Startup news and updates: daily roundup (November 16, 2022)

IIT Kanpur partners with Microsoft to promote startups

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur has entered into an MoU with Microsoft to enable ‘future-ready’ startups. Under this programme, the Startup Incubation and Innovation Centre (SIIC) of IIT Kanpur and Microsoft will work together to support the startups by extending mentorship, employment, and entrepreneurial opportunities. The programme will also enable access to ‘Founder’s Hub’- a talent-employability program for the future-ready startups in SIIC, IIT Kanpur’s incubation ecosystem.

The collaboration aims to help startups at IIT Kanpur to avail benefits of Microsoft Software and services, access to GitHub, M365 resources, training, and skilling on Azure, and mentor's network—which includes access to Microsoft leadership and expert guidance from Microsoft Valuable Professionals (MVP), Azure Influencers, and startup founders.

Vivriti Group rolls out its first ESOP liquidity programme

Vivriti Group recently announced the closure of its first employee stock option plan (ESOP) liquidity programme. According to the fintech NBFC, the programme was offered to over 100 employees to make a gain of more than Rs 100 crore, and around 50% of them opted to liquidate their shares with a value of Rs 50 crore.

Vivriti provides ESOP to all its employees and started this programme in 2017. It expects this programme to result in higher engagement and employee retention.

Vineet Sukumar, Founder, and CEO, of Vivriti Capital and Vivriti Asset Management, said, “We are probably the first amongst much larger/older lending fintechs, NBFCs and asset managers to provide ESOP liquidity as a possibility. We aimed to democratise wealth creation for our team and recognize their passion, client centricity and performance. “

RevFin aims to expand operations

EV financing digital lending platform RevFin has rolled out #RevFinBharatYatra campaign to expand its reach in the country and aims to finance two million electric vehicles in the next five years. By March 2023, Revfin aims to reach out to new states and have footprints in 50 cities with 1,000 dealers and add new 10,000 customers.

Revfin is targeting cities like Allahabad, Lucknow, Gorakhpur, Kanpur, Agra, Etawah, Bhopal, Indore, Ujjain, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Puri, Rourkela, Baleswar, Jaipur, Seeker, Alwar, Udaipur etc. It will team up with its preferred OEM partners and dealers like Yatri, Mayuri, Saarthi, Citylife, SAR, Kinetic, Baxy and Goenka to expedite the adoption of EVs and create an infrastructure for clean mobility.

RevFin has already disbursed over $18 million to fund over 13,000 electric three-wheelers in 15 states with over 500 dealerships and twelve top original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). It is now looking at enhancing its market share in 6 of the existing 14 states.

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Etrio Automobiles appoints new CTO

Hyderabad-headquartered cargo EV manufacturer Etrio Automobiles has announced the appointment of Gopala Rao Uppala as its Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Gopala is a veteran EV engineering leader having close to two decades of industry experience and expertise spanning EV architecture design, electric motor design and development, EV powertrains, battery pack design and development, product design and lifecycle management, and vehicle integration.

In his new role as Etrio’s CTO, Uppala will be leading the company’s technology roadmap for enabling next-gen EV products. Furthermore, he will be guiding and leading the technology teams at Etrio to provide a full stack of tech-enabled solutions across the company’s product portfolio in a bid to accelerate the adoption of reliable and intelligent products designed for manufacturability and serviceability for better operational economics.

Quess Corp's headcount crosses five lakh

Quess Corp, a leading business service provider in the country, has announced that it has crossed the 5,00,000 active headcount mark, the highest growth witnessed to date. This growth has been witnessed across digital services, facility management, and payroll services.

Guruprasad Srinivasan, ED and CEO, Quess Corp, said, “Amidst growing concerns of a global recession, it is encouraging to see demand for hiring up in India. Such growth in headcount in a short span of two quarters further solidifies our commitment towards making India employable through formalisation and supporting economic growth in the country.”

According to Quess, it has added nearly 300,000 new employees in the last 12 months alone to its workforce, of which roughly 47% are first-time additions to formal employment in India with social security benefits. Within this workforce, over 88,000 employees are women and over 5,000 are specially-abled persons.

(This article will be updated with the latest news throughout the day.)