Startup news and updates: daily roundup (June 10, 2022)
YourStory presents daily news roundups from the Indian startup ecosystem and beyond. Here's the roundup for Friday, June 10, 2022.
India Accelerator and Chiratae Sonic join hands to co-invest in high potential early-stage startups
India Accelerator has announced its partnership with Chiratae Sonic, the flagship seed investment initiative of Chiratae Ventures, to co-invest in high potential early-stage startups in India.
As part of the partnership, the companies will identify promising startups across domains, with technology at the core.
India Accelerator and Chiratae Ventures aim to strengthen the startup ecosystem in India by unlocking new opportunities for high potential startups and providing them with access to early-stage capital and mentorship, along with other essential resources. With the sector-agnostic investment partnership, both the entities will jointly invest in technology-enabled startups across the country.
Mona Singh, Co-founder of India Accelerator, said,
“The association with Chiratae Ventures is certainly a landmark initiative for India Accelerator as well as the startups of India. Our partnership will aid startups across the country gain access to a huge pool of experienced mentors and capital that is key to scaling up in the early stages of growth.”
India Accelerator is a Global Accelerator Network (GAN) backed institution, helping startups realise their true potential by accelerating them into the next phase of growth. IA has accelerated over 130 startups since its inception in 2017, by providing them with the essential capital, competency, mentorship, tech guidance, business connections, and a strong community to learn and grow with.
Chiratae Ventures is a technology venture capital fund advisor that has backed startups like , , , , and . Founded in 2021, Chiratae Sonic, its flagship seed investment initiative identifies and invests in disruptive technology ventures. It democratises the fundraising process by assuring a turnaround time of just 48 hours on investment decisions.
IIT Jodhpur, in collaboration with WhizHack Technologies, inaugurates CoE in Cyber-Physical Systems Security
The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Jodhpur, in collaboration with WhizHack Technologies Private Limited, has announced the launch of a Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Cyber-Physical Systems Security at the IIT Jodhpur Technology Park on June 9, 2022.
The CoE will create research infrastructure to develop breakthrough concepts to detect, predict, and mitigate attacks on cyber-physical systems. will build use cases with key industry verticals for successful projects and develop security products for the global market. Projects related to Infrastructure, Defence, and the Government sectors will be undertaken in the future.
According to a 2022 Gartner study, cyber-attacks on organisations in critical infrastructure sectors rose by a dramatic 3,900 percent between 2013 and 2020. Gartner Security and risk leaders have ranked the Internet of Things (IoT) and cyber-physical systems as top concerns for the next three to five years.
Commenting on the COE, Professor Santanu Chaudhury, Director, IIT Jodhpur, said,
"The biggest cyber security challenge faced by India, present and future, is debilitating attacks on cyber-physical systems including Waterways, Energy, Railways, Smart City, Defence, and Telecom networks. We are researching new paradigms in cyber-physical system security, and along with WhizHack, we want to productise our research in solving the most complex problems through locally-built solutions."
According to Kaushik Ray, Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer (COO), WhizHack Technologies,
"WhizHack, as India's only vertically integrated cyber security organization, has built and deployed its 'Made in India' cyber threat detection system across prominent infrastructure such as Defence, Telecom, Power, and Enterprises. It is building next-generation security products to serve Indian and global markets that adopt a holistic approach in which Operational Technology, Internet of Things (IoT), Industrial IoT, and IT security are managed in a coordinated effort, and not in silos."
Redcliffe Labs adds ‘Novaseq 6000’ sequencing system to its diagnostic technology portfolio
Redcliffe Labs, a unit of Redcliffe Lifetech in the US, has announced the addition of ‘NovaSeq 6000’ sequencing system to its diagnostic technology portfolio at its Noida National Reference Lab.
Diagnostics platform Redcliffe claims to be the first in North India and among few in line in the country to line up the most advanced and high-end set of instruments. North India particularly is known to be very high in genetic disorders and is also characterized by consanguineous marriages which increases the chance of rare diseases. This finds vast application in the diagnosis of rare conditions in newborns, infants and in prenatal settings. While the system is being installed in the National lab, it serves the entire country with the most efficient logistics and will reduce the testing time and help save costs for the patients in the neighbouring region and states. Through its network of 700 collection centers and lab network across the country, Redcliffe is well-positioned to service the genetic testing requirements of the entire country including Tier-II and III towns.
Dheeraj Jain, Founder, , said,
"Doctors from specialties such as gynecologist, obstetricians and pediatricians who we are serving with our routine portfolio, requested us to build a specialized portfolio given our quality and reach are so wide and no private lab in the Northern region of India has housed such a powerful sequencer. Hence, we decided to fill the gap which will facilitate us in offering high-throughput sequencing across a wide range of applications.
“It also enables researchers to investigate genetic relationships between health and disease on a massive scale by allowing them to sequence more samples in greater depth in order to find rare and novel genetic variations. Moreover, the sophisticated sequencing system will allow healthcare to move closer to preventive precision medicine which will benefit everyone.”
Affle Global buys additional stake in Indus OS from Samsung Ventures
Singapore based Affle Global on Friday announced that it has acquired ownership of an additional 13.09 percent in OSlabs Pte Ltd (Indus OS). With this investment, AGPL and its affiliates now have approximately 60 percent of investor voting rights tied to the issued preference shares in Indus OS. The additional ownership was acquired by way of a secondary purchase from Samsung Venture Investment Corporation at an approximate Indus OS valuation of $90 million for the preference shares.
AGPL intends to remain a long-term investor and it looks forward to providing further funding support to Indus OS to scale greater heights, strengthening Indus OS position to enable a one-of-its-kind app engagement model.
This news comes soon after AGPL had nominated Anuj Khanna Sohum, to be a Non-Executive Director on the Board of Indus OS and his appointment as a Non-Executive Director effective April 21, 2022, was confirmed by unanimous vote of all the investor directors and founder directors of Indus OS.
