Startup news and updates: Daily roundup (May 5, 2023)

Databricks to Expand India Workforce by Over 50%

Data and AI firm, Databricks said it plans to increase its local headcount by more than 50% in 2023. Specifically, it aims to hire technical specialists, sales and support engineers, and go-to-market resources, among others.

The company will also launch a new R&D (research and development) hub in Bengaluru later this year, it said.

Image data platform AuraML raises $230K from IAN

Image data platform AuraML said it has raised $230,000 in a pre-seed funding round from Indian Angel Network. The startup said it will use the capital to hire its founding engineering team, expand its presence in the US and Europe, and launch its cloud platform.

Ayush Sharma and Arjun Gupta founded AuraML in January.

The idea for the startup stemmed from its experience facing challenges in data collection and labelling while training machine learning models for computer vision in its previous endeavors.

The duo encountered even greater obstacles with increased concerns over data sharing and strict privacy laws, intensifying the need for a viable solution.

"This investment will be a key accelerator for us to take the technology from a prototype to a fully functioning product. We plan to utilise these funds to hire our founding engineering team, develop core technologies and expand our global presence in the US and European markets," said Sharma, Co-founder and CEO of AuraML.

Polls, forwarding media, and captions to shared documents: Whatsapp introduces new features

WhatsApp has revealed several new features aimed at improving chats for its users. These updates include three new features for polls, the ability to forward media with captions, and the option to add captions to shared documents.

For polls, users can now create single-vote polls, search for polls in chats, and receive notifications when people vote on polls. These new features are designed to make it easier for groups to gather information and make decisions together.

The forwarding media feature now allows users to keep, delete, or completely rewrite captions when sharing photos between chats. This feature also enables users to add captions to photos and videos when forwarding them.

Lastly, Whatsapp said the new option to add captions to shared documents is useful when sending newspaper articles or work documents, as it gives a little more context to the shared file.

The updates are currently rolling out to users globally and will be available to everyone in the coming weeks.

Flexible workspaces expected to grow 22% in five years: IndiQube-CRE Matrix report

The flexible workspace market in India is expected to reach 126 million square feet (msf) by 2027, from its current size of 46.7 msf, a compounded-annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22%.

The report revealed that the co-working inventory in Bengaluru is nearly equivalent to the sum of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and National Capital Region (NCR).

The report also highlighted the emergence of flexible workspace solutions in Tier II cities, as well as an increasing number of developers incorporating flex spaces into their office strategies.

It predicts that workspaces will become closer to employees' homes, reflecting the trend towards remote work that has accelerated during the pandemic.