Startup news and updates: Daily roundup (November 16, 2023)

Funding News

Happy Nature raises $300K in pre-Series A round

Happy Nature, a D2C brand offering farm fresh milk, dairy, and breakfast essentials, has raised $300,000 in a pre-Series A funding round led by Inflection Point Ventures.

The company will use the investment to expand its sales, marketing, and branding efforts to accelerate sales growth, enhance branding, and strengthen customer engagement initiatives.

Happy Nature is a sustainable breakfast company that operates in various cities and serves over 1,000 customers daily. The company uses tamper-proof packaging and an in-house last-mile delivery system for food safety.

Other News

CHARGE+ZONE unveils 360KW SuperCharging Station

EV charging company Charge+Zone has launched SuperCharging Network, offering EV charging solutions.

The first stations will be operational in Mumbai and CCD, Vellore, in November 2023, and will have amenities such as washrooms, restaurants, and shopping facilities.

The stations are equipped with 180 KW dual gun chargers and 360 KW power cabinets, with four guns delivering 60 KW each at 200 Amp and one gun delivering 500 A (DC) current with liquid cooling. These superchargers convert alternating current to direct current, supplying high-power DC voltage and current to EV batteries for swift charging.

CHARGE+ZONE is also expanding its supercharger network in Chennai, South India, to provide charging options for truck and bus fleet operators. The expansion is part of its strategy to establish over 150 superchargers across the country.

The Tamil Nadu Electricity Board has laid a dedicated EV tariff line, while CHARGE+ZONE has installed a separate substation at CCD Vellore. By March 2023, CHARGE+ZONE had over 3,200 charging points across 1,600 EV charging stations in 37 Indian cities. The company aims to reach one million charging points by 2030.

GoKwik partners with Easebuzz for payment solutions

GoKwik, an ecommerce enabler, has partnered with Easebuzz Payments Platform to provide brands with a suite of payment solutions. As GoKwik’s Smart COD Suite offers COD while keeping RTO in check, this strategic collaboration with Easebuzz will enable online payment acceptance through diverse options such as UPI, credit cards, debit cards, and eNACH for EMI and wallets, with industry-best payment success rates.

As a result of this collaboration, GoKwik claimed that it has achieved the industry's best success rates on its prepaid payment suite, especially on UPI which is the second most preferred payment mode after cash on delivery (COD) in the ecommerce industry.

In addition to this, GoKwik and Easebuzz are also committing themselves to providing a seamless onboarding experience for businesses, automated reconciliation of transactions, 24x7 merchant support, same-day settlements, and instant refunds thereby bringing operational efficiency for merchant brands on the GoKwik network.

Google introduces Notes

Google has launched a new experiment called Notes, allowing users to view and share tips alongside search results. The experiment is being released through Google's Search Labs, which offers early previews of experimental features for users to test new capabilities not yet widely available.

The Labs experiment aims to offer tips from experts and everyday people about articles or topics, helping users narrow down relevant information and learn from previous experiences. Users can access helpful tips by tapping the "Notes" button below search results in the Google app or on articles on Discover.

They can also create notes to share their experience with a helpful page, using elements like text, stickers, and photos, and choosing from different visual styles to make their note feel unique.

Google has previously conducted search experiments through Labs, including its conversational AI assistant, Bard.

61% of Indian organisations lag in skilling alignment and innovation adoption: Report

Only 39% of organisations focus on identifying current and future skilling needs, aligned with business strategy, indicating a need for comprehensive action to master skills intelligence, reveals a Talent Health Index Report by Cornerstone.

Many Indian organisations are underperforming in talent development initiatives, highlighting the need for a comprehensive talent strategy to bridge the skills gap and adapt to workplace changes.

The report noted that organisations in India have room for talent program improvement, with an average THI ranking them in the 'Administrative' maturity level. However, they are slow to adopt emerging talent innovation, with only 17% using learner-centric tools to streamline talent processes and information, and over 55% not yet leveraging AI technology to optimise talent.

Salesforce collaborates with Ministry of Education

Salesforce has partnered with India's Ministry of Education to train 1,00,000 students using Trailhead, Salesforce's free online learning platform, by 2026, aiming to make Salesforce skills accessible to next-generation Trailblazers and generate new talent in the Salesforce ecosystem.

The program offers industry-relevant, National Occupation Standard course content, including "train-the-trainer" engagements, mentorship, employment connections to Salesforce partners, and a Salesforce-supported Virtual Internship. Modules will be customised on Trailhead based on program requirements by the Ministry of Education, affiliated departments, organisations, and agencies.

