Startup news and updates: daily roundup (May 12, 2023)

Funding

InCore Semiconductors raises $3M from Sequoia Capital India

InCore Semiconductors, a fabless-semiconductor startup focused on building RISC-V-based processor solutions, has raised $3 million in a seed funding round from Sequoia Capital India.

The company will use the funds raised to enhance its portfolio of Core-Hub generators and reference SoC (System-on-Chip) platforms aimed at multiple segments of the embedded chips space.

Launched in 2018, the company enables its customers with turnkey processor IP solutions for strategic industrial segments like automotive, industrial automation, and general electronics.

“With a scalable, configurable, and extensible methodology, InCore's RISC-V processor IP solutions can cater to a wide range of applications, including embedded systems, IoT devices, and industrial controllers," said GS Madhusudan, CEO, InCore Semiconductors.

"Incore’s team has sowed the seeds of India’s dream for indigenous processors with Project Shakti at IIT Madras and are experts in the R&D and industrial corridors. We are excited to partner with them on this journey,” said Mohit Bhatnagar, MD, Sequoia India.

Healthtech startup earKart raises undisclosed pre-Series A funding

EarKart, a healthcare technology company providing smart diagnosis and remote management of hearing aids, has raised an undisclosed amount in a pre-Series A funding round led by Agility Ventures.

The round also saw participation from other investors, including Blume Ventures. With this funding, earKart has raised a total of Rs 7.6 crore so far. The startup also counts Ashneer Grover as its first lead angel investor.

"We are excited to have Agility Ventures and other investors on board with us. Their support will help us expand our reach and make our services available to more patients who need them," Rohit Misra, Founder of earKart, said.

"We aim to use the funding to build our technology infrastructure and expand our team to serve our growing customer base," he added

Founded in 2021 by Rohit Misra and Priyadarshi Jha, earKart aims to cater to the patient population suffering from hearing loss, which is estimated to be around 98.5 million people in India, of which over 60% do not have access to audiological services, making it difficult for them to get the help they need.

Instaminutes secures $500k in seed funding from India Quotient

Instaminutes, the creator of the eponymous AI-powered meeting tool that intelligently summarizes meetings, has raised $500,000 in a seed round from India Quotient.

Instaminutes aims to bridge the time consumption and coordination gap experienced in virtual meetings and online conferences in the post-pandemic world, and provide a secure solution by integrating the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Developed using the ChatGPT4 architecture, the tool analyses conversations in real-time and can generate a summary of key points, action items, and decisions made during the meetings.

Co-founded by Shivam Gupta, an alumnus of IIT Roorkee, and Akshat Anand, who graduated from IIT Kanpur, Instaminutes offers tech startups a solution tailored to bring together the necessary features for optimal productivity, to ensure proper coordination and oneness within the team even in a remote setting.

“Our long-term vision is to build the first trainable AI work assistant. One can think of Instaminutes as their own, personalised version of ChatGPT that they can train and finetune for their teams,” says CEO of Instaminutes, Shivam Gupta.

Other news

PayNearby launches meta commerce platform for small businesses and consumers

PayNearby, a branchless banking and digital network, has launched PayNearby Mall—a meta commerce platform, to enable the easy availability of goods and services in an assisted mode at the last mile. This will soon be integrated with the Open Network For Digital Commerce (ONDC) platform.

The company has shared that more than 6,000+ retailers have already upgraded themselves into a mall and more than 100+ retailers have ordered over 250+ orders. The most popular categories included mobile phones and accessories, home appliances, groceries and textiles while many searched for two-wheelers as well. PayNearby Mall is envisioned as a meta-commerce platform that will help retailers expand their market, run a more profitable business with no additional working capital requirement and use technology to make all forms of services available at the last mile.

“PayNearby Mall is an initiative to elevate every trusted small store in India into a super mall. With this feature, we look to empower local sellers and buyers and give them a user-friendly platform to discover products and sellers, compare prices, and make purchases with ease," Anand Kumar Bajaj, Founder, MD and CEO, PayNearby, said.

WhatsApp ramps up AI/ML defence against international scam calls

In response to the Indian government's call to send notice to WhatsApp on International scam calls, WhatsApp released a statement saying it has quickly ramped up its AI/ML systems to bring down such incidents significantly.

"We continue to provide several safety tools within WhatsApp like Block & Report, consistently build user safety education and awareness, as well as, proactively weed out bad actors from our platform. However, bad actors find different ways to scam users. International scam calls is a new way that bad actors have recently adopted. By giving a missed call, they lead curious users to call or message back only to get scammed," the statement read.

WhatsApp said its new enforcement will reduce the current calling rate by at least 50%.

T-Hub collaborates with Collins Aerospace

Hyderabad-based startup ecosystem enabler T-Hub has announced a collaboration with Collins Aerospace.

The collaboration is part of the Powered by Collins initiative, which aims to foster technology innovation with deep tech small-to medium-sized enterprises.

As part of the collaboration, T-Hub has been named the inaugural Activation Site, a designation given annually by the programme for a leading global startup accelerator to support outreach and engagement within a targeted ecosystem.

T-Hub will assist in outreach to top global startups and scaleups with expertise in the four open Collaboration Opportunities: Extravehicular Space Mobility, High-Performance Batteries, Autonomy for Small UAS, and Composites Recycling. Shortlisted companies will be invited to a Collaboration Day with programme leadership from Collins, which could result in funding to execute a rapid proof-of-concept project with one of the Collins Aerospace program teams.

"We are excited to collaborate with Collins Aerospace to drive innovation in the aerospace industry. This initiative presents an opportunity for Indian startups to showcase their capabilities," Mahankali Srinivas Rao, CEO, T-Hub, said.

“T-Hub's track record of supporting the rapidly growing startup ecosystem in India and the Asia-Pacific region aligned with our mission of identifying advanced technologies and solutions with direct applicability to Collins’ products and customers," said Mary Lombardo, Vice President, Advanced Technology for Collins Aerospace.

Blox India to launch new real estate service platform

Blox India is all set to launch REaS, its new real estate service platform. To flag this off, the technology-based real estate buying company will be partnering with VDV Developers for two assets valued at USD 100$ million. These assets, covering an area of approximately 210,000 sq. ft, will be launched this calendar year.

This partnership is a part of Blox's REaS /Development Management platform, which aims to target $500 million worth of revenue potential in projects over the next three years.

Blox recently raised $12 million in its latest series A funding round. This funding round was backed by its existing investors from Silicon Valley, as well as new strategic investors and angels, including Kunal Shah, founder of CRED.

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