Startup news and updates: Daily Roundup (March 1, 2024)

Funding News

CredShields secures $1M from Draper Associates

CredShields, a blockchain security solutions, has secured a $1 million strategic investment from Draper Associates to develop SolidityScan, a tool for automating and streamlining smart contract audits, thereby enhancing the security of the digital landscape.

The investment will enhance SolidityScan's capabilities, ensuring CredShields stays at the forefront of blockchain security innovation, crucial for fostering a secure, inclusive, and thriving digital future in the growing Web3 space.

Founded by Shashank and Indranil Roy, CredShields focuses on enhancing Web3 security by developing solutions to safeguard digital assets and ensure blockchain transaction integrity.

Marrfa secures pre-Seed funding led by Foundamental

Marrfa has closed its Pre-Seed funding round, led by Berlin-based Foundamental, and received significant investment from Prashant Malik, General Partner at Tykhe Block Ventures, in his individual capacity.

With this fresh round of funding Marrfa plans to disrupt conventional real estate investment models. 

Founded by serial entrepreneur Jamil Ahmed, Marrfa aims to simplify the discovery of high-yield, cross-border investment opportunities by providing a platform that offers comprehensive information, empowering retail investors to make informed decisions, and tackling the complexities of the vast unstructured cross-border real estate market.

Other News

SG Analytics onboards Dr Das Dasgupta to its advisory board

SG Analytics, a global data solutions company, has appointed Dr Das Dasgupta to its advisory board.

In his role, he will contribute to company's data analytics and strategy initiatives, providing expert guidance on customer experience programs.

Dasgupta, with over two decades of experience in data strategy, has assembled top-tier teams and implemented AI and ML technologies for data-driven decision-making. His career spans across various companies, including Viacom, Amazon, McKinsey, EY, and most recently, as Chief Data Officer at Saatchi & Saatchi.

Cult launches the Fit Creator Accelerator

Fitness brand Cult has launched the 'Fit Creator Accelerator' campaign to foster a community of fitness influencers, inviting nano, micro, and macro-influencers to showcase their fitness content on Cult's official social media.

Influencers must submit a fitness and content creation form, which is then evaluated by Hrithik Roshan, a panelist for FCA. Six winners will be chosen to form the inaugural batch of the FCA campaign.

The FCA initiative empowers fitness influencers to create and share engaging content, enhancing visibility and gaining traction on social media. It aims to create micro-communities that make fitness a lifestyle for millions of Indians.

Laqshya Group appoints Rayomand J Patell as Group Chief Creative Officer

Laqshya Group has appointed Rayomand J Patell as its new Group Chief Creative Officer.

Rayomand, a creative leader at agencies like SSC&B Lintas, Contract Advertising, Havas, and Idealake, has experience in technology.

He will be the arrowhead of the Laqshya Group's creative offering in partnership with Manas Mohan, CEO of DigitaLabs.

GitHub helping open source developers prevent secret leaks

GitHub has detected over 1 million leaked secrets in the first eight weeks of 2024, posing significant security, reputation, and legal risks. Since August, cloud users can opt-in to secret scanning push protection, which automatically blocks commits when a secret is detected.

The push protection rollout has begun for all users this week, enabling them to remove a supported secret from their commits or bypass the block if safe. This change may take a week or two to apply, but users can verify status early.

Its advanced security customers scan over 95% of pushes to private repositories to protect reputation, revenue, and legal exposure from leaked secrets. They also believe public repositories and coder reputation are worth protecting.

Users can disable push protection entirely in their user security settings, but it's recommended to leave it enabled and make exceptions as needed, as it always retains the option to bypass the block.

Google collaborates with fact checkers to weed out misinformation in elections

Google is partnering with Indian fact checkers to detect online misinformation, including deepfakes, and establish a common repository for news publishers to use during elections.

It has pledged to support the Shakti, India Election Fact-Checking Collective, a consortium of Indian news publishers and fact checkers, in its efforts to combat misinformation and aid in early detection of online misinformation, including deepfakes, the company said in a blog post.

Google is partnering with fact checkers to create a common repository for news publishers to share and amplify fact-checks in multiple Indian languages and formats, including videos, to reach a wider audience and tackle misinformation at scale.