Catch more insightful conversations on Day 4 of TechSparks 2021

TechSparks 2021, the 12th edition of YourStory's flagship startup-tech summit, is turning a new page every day.

Thursday October 28, 2021 , 5 min Read

TechSparks 2021, the 12th edition of YourStory's flagship startup-tech summit, is turning a new page every day.

On Day 3 of Asia's largest and most influential startup-tech conference, YourStory launched Elevate, a private community for mentoring emerging women leaders. An invite-only platform, Elevate will connect a shortlisted cohort of high-performing mid-career women with CXOs across the startup ecosystem, with the aim to accelerate their path to leadership roles in 2-5 years.

The day was headlined by Hans Tung, Managing Partner at GGV Capital, who believes COVID-19 has opened up an unprecedented opportunity for the technology sector to build for a mobile-first generation.

Meanwhile, Kabeer Biswas, Co-founder and CEO, Dunzo revealed the hyperlocal delivery platform's big dreams for the future. The startup is looking to raise a capital of $150 million to achieve its goal of making Indian cities more convenient to stay in than any other global city.

While the last three days have been energising and extremely inspiring, the next three days are packed with sessions that will give you more insights into the Indian startup ecosystem.

Today, Unacademy's Gaurav Munjal will talk about his vision to revolutionise education in India in a fireside chat with YourStory Founder and CEO Shradha Sharma. Like last year, when he spoke about chasing down investors to raise money for Unacademy, this year too he is set to inspire many in a session titled 'On a mission to revolutionise education'.

Everyone is talking about cryptocurrency these days, but many feel intimidated by decentralised finance (DeFi). To clear the air, Sandeep Nailwal, Co-founder and COO, Polygon; Ganesh Swami, CEO, Covalent; Aniket Jindal, Co-founder, Biconomy; Illia Polosukhin, Co-founder, NEAR Protocol; and Neeraj Khandelwal, Co-founder and CTO, CoinDCX will talk to Raghu Mohan, CEO and Co-founder, Lumos Labs, and explain why DeFi startups in India are at the forefront of innovation.

We also have Shashank Kumar, Co-founder and CEO of DeHaat, talking about how the online marketplace for farmers has transformed the sector in India and made life easier for thousands of farmers. Meanwhile, MakeMyTrip Co-founder Deep Kalra will discuss travelling in a pandemic-ridden world.

Catch them and many more seasoned entrepreneurs and techies today at TechSparks 2021.

Check out YourStory's full coverage of TechSparks 2021 here.

Join here to experience TechSparks 2021 with thousands of other startup-tech enthusiasts from around the world.

Check out the TechSparks 2021 calendar for the line-up of action-packed sessions.

The Interview

India has the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world, with 57,000 DPIIT-recognised startups. While India has 66 unicorns today, half of them entered the billion-dollar valuation club just this year.

But Piyush Goyal, Honourable Minister of Commerce and Industry and Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food, Public Distribution, and Textiles, Government of India believes India startup story is still in its infancy. Speaking at TechSparks 2021, he said it has huge potential to grow and makes us proud.

Editor’s Pick: Ecosystem insights from Hans Tung

Hans Tung is a seasoned venture capitalist, Stanford alumnus, and first-generation Taiwanese American. He believes that the next billion consumers of technology are younger, mobile native, want more choices, want things done faster.

In keeping with trends in emerging markets, Hans said that the contribution of MSMEs to India’s GDP will grow to 50 percent over the next decade, from the current 35 percent. Read more.

Startup Spotlight

Delivering gifts anywhere in India in just two hours

Gone are the days when festive gifting took weeks of advance planning. Nowadays, we have a plethora of options to choose from within our budget and to match personal preferences at the click of a button.

Chandigarh-based Winni, an online gifting portal, has made tremendous headway in this field in the past few years. It was launched in 2013 by Sujeet Kumar Mishra, Chander Pal, Sonali Gaur, and Abhishek Sharma. Read more.

News & Updates

Blockchain startup Polygon has made an undisclosed investment into Colexion, a non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace. As part of the investment, Polygon will deploy its digital tools to boost NFT adoption in India.

UpScalio, a leading roll-up ecommerce company that invests in and grows online-first brands, has picked up stake in Trase and Polestar. It is looking at driving 5X growth over the next two to three years, and aims to focus on marketing, supply chain initiatives, and expanding the product portfolio.

Paytm has roped in global reinsurance major Swiss Re as a strategic investor for its general insurance business - Paytm Insuretech Private Limited (PIT). Swiss Re will invest around Rs 920 crore for a 23 percent stake in Paytm Insuretech by way of equity shares and compulsorily convertible preference shares.

Flipkart announced a partnership with Snap Inc to expand its augmented reality (AR)-led online shopping experience. Under this partnership, Flipkart will integrate Snap’s Camera Kit into its app, enabling customers to virtually try on products to make an informed purchase.