Startup news and updates: daily roundup (November 30, 2022)

Zoomcar appoints Naveen Gupta as VP, Country Head for India 

Car-sharing marketplace Zoomcar has announced the appointment of Naveen Gupta as its Vice President and Country Head for India. In his new role, Naveen will be responsible for all aspects of growth, operations, and customer experience for the company in India. 

Naveen comes with over 11 years of experience in the automotive and ecommerce industry. He has built a marketplace from scratch, handled P&L for mature businesses, and managed high-performance teams, growth, and expansion. Naveen has an MBA from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, and previously worked with Hero MotoCorp, redBus, Swiggy, and Cars24. 

Instoried announces AI-based text-to-image tool–Instoried ART

Deeptech and AI-based content intelligence platform Instoried has announced Instoried ART, an AI-based image generation tool. According to a statement released by the company, Instoried is the first Indian startup in the content creation space that uses state-of-the-art technology to generate AI images based on text prompts.

The tool will enable content creators, marketers, and advertising professionals to create customised and unique images for their ad copies, social media posts, and website landing pages, based on text prompts.

Users can then choose and use these images for all commercial purposes. Images created with Instoried ART are free to use for commercial purposes, and as long as one follows the requisite rules, they have unlimited permission to do so.

Cashify to open 250 stores by March 2023

Cashify, a re-commerce marketplace and refurbished mobile retail chain, is all set to launch 250 stores by March 2023 to reach 120% growth YoY. As part of the company's aggressive retail strategy, it aims to expand to 30 more cities by the end of 2022, and towards the end of this year, the company plans to be present in over 100 cities.

The expansion will strengthen the company’s offline presence in India, with a strong focus towards Tier II cities. Through this, Cashify aims to be among one of India’s top 5 mobile retail chains.

After opening its 100th store in March 2022, Cashify registered 70% growth within a short span of eight months. Currently, the company has 170 stores in over 77 cities across India. The company continues to garner demand with a footfall of around two lakh people per month for services such as phone repair, purchasing refurbished phones, selling old phones, and buying accessories for their devices.

SBM Bank India partners with OPEN Financial to launch Zwitch

SBM Bank India and OPEN Financial Technologies on Wednesday announced a strategic partnership for launching Asia’s first end-to-end embedded finance platform Zwitch.

The platform will offer a no-code, low-code, and full-stack API solution that enables fintechs to build their own financial products using Zwitch’s technology stack, comprising of a drag-drop dashboard, low-code plugins, along with 300 plus APIs.

Non-fintechs—like SaaS platforms, healthtechs, etc.—can also use this platform to embed financial features into their product or service.

SBM has opened its rails to an embedded finance player to roll out these services to the larger enterprise and startup community for the first time. According to a statement, using a service like Zwitch significantly reduces the go-to-market timelines for these businesses, increases their revenue streams, and creates newer avenues to engage with existing and new users.

NimbusPost expands footprint to the UK market

Nimbuspost, a Gurugram-based tech-enabled logistics partner, has announced the expansion of its services to the UK market. The firm will hire over 500 people across different domains to streamline logistics operations in the UK.

Extending its global footprint, the organisation's expansion to the UK market is aimed at cementing its strategic growth both in the British and European logistic landscape. Foraying into the new market, NimbusPost will be seen offering its services across three main categories—domestic shipping, international shipping, and warehouse and fulfilment services.

Protean and Fino Payments Bank tie-up to expand PAN card issuance services in India

Fino Payments Bank has tied up with Protean eGov Technologies (formerly NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure Limited), a market leader in universal, citizen centric and population scale e-governance solutions, to expand PAN card issuance services in India, especially in rural areas.

The association makes Fino the first payments bank to act as PAN Service Agency (PSA) of Protean and facilitate paperless PAN issuance services. The tie-up allows Protean to expand its reach in the interiors of the country through Fino Bank’s phygital network of over 12.2 lakh merchant points. 

actyv.ai partners with Axis Bank to offer Supply Chain Finance solutions for MSMEs

Actyv.ai, an AI-powered Enterprise SaaS platform, has announced its partnership with Axis Bank, India’s third largest private sector bank to offer the Bank’s Supply Chain Finance solutions to MSME customers. 

This partnership will enable corporate anchors, downstream dealers and trading partners to avail the Bank’s Supply Chain Finance solutions.

This collaboration between actyv.ai and Axis Bank will help in streamlining the financial needs of MSMEs and their traders.

MYK LATICRETE onboards MS Dhoni as brand ambassador

MYK LATICRETE has announced former Indian cricket Skipper MS Dhoni as its National Brand Ambassador. The company has also rolled out an integrated marketing campaign across multiple channels with MS Dhoni featuring in various endorsements and initiatives.

The 360-degree campaign includes an intriguing series of TV commercials, digital videos, and print advertisements in multiple languages spanning across India. The TV commercial has been conceptualised by Associated Advertising and the partnership with MS Dhoni was facilitated by Midas Deals.

MYK LATICRETE is a manufacturer of tile and stone installation products. It has operations spread across India, with five manufacturing plants, 28 regional offices, state-of-art R&D plus training center, and 1,000 plus employees servicing the needs of clients across India.

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