Startup news and updates: daily roundup (August 25, 2022)

nuture.farm launches incubation program for agritech startups

One of India's leading agritech companies, Nurture.Farm has launched 'Catalyst' to provide infrastructure, networking, and technological support to pre-revenue, seed-funded, and angel-funded agritech startups.

The company will help the startups to collaborate with stakeholders in the agricultural ecosystem based on its rural networks, test their products and services at scale to establish product-market fit, and gain access to capital, knowledge, and human resources.

The deadline to apply for the programme is March 31, 2023. The programme will have a cohort of five startups each year.

Yubi Loans launches digitised loans against property

Chennai-based enterprise debt platform Yubi Loans has announced the launch of digital loans against property, which is said to be the first of its kind in India. Based on the company's proprietary AI/ML (artificial intelligence/machine learning) model, the solution would help small and medium enterprises (SMEs) do onboarding, discovery, credit evaluation, and end-to-end processing of loans against property digitally.

The company claims this would help SMEs get access to multiple lenders on one platform, enabling them to get loans at favourable interest rates in half the time it takes to get it done through conventional offline methods.

Yubi Loans' platform would help SMEs by matching their requirements and analysing risk profiles to enable quick loan disbursements ranging between Rs 20 lakh and Rs 15 crore in a "transparent" manner.

The company, which has over 3,000 borrowers and over 250 lenders, has helped disburse loans worth Rs 10,000 crore to date. It hopes to achieve a gross transaction value of Rs 6,400 crore in 2022-23 from the SME segment.

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TheMathCompany appoints Peeyush Dubey as Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer

TheMathCompany, a global data and analytics engineering firm, has roped in Peeyush Dubey as its Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer to help the company enhance its brand awareness globally, especially in North America, Europe, and India.

Before taking on this new role, Peeyush was the EVP and Chief Marketing Officer at Larsen & Toubro Infotech. In his previous stints, he has worked with companies including Infosys, Mindtree, iGate (now Capgemini), and IDS Next.

Founded in 2016, the Illinois, US headquartered company has over 50 Fortune500 companies across verticals and raised $50 million in January this year.

Hiring increases by 29% in the first quarter of FY23: Report

According to Indeed Hiring Tracker, recruitment activity increased 29% in the April-June quarter of 2022-23, compared to a 20% increase in the previous quarter, a trend that seems to suggest that the Indian job market is not overly concerned with inflation fears.

The IT/ITeS sector dominated the sectors in terms of hiring activity with 91% of the employers recruiting during the first quarter of the current financial year. Bengaluru saw the highest increase in hiring activity, followed by Mumbai and Chennai.

The top roles that were in demand in the April-June quarter were those of Data Analyst, Mobile Application Developer, and Project Manager, while tpositions for Operations Managers, Financial Analysts, and HR Specialists were the least in demand.

In terms of measures to counter inflationary trends, over a quarter of the employers (27%) felt matching employee increment expectations was the biggest challenge.

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