How iD Fresh grew into a Rs 182 Cr brand; Tinder is now the highest grossing Android app in India

IIT Bombay has become the first institution outside of North America to join IBM’s AI Horizon network and is now part of the elite educational institutes engaged in deep research in this advanced technology. The relationship between IBM and IIT Bombay will be a multi-year collaboration to advance artificial intelligence (AI) research. The Department of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Bombay will pair its faculty and top graduate students with leading AI scientists from IBM Research – India to advance and accelerate the application of AI, machine learning, natural language processing and related technologies to business and industry.

Tinder is now the highest-grossing Android app in India. Its subscription-driven service Tinder Gold has managed to woo many lonely hearts in the country. While Tinder doesn’t share country-specific numbers, there are over three million paying subscribers for Gold across the world, with 1.7 million coming in the last year alone. Its success has led Tinder to roll Top Picks, a premium feature that curates a daily, tailored list of potential matches for Tinder Gold members.

The founders started iD Fresh with Rs 25,000. They invested in mixers and grinders, and had a total of 100 packets, which they wanted to distribute to over 20 stores in the city. They had initially thought it would take them six months to reach the stores, but it took them nine months. The brand's products are now present in over 30,000 stores and it is set to close FY19 fiscal year with a turnover of Rs 286 crore. Read their inspiring growth story here.

Mumbai-based digital lending platform Kissht on Wednesday announced that it had raised $30 million as a part of its Series C financing round. Founded in 2015 by Krishnan Vishwanathan and Ranvir Singh, Kissht provides purchase financing and personal loans to customers through its financial technology platform that is integrated with online and offline merchants. Kissht has developed a proprietary self-learning algorithm that assesses a customer’s credit profile in a fraction of a second based on more than 2,000 digital footprints.

Bengaluru-based Indian language knowledge sharing platform Vokal has raised $6.5 million led by Kalaari Capital, as a part of its Series A round. The platform, founded by Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka, had in July raised $5 million led by Shunwei Capital. Vokal is a peer-to-peer knowledge-sharing platform for India’s non-English Internet users.

The Government of Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday launched e-Rythu, a mobile platform that digitises agriculture marketplaces, payments, workflows, and provides farmers an easy and secure way to buy, sell and receive payments for agricultural products via their feature phones. E-Rythu, which means 'e-farmer' in Telugu, will help small farmers looking to sell their produce to connect with the right buyers more efficiently in local language and receive the best possible prices.

Smartphones are now an intrinsic part of our day-to-day lives. Indians are rolling over in smartphones of all shapes and sizes, patterns and prices and they are spoilt for choice. There is a new brand or a sub-brand launching almost every month, and several new models are unveiled nearly every week. Before the new iPhone takes over our newsfeeds and makes phone-buying a tad more confusing than it already is, YourStory draws up a list of the top smartphones money can buy.

Mumbai-based online pharmacy startup Pharmeasy has raised a venture debt funding of Rs 40 crore led by the debt capital investor InnoVen Capital. Earlier this year, the team had raised funding led by Bessmer Venture Partners, MEMG (Manipal Group), Orios Venture Partners, JM Financials and Trifecta Capital. Last year, PharmEasy had raised Series B funding of $16 million led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Orios Venture Partners. PharmEasy has set up a technology team in Mumbai and Bengaluru and intends to scale both.

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