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Startup news and updates: daily roundup (July 7, 2022)

YourStory presents daily news roundups from the Indian startup ecosystem and beyond. Here's the roundup for Thursday, July 7, 2022.

Startup news and updates: daily roundup (July 7, 2022)

Thursday July 07, 2022 , 7 min Read

The Designer's Class raises $1M in Series A Funding

The Designer's Class, an e-learning platform focusing on design verticals, raised $1 million in series A funding from a set of angel investors led by Shivtej Investment Advisory Pvt. Ltd.

The company said it will use the funds to strengthen its immersive learning technology infrastructure, enhance its online course portfolio, add more languages on its platform and execute its mission of democratising design education in its entirety.

The entity behind The Designer's Class is Edutechtionalists India Pvt. Ltd.,  a Mumbai-based new generation edtech venture founded in September 2021 by Samarth Bajaj and Adeesh Nahar with Vishal Bajaj.

BuildNext raises $3.5M

BuildNext, a Kochi-based tech-enabled startup, has raised $3.5 million in pre-series A round led by Pidilite Industries’ wholly-owned subsidiary–Madhumala Ventures. Existing investors Konglo Ventures, Vineet Kumar (CEO, Native) and Deep Gupta (FatEngine) also participated in the round.

The startup said it will use capital to expand its R&D capabilities and upgrade its virtual reality technology experience centres. It will also expand into new markets Bengaluru, Chennai and Coimbatore while strengthening its foothold in its existing markets.

BuildNext was started by IIM Bangalore alumni, Gopikrishnan V and Finaz Naha, in 2015. The company started providing branded home building solutions to customers in Kerala and Hyderabad in November 2019. 

Zetwerk appoints Ankit Fatehpuria as fifth Co-founder

A marketplace for contract manufacturing, Zetwerk Manufacturing Businesses, on Thursday announced the elevation of Ankit Fatehpuria as the fifth Co-founder of Zetwerk. 

Ankit joined Zetwerk in March 2019 and single-handedly set up the finance function for the company. During this stint heading finance, he also seeded and scaled various business verticals for Zetwerk. In addition, Ankit has also been instrumental in initiating relationships with banks/financial institutions for the company both within India and abroad, according to a statement. 

Before joining Zetwerk, Ankit served as a Category Finance Manager at ITC and Internal Auditor at Indian Oil Corporation. He is a Chartered Accountant, Company Secretary, and an alumnus of St Xavier’s College, Kolkata.

Design Cafe expands its presence in Mumbai, launches second experience centre at Kharghar

Design Cafe, a home interiors' solutions brand, unveiled its second experience center in Mumbai on Thursday. 

Housed in the heart of Navi Mumbai at Kharghar, the brand showcases over 45,000 design possibilities for every homeowner, with materials and finishes and a customer-centric approach to designing homes, according to a statement. 

The Kharghar EC provides a curated selection of designs demonstrating the amalgamation of space functionality with refined aesthetics: from wall paneling options to a 1 BHK show flat and separate display areas with wardrobes, two living rooms, and dining spaces. Additionally, three elegantly designed modular kitchens that exhibit global trends of modern, international, traditional, rustic and industrial design themes.

design cafe

All modular furniture units will be manufactured at the company's 35,000 square-feet factory in Bengaluru.

 

The Kharghar EC is Design Cafe's twelfth launch in India. The company is focused on bringing every Indian homeowner's vision of a 'dream home' to life on the back of 25 new Design Cafe experience centers in the country. More experience centers are in the offing for cities like Kolkata, Coimbatore, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai in this fiscal year. The company is eyeing its pan-India expansion under both company-owned and franchisee-owned models.

Neo-bank major Niyo appoints Jagadish B as its Head of Human Resources

Neo-banking platform NIYO SOLUTIONS, on Thursday, announced that it has appointed Jagadish B as its Head of Human Resources.

