Startup news and updates: daily roundup (May 20, 2022)

Sportzchain raises $600K from SUNiCON, MAKS Group

SportZchain, a blockchain-based fan-engagement ecosystem, today announced it has closed a $600,000 fundraise led by SUNiCON ventures and MAKS Group. Through these funds, Sportzchain will further boost its app development and marketing strategies to onboard more Web 2.0 users, it said in a statement.

Siddharth Jaiswal, Founder and CEO, Sportzchain said, "Investing in fan tokens and phygital collectibles is becoming increasingly popular in India, especially among the younger generation who are more interested in investing where their interest lies. At Sportzchain, we strive to make the entire Indian sports ecosystem more inclusive so that fans can do more than just cheer their favorite teams from the sidelines."

"In this context, the recently raised funds will prove instrumental in boosting our growth. We are truly thrilled to have two prominent players backing us. Our investors' conviction, confidence, and credence encourage us to do better every day. We will continue working harder and smarter to build a digital world for sports fans and make sports tokens reach the masses," he added.

Codingal to hire over 1,000 teachers

Codingal Education, a coding platform for K-12 students, is looking to hire more than 1,000 teachers for its platform. The selected teachers receive compensation in the range of Rs 25,000 to Rs 60,000, depending on the number of classes taken, along with various incentives, referral programmes, and mentorships bonuses.

ALSO READ

From working as a banker to writing a book on sales, to launching educational content: The journey of Nidhi Vadhera

“Our goal is to bring in the best education, and hence our instructors are the platform’s backbone. We are looking forward to onboarding 1,000 teachers by September 2022 to help Codingal grow further,” said Vivek Prakash, CEO and Co-founder of Codingal.

In September 2021, Codingal raised $1.2 million in its seed funding round led by Y-Combinator, Summer Capital, Rebright Partners, and Day One Syndicate. It is present in over 20 countries with up to 150,000 registrations.

Pepper Content forms partnership with Skillshare

Pepper Content, a full-stack content marketplace, has entered into a partnership with Skillshare, an online learning creative community. This collaboration aims to help creators upgrade their skillsets and deliver engaging content.

Pepper Content connects organisations with its large database of content creators. Also, through its AI-enabled platform, it helps create custom made content for each organisation.

Under this partnership, Skillshare will provide a special discount coupon code on their annual subscription and scholarship to 10 Pepper Content creators every month.

Pawan Rochwani, Lead Community, Events and Partnership, Pepper Content said, “At Pepper Content, our larger mission is to build a virtual content team for any company globally. Creators and brands are at the core of our business and content, our superpower.”

Hustlers Hospitality picks up 31 pc stake in My Cloud Kitchen

Hustlers Hospitality, a cloud kitchen consulting firm, has acquired 31 percent stake in My Cloud Kitchen which offers food entrepreneurs services including brand designing, kitchen setup, licensing, marketing, as well as franchise solutions to dark kitchen and QSR businesses.

Krunal Oza, Founder and CEO of Hustlers Hospitality, said, “This strategic investment helps to expand the operations of both the businesses; Hustlers Hospitality and My Cloud Kitchen, and serve the cloud kitchen market in a better way by taking leverage of our existing clientele network and already existing kitchens of My Cloud Kitchen across India”.

Founded in 2012, My Cloud Kitchen owns in-house delivery brands like Senorita Margherita, Pancake Station, Monk Momo, New York Sandwich, and Omg Churros across 19 outlets in India. Hustlers Hospitality owns over 36 brands of cloud kitchens and QSR brands with 400-plus internet restaurants.

E42 launches AI talent marketplace

E42, a no-code AI NLP platform, announces the launch of an AI Marketplace which will be a click-to-hire AI workers platform. This tech startup enables companies to build and deploy AI co-workers in their area of expertise through a simple drag and drop interface including third-party systems integration.

E42 co-founder & CEO Animesh Samuel said, “A single platform to list all the AI workers that we and our partners built that can be hired by any enterprise in a few clicks is what sets our marketplace apart. It is a first of its kind ‘Naukri’ or ‘Monster’ for hiring AI workers. As many studies show that by 2026 at least 50% of the enterprise workforce will be AI workers. This is an over $800 billion opportunity that we can target along with our partners.”

Samosa Party opens offline stores in Bengaluru

Samosa Party, a food brand, has forayed into offline offline restaurant space with its first brick-and-mortar stores in Bengaluru.

The new stores are part of Samosa Party’s strategy to ramp up offline expansion alongside delivery-first stores, with more physical outlets launching soon in Bengaluru and Gurugram. According to this startup, with 42 delivery-first outlets, it is addressing India’s $3.65 billion samosa market.

ALSO READ

[Startup Bharat] This Surat-based brand wants to put India on the global fast-fashion map

After raising $2 million in Pre-Series A round from Kalaari Capital, Samosa Party tripled its revenue and store count in a span of 90 days, while scaling operations across Bengaluru, Gurugram, Noida, Ghaziabad, and Hyderabad.

"We have established our product-market fit and are now scaling aggressively. In the next few months, we'll go deeper into the markets where we are already present and expect to reach a 100-store mark in the next four months. Ours is a very capex light model and the scale we're seeing is backed by strong unit economics," said Amit Nanwani, Co-founder, Samosa Party.