Government announces tax benefits for startups; RIL to by stake in Embibe

Saturday April 14, 2018 , 2 min Read

In positive news for aspiring entrepreneurs, the Government of India will enable startups and entrepreneurs to apply for a tax concession when the total investment amount does not exceed Rs 10 crore. This amount includes funding by angel investors as well. According to a notification from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, investors should either have an average income of Rs 25 lakh or above for the preceding three financial years, or their networth should be Rs 2 crore, to avail tax benefits for their startups.

A Morgan Stanley forecast last month indicated Microsoft is racing towards the $1 trillion valuation-mark riding on growth in its public cloud services. The resurgence of Microsoft’s cloud division actually mirrors the bull run in the infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) market right now. IaaS is growing at 36 percent, states Gartner in a new report. It is outgrowing the overall public cloud market that is estimated to reach $186.4 billion in revenues in 2018, registering a growth of 21.4 percent from a year ago.

In a report, Forrester estimates Amazon Web Services, Google, and Microsoft will capture 76 percent of all cloud platform revenues in 2018

After revolutionising the mobile internet and feature phone markets, Reliance Jio is now looking at the laptop segment. Reports suggest Jio has approached global chipset manufacturer Qualcomm to work with it on laptops that run Windows 10 and are powered by 4G SIMs. The product is targeted at the Indian market and Jio will likely bundle data and content services along with it. These will be sold at Reliance Retail outlets.

Qualcomm is already working on Jio’s upcoming low-cost smartphone

Reliance Industries has agreed to invest $180 million in Embibe, the Bengaluru-based AI education platform, over the next three years and will acquire 72.69 percent stake in Embibe from its existing investors. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions. This is one of the biggest transactions in the Indian education and deep technology space. Aditi Avasthi, Founder and CEO, Embibe, will continue in her leadership role and will drive growth of the business.