Startup news and updates: daily roundup (December 15, 2022)

actyv.ai appoints Abhijit Rao as Global Head of People 

Singapore headquartered, Actyv.ai has announced the appointment of Abhijit Rao as its Global Head of People, to bolster employer brand and people growth.

As a people operations leader with over 18 years of experience, Abhijit has worked with some of the leading companies in the services (Infosys, Wipro) and products (Onmobile, UiPath) space in the IT industry. Aligning people’s goals with the larger vision of the company has been his forté. He has established robust people practices across LATAM, Africa, India and APAC, and the Middle East.

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OneMoney partners with Think360.ai

Think360.ai, a full-stack AI and analytics fintech company, has partnered with OneMoney, an account aggregator. This partnership aims to drive the accessibility and design of sachet financial products for the underbanked and underserved citizens. 

With this partnership, OneMoney and Think360 aim to showcase their distinct capabilities in the AA ecosystem.

WeWork India partners with Staqu to implement JARVIS Video Analytics

Staqu, an AI implementation enabler, has effectuated JARVIS Video Analytics at WeWork India. This latest step aims to help WeWork India identify accurate heat maps in all common areas within their space, ensuring better utilisation.

Staqu’s flagship product gives the footfall count like an average visitor management sensor along with providing a unique count for people entering and exiting the buildings. This is designed to give the actual footfall count in cases where people constantly move in and out of a given store. 

JARVIS will integrate itself with the existing CCTV cameras at WeWork India. Post integration, this technological supremo will highlight the 2D planogram/floor plan of the flexible workspaces by WeWork India, and provide real-time insights about the occupancy and efficiency of different spots and seats.

Piramal Finance launches ‘Innovation Lab’ in Bengaluru

Piramal Capital and Housing Finance Ltd announced the opening of their ‘Piramal Innovation Lab’ in Bengaluru.

The 'Piramal Innovation Lab' is an extension of Piramal Finance's goal to create innovative products, which meet the various finance requirements in the under-served and unserved 'Bharat' market.

By the end of FY23, the company aims to have a team of over 300 professionals at the Piramal Innovation Lab in Bengaluru for various tech and business intelligence positions, and will complement the existing large pool of professionals led by Saurabh Mittal (Chief Technology Officer) and Markandey Upadhyay (Head of the Business Intelligence Unit) across Mumbai and Bengaluru.

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StanPlus appoints ex-Fortis Head of Sales Shalabh Dang as its Chief Revenue Officer

Stanplus, a medical emergency response platform, has announced the appointment of Shalabh Dang as its Chief Revenue Officer to expand the company's business verticals and footprint across India and international markets.

In his new role, Shalabh will be responsible for driving and implementing strategic partnerships with hospitals, corporates, and other channels to boost revenue growth and support the company's mission of creating a 911 model for Indian healthcare.

Ramkrishna Forgings to acquire up to 51% stake in TSUYO Manufacturing

The Board of Directors of Ramkrishna Forgings Limited has approved an investment to acquire up to 51% voting rights of TSUYO Manufacturing Private  Limited, a homegrown startup engaged in powertrain solutions for electric vehicles.  

This proposed investment will help TSUYO to use the technological expertise and manufacturing skills of both organisations to enhance its product portfolio and expand its facilities for the manufacture of motors, controllers, e-axles, and differentials. 

Ramakrishna Forgings plans to invest around Rs 100 crore over the next five years, which is expected to generate a turnover of around Rs 500 crore by the end of the fifth year.  

Repos appoints Chrysalis Group founder Manish Gupta to its advisory board

Entrepreneur Manish Gupta, Founder of Chrysalis Group, has recently joined the advisory board of doorstep fuel delivery startup Repos, which has over 2,000 partners and operations in 220+ cities across India. 

He brings over 25 years of deep entrepreneurial knowledge to Tata-backed startup Repos. He will advise the company and will counsel founders Chetan and Aditi Walunj and Aparajit Subramanian on strategic direction, creating a sustainable and inspirational organisation, making the organisation foresee something bigger and different, and be focused on the essentials.

He has made an impact on more than half a million individuals, 2,500+ entrepreneurs and 1,500+ organisations and associations through his seminars and coaching sessions on entrepreneur empowerment, leadership development and organisational turnaround.

