Startup news and updates: daily roundup (Feb 5, 2021)

BookMyShow launches transactional video-on-demand platform ‘BookMyShow Stream’

Ticketing site BookMyShow on Friday announced the launch of ‘BookMyShow Stream’ - a transactional video-on-demand (TVOD) streaming platform. With a catalogue of 600 movie titles and 72,000 hours of content, the company said BookMyShow Stream will feature a specially curated library of some of the celebrated and award-winning films and content from around the world and India that users can ‘Rent or Buy’ and watch. The company said it will have over 22,000 hours of content being exclusive to the platform at launch. BookMyShow Stream will also feature multiple marquee premieres every Friday, it said in a statement. 

Online investment platform Vested Finance raises $3.6M in seed round (Funding)

Silicon Valley-based online investment platform Vested Finance on Friday announced it has raised $3.6 million in seed funding with participation from Moving Capital, Ovo Fund, and TenOneTen Ventures in the US, and Inflection Point Ventures and Venture Catalysts in India. According to the official statement, the company, which enables Indian investors to invest in the US stock market, plans to use the funds to accelerate product development and hire talent across the US and India.

ecommerce analytics platform DataWeave acquihires Gurugram-based Sparrosense

DataWeave, a Bengaluru-based ecommerce analytics platform that provides sales optimisation solutions to global omnichannel retailers, consumer brands, and marketplaces, has acquihired Sparrosense, a Gurugram-based AI-powered video analytics platform for shop-floor monitoring. Sparrosense’s Co-founder and CEO, Abhinav Gupta, will join DataWeave and lead new strategic initiatives. The CTO, Ankit Agarwal, will focus on building a scalable backend, while Chief AI Officer Ravikant Bhargava will add strength to DataWeave’s AI, NLP, and computer vision initiatives.

Google feature to allow measuring heart rate, respiratory rate through cell phones

Two vital signs commonly used to assess health and wellness - heart rate and respiratory rate - can now be measured using a cell phone, Google has said, announcing that starting next month, these features will be available in the Google Fit app for Pixel phones. It uses a smartphone camera and a computer vision technique called optical flow to detect respiratory rate via subtle movements in the chest for measuring respiratory rate.

Paypal to shut domestic payment services in India from April 1

Digital payment solutions provider Paypal said it will stop offering domestic payment services within India from April 1. The US-based company will instead focus on enabling more international sales for Indian businesses.

Times Internet, Reliance, Airtel emerge as India's top app publishers

App analytics provider App Annie has released its annual list of the world's top app and games publishers, and this year, Times Internet, Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel, ShareChat, and government-backed National Informatics Centre (NIC) emerged as India's top three app publishers in 2020. They were followed by Appyhigh, Dailyhunt, Inshorts, Yuvadance, and One97.