Startup news and updates: daily roundup (May 24, 2022)

Utkarsh Small Finance Bank partners with CredAvenue to expand loan portfolio

Co-lending marketplace CredAvenue on Tuesday announced its partnership with Utkarsh Small Finance Bank to expand the latter’s loan portfolio.

The unicorn startup's CredCo-Lend platform claims to have a robust infrastructure to power the end-to-end loan life cycle, a user-friendly interface, and ensure compliance. Apart from convenience in loan creation and helping in joint underwriting, it also provides post disbursement support, portfolio monitoring, invoicing and settlement with real-time information processing.

Devarsh Mapuskar, business head of co-lending at CredAvenue said, “Going forward, Utkarsh Small Finance Bank is expected to enhance its financial reach by partnering with multiple NBFCs/HFCs/MFIs/Fintechs, impacting thousands of customers.”

NV Shivkumar, head of retail assets at Utkarsh Small Finance Bank said the bank aims to tap underserved population through this partnership.

Fasal inks MoU with IMD for research collaboration for climate-smart farming

Full-stack agtech solutions company Fasal on Tuesday announced that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the India Meteorological Department (IMD) for research collaboration under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES). 

Fasal and IMD plan to collaborate on research around precipitation forecasting, validation of weather forecasting models, and dissemination of learning to farmers. 

This includes an exchange of hourly short-range models for rainfall probability, rainfall amount, temperature, and humidity leveraging Internet of Things (IoT) data and hourly forecast data, as well as precipitation nowcasting models.

Founded in 2018, Fasal has been working to equip horticulture farmers with farm-specific crop intelligence through its precision farming systems. Shailendra Tiwari, Founder of Fasal, said that the partnership will help make precision farming accessible and affordable to all farmers.

Innoviti’s technology for secure QR communication gets a US patent 

Enterprise payment solution provider Innoviti Payment was granted a US patent for its technology for secure QR communication between terminal devices and target systems. The startup now has a total of four patented products.

In the release, the startup stated that communication security is a key consideration for the safe transfer of payment information from a consumer-facing product such as a terminal, website, or mobile app to a payment processing server for authorisation. Lapses in security then could lead to theft of customer identity, change in merchant identity transaction amount.  

Amit Ahuja, senior vice president of technology at Innoviti said, “Innoviti desires to become the purchase partner to every Indian by helping them make better purchase decisions. These patents not only help us protect our customers against claims by other parties but are also a mechanism for us to deter replication of our technology by competition.”

In December 2020, Innoviti raised Rs 80 crore as part of its Series D funding to expand its mid-market product GENIE while the company’s enterprise business has been EBITDA positive since October 2020.

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Agri supply chain Krishi Network acquires Ed-Tech agri platform Rocket Skills

Agritech startup Krishi Network on Tuesday announced its acquisition of Rocket Skills, an edtech platform providing online training courses to farmers at affordable prices. The acquisition is targeted to help farmers, who are aspiring to start a business with a small investment, gain access to online mentorship through the courses designed by agronomists.

Founded in 2020, Rocket Skills has been working towards upskilling individuals through online mentorship and courses curated by industry experts. 

Broadband India Forum supports innovative ventures to enhance digital connectivity

Think tank for digital transformation Broadband India Forum (BIF) launched the BIF Connectivity Accelerator Programme with ten shortlisted startups in partnership with Headstart Network Foundation and Meta.

The programme was inaugurated by K Rajaraman, chairperson of the Digital Communication Commission (DCC) and secretary of the department of telecommunications (DoT) on Sunday at the Wi-Fi India 2022 Summit.

The top ten ventures selected from a pool of 80 applicants are Wiom, XiFi Networks, Digigaon Job Factory, Matrecomm Technologies, Aagile Business Associates, LM Energy & Software, Antrix Networks, Infonet Comm Ventures, M2M Cybernetics, and Tess and Tera Techno Solutions. 

TV Ramachandran, President of BIF said, “These startups and ventures are helping us resolve the internet connectivity challenges both in business and technology, for urban and rural India; while also bringing in new innovation into the PM-WANI ecosystem.”

Gaurav Sachdeva appointed as CEO of JSW One Platforms

JSW Group on Monday announced that Gaurav Sachdeva has been appointed as the CEO of the group’s ecommerce venture, JSW One Platforms. Gaurav was earlier leading venture capital investments for the fund.

In his role as the CEO of JSW One Platforms, he aims to create a nimble organisation to run a robust transparent platform that will simplify buying and selling of steel and other products for manufacturing and construction MSMEs in the country.