IIT Delhi, IIM Ahmedabad students win Accenture Innovation Challenge 2023

Students of IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad have won the top spots at the 2023 Accenture Innovation Challenge in the engineering and business schools categories.

The competition, which aimed to inspire students to develop innovative technology-led solutions for real-world problems, saw more than 182,000 students from over 6,600 colleges participate, with 37% being women.

The students used advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, automation, cloud, blockchain, internet of things, and digital twins to create novel solutions. The grand prize-winning teams received prizes worth Rs 100,000 each, while the first runner-up and second runner-up teams received Rs 75,000 and Rs 50,000, respectively.

Fireflies.ai launches mobile app

Fireflies.ai, an AI notetaker, has launched a mobile app for iOS and Android, bringing its advanced transcription and meeting summarisation capabilities to in-person meetings.

The app, which has already been used by over 10 million people on video conferencing platforms, allows users to record, transcribe, summarise, search, and analyse in-person meetings with over 90% accuracy in over 60 languages.

It syncs seamlessly with the Fireflies web app, allowing users to access meeting notes and transcripts anytime, anywhere. Users can review transcripts, listen to recordings, skim summaries, and collaborate with teammates on the go.

It offers unlimited free transcription for all in-person meetings recorded through the app.

New Relic integrates AI monitoring with Amazon Bedrock

New Relic, an all-in-one observability platform, has integrated its AI monitoring (AIM) solution with Amazon Bedrock, a fully managed service by Amazon Web Services.

AIM provides customers with greater visibility and insights across the AI stack, enabling them to troubleshoot and optimise their applications for performance, quality, and cost. AIM addresses the challenges and complexity of AI tech stacks, including large language models (LLMs) and vector data stores and generates additional telemetry for tracking quality and cost.

AIM offers engineers full visibility into all components of the AI stack, allowing them to troubleshoot, compare, and optimise different LLM prompts and responses for performance, cost, tokens, and quality issues across all models supported by Amazon Bedrock.

Bertelsmann India Investments appoints Swati Murarka as Principal

Bertelsmann India Investments (BII) has appointed Swati Murarka as its principal, bolstering its investment team.

With over 11 years of experience in technology infrastructure, AI, SaaS, and consumer companies, Murarka is an experienced investor and mentor. She focuses on identifying and nurturing promising startups, collaborating with entrepreneurs who embrace first-principle thinking, and creating an environment for ground-breaking and transformative ventures.

BII has opened two new offices in Gurugram and Bengaluru, with Murarka operating in Bengaluru.

T-Hub unveils T-Scale for Series A startups, establishes six partnerships

T-Hub celebrated its 8th Foundation Day with a focus on "Infinite Innovation," highlighting its $3.5 billion investment in startups over the past eight years.

The event featured more than 600 corporate partnerships, 500 mentor connections, and over 3,000 startups engaged. Distinguished guests included Jayesh Ranjan, IAS Principal Secretary of Telangana, BVR Mohan Reddy, Mahankali Srinivas Rao, Vamsi Reddy, Raj P Narayanam, Sujith Jagirdar, and Anish Anthony.

T-Hub also announced partnerships with CARE, Carrier Global, SIDBI, FalconX, KPMG, and the Association of Geospatial Industries, spanning social business acceleration, design thinking infusion, cross-border startup support, investment ecosystem fueling, and geospatial and space tech innovation sectors.

GBA Group acquires stake in Eureka Analytical Services 

GBA Group has acquired a stake in Eureka Analytical Services, marking the company's entry into the Indian food, pharma, and environment testing market. The food TIC market in India is estimated at Rs 1,800-2,000 crore, growing at a rate of 12% per annum.

Eureka, with GBA as a shareholder, plans to enhance its international food market presence by expanding its offerings to international customers, upgrading and scaling its testing platforms, and engaging with pharmaceutical customers.

Arctic Invent unveils dashboard on Indian E-Vehicle Patent Filing landscape

Arctic Invent, an IP agency, has released a comprehensive dashboard on the Indian E-Vehicle Patent Filing Landscape, providing a detailed analysis of the current patent landscape in India's growing electric mobility sector.

The dashboard highlights key Indian e-vehicle patent players, with Honda Motor leading with 867 IPR holdings. Other notable companies include Nissan Motor, LG Chem, TATA, Toyota Motor, Renault, Suzuki Motor, TVs Motor, Mahindra and Mahindra, Mitsubishi Group, Bajaj Auto, Toshiba, Panasonic, Daimler, Siemens, General Electric, and Robert Bosch.

Arctic Invent's dashboard provides valuable insights into trends, players, and technologies shaping India's electric mobility future, benefiting industry stakeholders, researchers, and enthusiasts.

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