Jagadish brings with him over 25 years of leadership experience in people processes. Prior to joining Niyo, he was associated with Thinksynq Solutions Pvt Ltd as a partner. In the past, he has held HR leadership positions for two telecom companies, Vodafone and Bharti Airtel.

At Niyo, Jagadish will play a pivotal role in taking forward Niyo’s endeavor of building a comprehensive digital banking solution for its over four million retail and SME customer base. Jagadish will also be responsible for spearheading employee engagement, talent management and development, stakeholder engagement, internal communication, compliance, and health and safety environment.

niyo

Niyo currently has a strength of 500 employees and plans to hire selective talent across key functions - technology, product, and design.

Eleven startups graduate from Upsurge programme

The Upsurge programme, which is run by WE HUB and the Australian government, saw 11 startups reaching the finals. WE-HUB is a state-led incubator by the Government of Telangana.


In the second cohort of the Upsurge program, 11 startups graduated. The entrepreneurs underwent the required technical and mentoring support for assessing the feasibility and potential viability of the ideas. This cohort had 70 applicants, of which 23 were women entrepreneurs.


The graduating startups of the cohort were Zero Waste Store, Solutions for Online Learning, Logistics App, Apic Book, Sri Raghavendra Granites, Reze, JaldiDesi, C&S Technologies, PALL Healthcare, Khansland, Akunera Foods. The three-month long program saw a total of 70 percent of the entrepreneurs from the cohort creating viable prototypes and 80 percent developing actionable business plans.

wehub

Sara Kirlew, Consul-General for South India, Australian Consulate General, Chennai said “Highly impressed with the ideas of women entrepreneurs and happy to support more women entrepreneurs through the Direct Aid Programme.”

Edtech startup PrepInsta announces menstrual leaves for its female employees

PrepInsta, a startup for engineering students, has announced menstrual leaves for its female employees. 

Following the announcement, female employees at the startup will now be able to avail of 2 days of additional paid leave every month. About 50 percent of the overall workforce at the startup are women.

“We have always adopted an employee-first approach and we strongly believe that if one can manage to create a comfortable work environment for the employees then its growth will only pace up with time. However, what we noticed in the industry is that there was an evident lack of consideration. Therefore, we took this initiative to fill in the gap, and spark a genuine conversation. We hope to see the change in the sector and society at large,” said Atulya Kaushik, Co-founder and CEO, PrepInsta. 

IBM's Databand.ai acquisition

IBM on Thursday announced that it has acquired Databand.ai, a provider of data observability software that helps organisations fix issues with their data, including errors, pipeline failures and poor quality—before it impacts their bottom-line.

Databand.ai is IBM's fifth acquisition in 2022 as the company continues to bolster its hybrid cloud and AI skills and capabilities. IBM has acquired more than 25 companies since Arvind Krishna became CEO in April 2020.

The acquisition of Databand.ai builds on IBM's research and development investments as well as strategic acquisitions in AI and automation. By using Databand.ai with IBM Observability by Instana APM and IBM Watson Studio, IBM is well-positioned to address the full spectrum of observability across IT operations.

 

Headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, Databand.ai employees will join IBM Data and AI, further building on IBM's growing portfolio of Data and AI products, including its IBM Watson capabilities and IBM Cloud Pak for Data. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition closed on June 27, 2022.

MedleyMed launches Ananda E-Clinic

MedleyMed has announced the formal launch of its virtual clinics branded “Ananda E-Clinics”. It’s a model that enables local pharmacies to offer virtual clinics and facilitate online doctor consultations with patients.

 

Ananda E-Clinic follows an easy, quick, and simple format that allows it to be set up in every mid-size and large pharmacy as it requires just a kiosk space. From selecting the doctors to consulting with them and getting the medicines as per prescription will all happen at each Ananda E-Clinic Kiosk.


More than 50 Pharmacies in Hyderabad have signed up with us for setting up Ananda E-Clinics and the implementation process is on.


(This article will be updated with latest news throughout the day)


Edited by Affirunisa Kankudti