announced a three-year partnership with Cornell University for the purpose of training employees in emerging technologies such as blockchain, machine learning and human-computer interaction. Following the collaboration, at least 3000 Infosys employees globally are expected to participate in the joint certification programme. The other employees will participate course-by-course. “The Cornell University brand is synonymous with technology and talent, so we found a natural synergy between our organizations to improve workforce education,” said Tan Moorthy, executive vice president and Global Head of Education Training and Assessments. This particular programme which will jointly be operated by Infosys and Cornell University will also impart skills in data analytics...

California-Based Lime Scooters Expands to Canada

2Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

California-Based Lime Scooters Expands to Canada

California based Lime Scooters is planning to release a small fleet of e-scooters in Waterloo, Ontario. This will be the startup’s first scooter-share pilot program in Canada. Lime is a dockless bike and scooter company that has partnered with the University of Waterloo to facilitate the launch. Lime’s scooters will be the first of any startup-owned e-scooters to enter the pavement in Canada. “Over the past several months, we have spent time in Waterloo to understand how our Lime-S e-scooters can help this progressive city reach its smart transportation goals,” Lime’s vice president of strategic development Andrew Savage said. “We are committed to meeting the unique needs of cities across Canada and are excited to continue expanding our global footprint.” Prior to this, the com...

Crypto Currency Exchange Zebpay is Closing Down

29Sep By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Crypto Currency Exchange Zebpay is Closing Down

One of India’s largest crypto-currency exchanges Zebpay is reportedly shutting down the company and closing its business. The Indian crypto market faced difficulties after the Reserve Bank of India barred banks and financial institutions from dealing with virtual currencies, including Bitcoins. “Despite regulatory and banking problems along our journey, we continued to look for solutions as we did not want India to miss the bus of digital assets that power the public blockchain. However, the recent past has been extremely difficult. The curbs on bank accounts have crippled our, and our customers', ability to transact business meaningfully," Zebpay said. The company further stated that the exchange was unable to find a reasonable way to conduct the crypto-currency exchange business. A...

Travel Firm Goibibo Launches Flight Bookings on PhonePe

28Sep By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Travel Firm Goibibo Launches Flight Bookings on PhonePe

Online travel booking platform Goibibo, has reportedly launched Goibibo Flights on digital payment platform PhonePe. As part of the first phase of this association, the company went live with its offering of hotels on the PhonePe platform in June 2018. “The collaboration has not only been rewarding for us but it has truly succeeded in providing a seamless travel booking experience to PhonePe users,” stated Sanjay Bhasin, COO, Goibibo. Rahul Chari, co-founder of PhonePe also stated that this is part of the expansion strategy of PhonePe to be achieved through partnerships with other service providers. This partnership is part of the partnership with the MakeMyTrip group and Redbus was the first micro-app to go live on PhonePe. The digital payment platforms have been growing and expa...

Amazon to Launch Amazon 4-Star Store in New York

27Sep By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Amazon to Launch Amazon 4-Star Store in New York

The retail giant Amazon is prepping up to expand its brick-and-mortar footprint with a new kind of store. The company has planned to launch an “Amazon 4-Star” store in New York today. The store will have all the products that are rated 4 stars and above, are a top seller or are new and trending on Amazon. Basically, the store will have all the best products that Amazon sells. The location of the store will be in SoHo, on Spring Street between Crosby and Lafayette Streets. It will function between 10 AM – 9 PM Monday through Saturday, and 11 AM – 8 PM on Sundays. Amazon 4-star opens tomorrow in the SoHo neighborhood of #NYC – check out a sneak peek of the store here: https://t.co/tA2G8zI5OK pic.twitter.com/UYD0UeEkA5 — Amazon News (@amazonnews) September 26, 2018 ...

San-Francisco based Pinterest Prepping up for Global Expansion

26Sep By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

San-Francisco based Pinterest Prepping up for Global Expansion

San-Francisco based web and mobile application Pinterest is looking forward for global expansion and is eyeing India and Southeast Asia next. The USA unicorn valued at over $12 billion allows users to create virtual pinboards and discover information on the World Wide Web. The platform currently claims to have 250 million monthly active users, half of them outside the US. Almost 80% of the company’s new users are from international markets. “Last few years, we have focused on South America, Western Europe and a bit on Japan. This year we are increasingly thinking about Southeast Asia, India and other parts of the world we haven’t serviced,” co-founder Evan Sharp stated. Pinterest has launched seven offices in international markets. Along with this, it had also introduced the Hindi lan...

25Sep By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Apple Ties up with Salesforce to Bring Siri to More Business Apps

The technology giant Apple has entered into a partnership with an American cloud computing company Salesforce for the purpose of building the iPhone maker's features such as its Siri voice assistant deeper into Salesforce's own mobile apps. Salesforce apps are widely used in the sales and marketing industries. This is a beneficial deal for Salesforce and in turn, the company will build software tools so that the big businesses that use its back-end technology to power their own apps can make better products with features specific to iPhones and iPads. "If you look at enterprise in general, voice has not been used as much as in consumer," Apple CEO Tim Cook said. "We're going to be able to provide the sales rep instant access to things using your voice instead of c...