Startup news and updates: daily roundup (August 13, 2022)

Paytm loan distribution touches ARR of Rs 25,000 Cr

Digital financial services firm One97 Communications, the parent company of Paytm, said its loan distribution business reached an annual run rate (ARR) of Rs 25,000 crore in July.

The company had reported an ARR of around Rs 24,000 crore for the loan distribution business in June.

The number of loans disbursed through the Paytm platform jumped close to four times to 29.46 lakh in July 2022, while the value of loans disbursed soared to Rs 2,090 crore on an annual basis.

The gross merchandise value on Paytm increased 82% to Rs 1.06 lakh crore in July 2022 from Rs 58,000 crore in July 2021.

The monthly transacting users on Paytm grew by 41% to 7.8 crores from 5.5 crores on annual basis.

OYO partners with JKRLM, inaugurates 75 homestays in J&K

Lieutenant Governor of J&K Manoj Sinha inaugurated 75 new Oyo homestays in Jammu and Kashmir.

The inauguration ceremony took place at the Sher-i-Kashmir International Conference Centre as part of the ongoing Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav to commemorate the 75th year of independence.

These homestays are created under the ‘Umeed‘ scheme of the Jammu and Kashmir Rural Livelihood Mission, which aims to reduce poverty in the state by building strong grassroots institutions for the poor, engaging them in gainful livelihood interventions, and ensuring appreciable improvement in their income on a sustainable basis. It plans to start 200 homestays by December 2022.

Homestays are located at Udhampur, Poonch, Doda, Kathua, and Kishtwar districts of Jammu and Anantnag, Baramulla, Bandipora and Srinagar districts of Kashmir valley.

PayNearby Launches ‘zero investment’ plan for rural women

PayNearby announced the launch of a ‘zero investment plan’ for women entrepreneurs at the last mile across 20,000+ pin codes. 

The initiative aims to build financial independence among rural women of India by waiving business account opening fees, currently priced at Rs 1,000. The company aims to onboard 10 lakh+ women entrepreneurs by FY23-24.

However, women partners will have to pay a bare minimum cost for the KYC completion.

PayNearby aims to upskill all women and bring them up the employment curve so they contribute equally to the growth of the economy to build a more inclusive and sustainable society.

IIT Kanpur develops app to assist children diagnosed with dyslexia, dysgraphia

A team from the IIT Kanpur has developed a novel application for assisting children diagnosed with dyslexia and dysgraphia. The invention named Assistive Application for Children with Dyslexia and Dysgraphia (AACDD) is invented by Braj Bhushan, Shatarupa Thakurta Roy, and Alok Bajpai. The app comes embedded with a device that helps children learn easily.

It provides a training module, available in the Hindi language, for school-going children between classes 1 to 5. The application is a touchscreen-based interface that involves auditory feedback, putting haptic sensation and motor movement to facilitate the acquisition and reproduction of Hindi letters. Later on, it is expected to include other languages.

It assists children with a tracing task, where they follow a blue and a pink dot to trace Hindi letters. As a child starts tracing from the blue dot to the pink dot, a yellow line accompanies.

IIT Kanpur's technology is unique in terms of integration of audio, visual, and haptic inputs, and retraining the brain networks through manipulation of basic geometric patterns of words – like lines, circles, etc.

This will also help them improve in the domain, where normal kids perform rather than solely bypassing it. It is also unique in addressing the Hindi language, which covers more than 40% of the Indian population.

IoT-based innovation around diabetes’ foot ulcers wins GITAM SmartIDEAthon 2022 

Animesh Kumar and Hrithik Jaiswal bagged the winner’s title at the SmartIDEAthon 2022 Challenge, a social innovation pitch fest. They also won a cash prize of Rs 2 lakh and a fully sponsored trip to Boston. 

The students of the Netaji Subhash University of Technology from Bihar’s Hajipur made a winning pitch for their startup Feetwings, which develops Internet of Things (IoT)-based solutions for early detection and monitoring of diabetes to prevent foot ulcers.

As runners-up, Karthickjothi M and Mothish M, students of Madras Christian College, Tamil Nadu, won Rs 1 lakh for Allytriz, which works on Assistive Technology that helps differently-abled people with speech and hearing impairments break their communication and social barrier.

Under the Best Woman-led Entrepreneurship Idea, Amirthalakshmi K and Carolin Mary X from Tamil Nadu’s Saranathan College of Engineering bagged a Rs 50,000 cash prize for their venture Thundra, which works on providing a smart wheelchair to help people with mobility disabilities caused due to Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). 

SmartIDEAthon 2022 registered participation from 28 states, including three UTs and some remote cities, proving that it reached the grassroots of India.

Shortlisted from over 1,200 pan-India entries, the finalists refined their pitches in a series of advanced bootcamps and personalised mentoring by internationally trained venture coaches.

(With inputs from PTI)