BLive expands footprint by opening first EV multi-brand store in Jodhpur 

BLive, a multi-brand electric vehicle platform, has opened its first multi-brand experience store in Jodhpur, Rajasthan.

The BLive EV Store offers a wide range of electric vehicles from multiple EV brands, expert support, easy finance, and offers. Buyers can opt for EVs at EMIs as low as Rs 2,000 per month for a range of electric scooters, cycles, motorcycles, and delivery vehicles. With a network of franchisee-owned stores, BLive has assisted over 2,500 families and businesses to switch to electric. 

The BLive store has on display electric vehicles from brands such as Kinetic Green, Hero lector, LML - Detel, Batt:re, Gemopai, Techo Electra, E-Motorad, and others.

The store will also provide extensive after-sales EV care experience, including roadside assistance, easy finance options, comprehensive service packages, and e-mobility spare parts.

Kinara Capital adds 15 new branches, reaches 125 branch mark 

Kinara Capital, a fintech driving MSME financial inclusion, launched an additional 15 new branches, bringing the company’s total field presence to 125 branches serving MSMEs in 100+ cities across Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Puducherry. 

The new branches will expand the company’s customer service in Tier II urban areas. Kinara Capital aims to support 2,00,000 MSMEs in the next three years. The company onboarded 800 employees this year, thereby increasing the workforce by 45% and plans to hire 2,000 by FY25.

This extensive field presence with 125 branches expands Kinara’s overall reach in 3,420 pin codes, enabling doorstep customer service for even more MSMEs from the manufacturing, trading and services sectors.

Zoho's customer service platform Zoho Desk achieves 57% CAGR over 5 years

Zoho Corporation, the Chennai-headquartered global technology company, launched new tools for Zoho Desk, the company's flagship customer service platform, to help customer service teams evolve with the changing needs of customers and meet heightened business expectations. 

Zoho Desk, launched in 2016, was built at the company's rural office in Tenkasi. The platform has achieved a CAGR of 57% in India and 45% globally in terms of revenue over the past five years, and now serves over 1,00,000 businesses around the world.

New capabilities in Zoho Desk include Blended Conversations—a combination of human-driven and bot-powered conversational service experiences—as well as several refinements to the user interface to make it simpler, faster, and more accessible to users with a wide spectrum of different needs. These additions enable customer service agents to improve engagement and deliver higher-value customer experiences (CX).

Zoho also announced a technological overhaul of the user interface to include options to support: cognitive and dyslexia challenges; visual impairments including astigmatism; animation reduction for those with seizure disorders; customization capabilities for colour blindness.

Additionally, to help small and micro businesses transform their customer service operations by empowering them with an easy, and value-rich helpdesk solution at an affordable price point, Zoho Desk has launched Express Edition.

WayCool to expand its agri-input portfolio, inks MoU with Yara India 

Food and agritech platform Waycool has extended its agri-input portfolio by adding the sale of nutrition and nitrogen fertilizers to its AI-driven ‘phygital’ farmer engagement platform, Outgrow. 

As part of this move, WayCool has entered a strategic partnership with Yara India. The partnership aims to offer superior crop nutrition while facilitating chemical and environmental solutions that have minimal impact on soil health and drip irrigation systems, to enhance overall crop productivity. 

As part of the MoU, WayCool will list and promote Yara’s products among Outgrow Network Partners and share a package of practices for 20 crops.

GalaxEye Space raises $3.5M in seed round

GalaxEye Space, an IIT Madras incubated spacetech startup with a focus on earth observation, has raised $3.5 million in a seed round of funding led by Speciale Invest, a VC firm focused on deep-tech startups.

This funding round also saw participation from other investors including Artha India Ventures, Veda VC, Anicut Capital, and Upsparks. There were also startup founders who were part of this round: Nithin Kamath—Zerodha, Prashant Pitti—EaseMyTrip, Abhishek Goyal—Tracxn, and Ganpathy Subramaniam—Partner at Celesta Capital.

Founded in 2020, GalaxEye will use this funding round for hiring and the launch of a multi-sensor satellite for earth observation. It will also start the commercialisation with its customers across the US, Europe and Africa.

“We are truly the first Indian space start-up incorporated in India to build an imaging satellite and we are committed to accelerating technological innovation in India for the world,” said, Suyash Singh, Co-founder and CEO, GalaxEye Space.

GalaxEye also announced the availability of the company’s flagship product offering, featuring multi-sensor imagery via modern satellites.

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