Reliance Jio turns to fintech with PoS devices; Zerodha becomes largest broker in India
Reliance Jio enters the fintech market! After disrupting India’s telecom industry, Reliance Jio is now moving into fintech, one of the fastest-growing sectors of the Indian economy. The Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio is planning to get into the point-of-sale (PoS) devices space and has launched pilots with merchants in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune. This move by Reliance Jio comes at a time when card transactions in India are at a peak.
Zerodha largest broker in India
Bengaluru-based online stock trading startup Zerodha has emerged as the largest broker in India with the highest number of clients (8.47 lakh clients) as compared to traditional giants like ICICI Securities, HDFC Securities, Kotak Securities, Motilal Oswal, and Sharekhan. In addition to this, the Zerodha platform also marks processing two million trades per day, according to Founder and CEO Nithin Kamath, making Zerodha the "largest retail brokerage firm in the world, not just India."
Amazon India hit by data breach, sellers’ financial data leaked
A technical glitch seems to have exposed the private financial data of sellers and vendors on Amazon India. Although the retail giant didn’t reveal the exact extent of the breach, their official statement said that the technical team had resolved the issue on Tuesday. “Our teams identified the issue and resolved it on priority and sellers were soon able to download the correct MTR reports,” an Amazon India spokesperson said.
Uber is building products out of India: Manik Gupta
If Uber's newly appointed Chief Product Officer (CPO) Manik Gupta’s words are any indication, the company is going to have a great year when it comes to product development and growth in 2019. IN conversation with YourStory, Gupta shed light on how Uber is building products out of their India R&D centre to deploy globally, and their plans for Uber Eats. “I am excited about building a product infrastructure and more features that bring the power of our platform to every user and consumer,” he said.
Industry bodies make a joint appeal to abolish angel tax
Organisations representing the interests of Indian startups - including Nasscom, TiE Global, Indian Private Equity & Venture Capital Association, and Indian Angel Network - made a joint appeal to the government to provide relief on angel tax provisions. The startup community has been struggling with the issue of angel tax, under which the income tax department has even sent formal notices to several startups questioning their valuation methodology.
Another push to clean mobility ventures!
Shreyas Shibulal has launched a new early-stage fund, Micelio to invest across different startups primarily in the electric vehicle space. Speaking about the fund, Shreyas said, ”The amount will depend on what the core needs and requirements of each startup are. Currently, we are focussed on seed and early-stage companies.”
Hike plans on launching multiple apps this year
In line with its strategy of focussing on “social and content”, social technology company Hike announced the launch of multiple apps through 2019. These multi apps will be specialised apps aimed at solving singular problems with greater ease and efficacy and they will be executed through a step by step evolved approach. The company, currently, has more than 100 million downloads and has raised $175 million from Foxconn and Tencent.
Eruditus raises $40 million in Series C
Mumbai based edtech startup Eruditus raised $40 million in Series C funding led by Sequoia India, with participation from existing investor Bertelsmann India Investments. The latest funding will allow the company to increase its course offerings in high-demand subject areas such as data science, machine learning, blockchain and cybersecurity and to expand its language offerings to include Portuguese and Mandarin, in addition to English and Spanish.
Capillary Technologies launches shopping app DealHunt
Cloud-based software solutions company Capillary Technologies has launched DealHunt, its first exclusive deals and coupons shopping app. Deemed as a one-stop destination for offers and deals across various categories such as fashion, beauty, food, health, travel, and electronics, the app is available in Android version in Google Play Store. And later this month, the iOS version will also be expected to debut.
AI tool could put an end to sharing Netflix
Among Netflix users, it's not unheard of to share their login credentials. After all, the OTT platform’s services are among the costliest in India, where competitors like Amazon Prime and Hotstar have comparatively cheaper options. But this might soon come to an end, all thanks to an AI-led tool developed by UK-based startup Synamedia.
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