Startup news and updates: daily roundup (December 22, 2022)
YourStory presents the daily news roundup from the Indian startup ecosystem and beyond. Here's the roundup for Thursday, December 22, 2022.
Cognizant to advance Garuda Aerospace drones with digital technologies
Cognizant has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with
to power its drones with advanced digital capabilities and bring innovative solutions at scale for enterprises aiming to achieve greater agility and productivity.The collaboration will provide Cognizant associates across its service lines, including, analytics, IoT, among others, the opportunity to work on drone projects and real-life use cases.
Shoppers Stop expands retail footprint with a new store in Udaipur
Fashion retailer
has launched its store in Udaipur.“We are very happy to make inroads in Rajasthan with the launch of our first store in Udaipur. The city is witnessing a fast pace of growth and consumers here enjoy a better quality of life," said Venu Nair—Customer Care Associate, MD and CEO, Shoppers Stop Limited.
Established in 1991, the company has a presence in over 100 department stores across India, The company also operates 10 premium home concept stores, and 130 speciality beauty stores of M.A.C, Estée Lauder, Bobbi Brown, and Clinique, among others.
TG Sitharam assumes charge as AICTE Chairman
Former Director of the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Prof TG Sitharam, assumed the charge as the Chairman of All India Council for Technical Education on 21st December 2022.
Prof Sitharam took over charge from Prof M Jagadesh Kumar, Chairperson, University Grants Commission, who had the additional charge of AICTE since September 2022.
With the approval of the Hon’ble Minister of Education in his capacity as Chairperson of IIT Council, Prof Parameswar K Iyer took over charge as Officiating Director of IIT Guwahati from Prof Sitharam on 20th December 2022.
Trinity Gaming partners with EmChain FZE
Trinity Gaming India, a gaming content and marketing company, has partnered with Dubai-based EmChain FZE to facilitate business worth $10 million in the Web3 and blockchain-based gaming sector in India.
Trinity Gaming and EmChain will train, mentor, and provide revenue streams for creators in the Web3 and blockchain space.
This partnership will enable Web3-based gaming content to generate new revenue streams for the Indian influencers and provide opportunities to work with brands and game developers in global markets including the MENA, SEA, and the US.
LazyPay hits 48,000—merchant adoption up by over 70% in 2022
PayU Finance India’s 'buy now pay later' offering
grew its merchant network by over 70% during the year to reach 48,000, according to a statement.
It has onboarded 20,000 new merchants through direct integration and partnerships with leading aggregators.
"In order to enable user access to LazyPay on more merchants, we are targeting to grow our partner network to 150,000 in 2023 and expand our offering to in-store payments. Additionally, we are working closely with merchants to offer bespoke branded BNPL solutions," said Varun Vummidi, Payments Head, LazyPay.
BeatO appoints Navneet Agrawal as its Chief Clinical Officer
, a digital diabetes care platform for controlling and reversing diabetes, appointed Dr Navneet Agrawal as its Chief Clinical Officer.
Navneet Agrawal will head BeatO’s proprietary Diabetes Care Programs. He has designed the clinically verified programme which provides personalised digital care solutions with proactive and supervised diabetes counselling by doctors and health experts on diet planning, exercise advice, and medication.
ONDC network to start beta testing in Meerut from December 22, 2022
), an initiative of the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce, Government of India, will open its network to consumers and sellers in Meerut city starting from Thursday, December 22, 2022, from 12:00 PM onwards.
ONDC aims to enable ecommerce for sellers of every scale and size across India by making the operational capabilities required for ecommerce available at scalable costs, stitched together by Network Participants enabling the network.
Biocon Biologics recognised as a company with Great Managers
Biologics has been recognised as a Company with Great Managers at the Great Manager Awards (GMA) 2022. Biocon Biologics is among the Top 50 Companies among 175 participating companies to feature on this prestigious list.
In the individual category, Jesu Prabhalan from BBL’s Projects Division and Vikas Jawalkar from the Company’s Regulatory Affairs function won the ‘Great Managers Award’ for 2022. They were among the 51 managers nominated by BBL for the ‘Top 100 Great Managers’ recognition. This year, over 6,000 managers were nominated by over 175 organisations. Of these, 300 were shortlisted for the interview round and selection to the Top 100 list.
Dr Ram Charan joins the Advisory board of Ratan Tata-backed Repos Energy
Business consultant, author, speaker and celebrated management expert Ram Charan has joined the Advisory board of Repos, a Doorstep Fuel Delivery platform. Backed by industry titan Ratan Tata, Repos is on a mission to help the world move toward a carbon-neutral future with the establishment of ecommerce of energy.
Charan will advise the company on strategic direction, flawless execution, global expansion and corporate governance. He will counsel founders Chetan and Aditi Walunj and Co-founder Aparajit Subramaniam as they create an ecosystem that facilitates the delivery of all forms of energy to the doorstep of end consumers with the help of technology.
NoBroker ramps up tech and marketing team with campus hiring
India’s first proptech unicorn,
is expanding its team across functions by hiring top tech talent. The company recently hired over 30 freshers from IIT for its Android, iOS, engineering, frontend, backend, and design teams, and marketing roles.
The development comes at a time when tech start-ups, both in India and abroad, are either laying off employees or implementing hiring freezes in light of a projected global recession.
Flipkart launches home product services to give customers easy access to after-sales services
has launched Home Product Services on its app for customers to meet their product repair, maintenance and installation service requirements. The after-sales services will be delivered by Flipkart’s service arm, Jeeves, which provides end-to-end post-purchase service solutions to consumers and businesses.
Apart from shopping on the app, customers will now be able to access hassle-free repair, maintenance, and installation services on the Flipkart app under the category ‘Repair & More’. These services will be available for all home products, irrespective of where they were purchased, and catered by trained experts for categories ranging from mobiles, home appliances, tablets, laptops, furniture, consumer electronics, and more.
Honasa Consumer stregthens corporate governance with 50% independent board members
Honasa Consumer Ltd. (HCL), parent company of brands such as
, , Aqualogica and Ayuga, has said that their board now comprises of 50% independent board members.The board of Honasa Consumer Limited comprises six members, namely, Ghazal Alagh, Varun Alagh, Ishaan Mittal, Vivek Gambhir, Namita Gupta and Subramaniam Somasundaram. Out of these, Ghazal and Varun Alagh are co-founders of the company, and Ishaan Mittal is a nominee of Sequoia Capital on the board of HCL.
Vivek Gambhir, Namita Gupta, and Subramaniam Somasundaram are independent board members. These independent board members will be part of the statutory committee, audit committee, nomination and remuneration committee, stakeholder committee and other committees wherein the independent directors may constitute more than 65% to ensure compliance with all parameters of corporate governance measures like transparency, control measures etc.
(The copy will be updated with the latest news throughout the day.)
Edited by Affirunisa Kankudti