How China’s biggest angel fund plans to conquer India; Car Dekho enters insurance segment

China’s ZhenFund is one of the most prominent early-stage investment institutions. It has backed about 600 startups so far, including over 15 unicorns. Founded in 2011 by Bob Xiaoping Xu and Victor Wang, about eight of ZhenFund’s portfolio companies, including Xiaomi, Jiayuan, and LightinTheBox, have already launched their IPOs. A delegation from ZhenFund recently visited India for the first time. We caught up with Co-founder Victor Wang on how the fund came about due to the founders’ natural love for teaching, and what it hopes to achieve with Indian startups.

CarDekho forays into insurance segment with InsuranceDekho

Automobile classified startup CarDekho Group announced its foray into the motor and health insurance sector by launching InsuranceDekho. The online insurance platform has a tie-up with more than 20 health and motor insurance companies. With this, CarDekho is eyeing a target of selling 10 lakh policies per month in the next three years.

Yuvraj Singh-backed Healthians is looking at diagnostics as a B2C model

Healthians, an online diagnostics startup, was founded in Delhi-NCR in 2014. The team began operations with funding from cricketer Yuvraj Singh’s YouWeCan Ventures in 2015. The startup ended the first year of its operations with a revenue of Rs 1.1 crore and by FY18, this touched Rs 40 crore. In fact, it claims it will reach 250 percent growth this financial year with a revenue of Rs 100 crore. So, why B2C?

Startups can fuel hardware ecosystem’s growth: Intel India’s operations director

Intel India’s Maker Lab is focussing on innovations in hardware and entrepreneurship. In a video interview with YourStory Business Editor Vishal Krishna, Jitendra Chaddah, Senior Director, Operations and Strategy, Intel India, reveals why startups are important in the hardware ecosystem.

API Development platform Postman closes Series B round with $50M

Postman, the Bengaluru-based platform for API development, completed its Series B funding round with $50 million, led by CRV and Nexus Venture Partners. The company had earlier raised Seed funding of $1 million in 2015, and Series A funding of $7 million from Nexus VP in 2016. With the fresh round, Devdutt Yellurkar, General Partner at CRV, will join the board of directors at Postman.

Music beyond the binary - Meet GrapeGuitarBox, one of Bengaluru’s rising indie stars

The world tends to operate through a binary lens acknowledging only two sides of gender - man and woman. Breaking this stereotype is Teenasai Balamu (24) aka GrapeGuitarBox, a musician from Bengaluru who identifies as non-binary. In a conversation with SocialStory, watch Teenasai Balamu talk about music, gender, and the LGBTQIA+ community, and catch them performing Run.

Reshma Saujani of Girls Who Code tells women to be Brave, Not Perfect

When Reshma Saujani ran for public office at the age of 33, it hit her that she had done something truly brave. She had taken a big risk without worrying about failure. Reshma didn’t win but the fight gave her a sense of courage. In Brave, Not Perfect, Reshma explores how and why women are conditioned to chase perfection and why it is important for them to get out of the mould and try to be brave.

Fintech startup Finwego raises $1.7M from SAIF Partners, others

Education-focused fintech company Finwego raised $1.7 million in its seed round from SAIF Partners. A group of HNIs and angels also participated in this round. Finwego will be using the funds to expand its geographies, focus on developing products, and to expand its team. It is looking to double its team size of 30 members within the next three months, and also planning to apply for an NBFC licence.

Woices by a woman entrepreneur helps employees speak up

When a situation or atmosphere in the workplace tends to make us uncomfortable, we all have those little voices in our head telling us to speak up. But coming forward to talk about it makes us break into a cold sweat for fear of the fallout. This is why Sonali Siddha, Founder and CEO of Woices, believes people should be able to fearlessly voice their opinions. 

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