Startup news and updates: daily roundup (March 10, 2023)

Medical tourism startup Healthtrip appoints former Paytm director Sanjeev Misra as advisor

Delhi and Abu Dhabi-based Health travel startup Healthtrip has appointed former director at Paytm Sanjeev Misra to its board of advisors.

With over three decades of experience, Misra had previously led the cross-border business at Paytm, led the global expansion as a vice president in the Adani Group, and led business development for Reliance in Southeast Asia as its vice president.

Before that, he spent over a decade in Silicon Valley working for brands, including Motorola Semiconductors, Cisco Systems, Adobe, Compaq Computers, and Silicon Graphics.

Borzo partners with Zecat to electrify its delivery fleet

Borzo (erstwhile WeFast), has partnered with Zecat (Zero Carbon Transportation) to fulfil its last-mile deliveries using electric vehicles (EV). The partnership will enable Borzo to convert 10% of its Delhi-NCR fleet to electric vehicles in the next two months.

Periodically, Zecat will lease more two-wheeler EVs to Borzo, who will sub-lease to its delivery riders. This strategic partnership will enable Borzo to slowly transition towards electric mobility.

For this, Borzo has deployed the first batch of its EV fleet in Delhi and plans to grow the fleet size by 4X in the next few months. The company also plans to expand its EV fleet operations into other metro cities to convert 20% of its last-mile fleet force to EVs by year-end.

The new set of EVs will ensure efficient, reliable, and environment-friendly hyper-local deliveries. Currently, Borzo has more than 50,000 active courier partners in its delivery force.

Anthill Ventures launches Anthill Spirits, a speed scaling programme for alcobev startup

Anthill Ventures has launched Anthill Spirits, a speed-scaling accelerator programme dedicated to supporting early-stage alcobev startups. Anthill Spirits will provide funding and market access to entrepreneurs to help create innovative brands and technologies in the rapidly growing Indian alcobev industry, estimated to be worth close to $50 billion by 2023.

Anthill Spirits will invest up to $1 million in startups over the stages of the venture-building process, with a compelling vision, a clear business plan, and a strong founding team and core team in place. Eligible startups must have a running business in at least two key core markets, demonstrate a product-market fit, and have a significant market size.

Anthill Spirits' venture builder accelerator programme will provide startups with funding and market access and guidance and know-how in areas, such as business model refinement, new product development, marketing, market access, celebrity engagement, and stage-based access to capital.

Bharti-backed OneWeb successfully deploys 40 satellites launched with SpaceX

Bharti-backed OneWeb, the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite communications company, confirmed the successful deployment and contact of 40 satellites launched by SpaceX from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Lift-off took place on Thursday, March 9, 2023, at 2:13 PM ET. OneWeb’s satellites separated successfully from the rocket and were dispensed using three separation groups over a period of 40 minutes, with the last separation occurring 1 hour and 35 minutes after launch. Signal acquisition on all 40 satellites has been confirmed.

This launch is OneWeb’s 17th to date and the penultimate mission, as the company is set to complete its first-generation (Gen 1) LEO satellite constellation and enable global coverage in 2023. With 582 satellites now in orbit, OneWeb will complete the global footprint of its Gen 1 constellation with a launch set to take place later this month with ISRO/NSIL.

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