Startup news and updates: daily roundup (February 7, 2023)

Qbit appoints Nitin Mirchandani as CEO

Qbit, a subsidiary brand of Sitics Logistic Solutions, has announced the appointment of Nitin Mirchandani as its new CEO. Sitics, the tech-enabled 3PL logistics company headquartered in Kerala, has operations across India and Southeast Asia.

Nitin takes on the role with over 25 years of distinguished experience in building companies from the ground up. He will lend his expertise in the areas of transformational growth strategies for enterprises with new solutions, incubating new products across industries, and building market share.

He has held senior leadership roles at Microsoft and LinkedIn, and has experience working with Yalo Inc as the CEO of its APAC division. He has been on the advisory board of a global as well as Indian startup.

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nurture.farm appoints Pankaj Dwivedi as Head of Business Development and Partnerships

Agritech platform Nurture.Farm has promoted its agronomy and agri-business expert Pankaj Dwivedi as the Head of its Business Development and Partnerships division. Pankaj joined nurture.farm in 2020 to head the agronomy division.

Pankaj holds a postgraduate degree in Agribusiness Management from the National Institute of Agricultural Marketing. He has been associated with notable companies in the agritech, manufacturing, and food industries, including Dow AgroSciences and AgroStar. Since joining nurture.farm, he has worked with his team to launch the ‘Crop Doctor’ programme, soil testing services, and farmer advisory services. 

Working with the data science team at nurture.farm, Pankaj built the crop, pest and weather prediction models. He also led programmes around paddy crop residue management, drone spraying and others.

In his new role, Pankaj will focus on driving symbiotic partnerships for nurture.farm with seed companies, agrochemicals companies, CPG companies, development agencies, FPOs, and government organisations to drive market penetration and increase market share for its mechanisation services, agri-input marketplace, sustainability, and resilience programmes.

Bizongo launches ESG scorecard to help MSMEs turn ESG compliant

In a bid to enable 100,000 medium-, small- and micro enterprises (MSMEs) to turn ESG compliant in the next 24 months, Bizongo, a vendor digitisation platform with embedded financing for brands and enterprises, has launched Bizongo a environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scorecard. This is aimed at bolstering ESG consciousness among Indian MSMEs and larger enterprises.

This scorecard will allow MSMEs to monitor and track their compliance across various ESG components, including social parameters, like minimum wage policy, child labour and forced labour, harassment and discrimination, and product quality and testing. 

It will also focus on environmental parameters such as the Environment Management System (or ISO 14001, energy management process/policy, policies/processes for optimum, water consumption/ water conservation, circular economy, recycle/reuse programme, management of solid/liquid waste, and GHG emission. 

On the governance front, the tool will assess compliance on grievance redressal/whistleblowing, code of conduct, anti-bribery, frauds/malpractice incident, and sub-contractors due diligence.

Leveraging Bizongo’s digital vendor management platform, the scorecard will help MSMEs on the platform validate their credibility in following mandatory compliances, especially when applying for Zero Defect Zero Effect (ZED) certification. It will also simplify availing ZED benefits, such as subsidy on the cost of tech adoption, reimbursement on acquisition and installation of plant and machinery or testing equipment, and concessions in pricing or processing charges by banks, among others.

Shark Tank India’s new shark ‘Amit Jain’ joins KlugKlug as mentor and advisor 

KlugKlug, a global influencer marketing decision-making business-to-business (B2B) software-as-a-service or SaaS platform, has announced the onboarding of Amit Jain as its new mentor and advisor. While Amit is well-known for his recent role as a Shark in the reality show, Shark Tank India, he is the Co-founder and CEO of CarDekho (Girnarsoft) which he has scaled into a prominent player in the automobile and personal mobility ecosystem across India and now globally and its rise into a unicorn. 

KlugKlug is a global platform founded by Vaibhav Gupta and Kalyan Kumar to facilitate brands on their influencer marketing outreach where Vaibhav serves as the Co-founder and Chief Product Officer, and Kalyan as the CEO.

Amit Jain will provide guidance and advice to the company in terms of its vision and meaningful growth.  

Delhivery, eSamudaay partner to enable rural businesses to take flight 

Delhivery, a fully-integrated logistics provider, has partnered with fellow Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) network partner eSamudaay, a software solution provider, to enable rural businesses to scale by serving customers across India.

Bengaluru-based eSamudaay has launched a tech-enabled platform called TyohaarForever platform to curate a range of hyperlocal products produced by local artisans. Through the partnership, eSamudaay will leverage Delhivery's pan-India network of over 18,400 pin codes to make these local products accessible across the country. 

The platform enabled the first set of cross-country orders for raw, unpasteurised Himalayan Honey produced by Tenacious Bee Collective.

JARVIS Invest launches JARVIS Protect to equip investors with stock exit strategies

JARVIS Invest, an AI-based investment advisory platform, has launched JARVIS Protect, a risk management service that aims to enable investors to book profits and cut losses from any portfolio uploaded on the JARVIS system. This is the platform's second product after the JARVIS portfolio.

JARVIS Protect is designed to address the challenge of knowing when to exit a stock/strategy and thus book profits or minimise losses. This service will act as an efficient risk management tool for investors, thereby helping them turn their underperforming portfolio into a winning one.

JARVIS Protect, like the portfolio tool, is also completely AI-run. JARVIS takes into account 1.2 crore data points to make its recommendations to the investor. It also provides solutions by analysing the common problems faced by an investor while managing a portfolio on their own.

Adcount Technologies launches SupplyLink

Adcount Technologies has launched SupplyLink, a warehousing and logistics service vertical that will cater to the supply chain needs of food businesses, expanding its existing portfolio of SaaS offerings SupplyNote and Posify.

SupplyLink aims to provide a seamless supply chain service for food businesses, allowing the food business to focus better on its core. Its services include supply chain planning, storage, transportation, operations, management and comprehensive reporting across ambient, chilled and frozen temperature formats.

It is availabile in multiple regions, including Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Karnataka, and Gujarat.

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