Employees stuck in BYJU’S’ chaos; Safeguarding personal data during breach

Would you trust AI to find you the perfect match?

Dating app Tinder released its newest AI-powered feature, Photo Selector, that scans the camera roll for the most ‘Tinder-worthy’ shots for profiles, even taking lighting and composition of photos into account. It wants to help singles pick their primary profile picture fast.

While many of us still weigh the pros and cons of AI, the government and entrepreneurs are bullish on the technology.

Google is collaborating with MeitY Startup Hub to support 10,000 Indian startups in their AI journeys. Ola Co-founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal also believes prioritising AI and new energy technologies can propel India towards a $50-trillion economy by 2047.

However, AI is breathing down creators’ necks.

OpenAI’s text-to-video AI generator Sora published new videos, flexing its visual muscles—from dreamscapes to skateboarding bears—and illustrating with these reality-bending videos its potential to disrupt filmmaking and advertising.

Game creators too are wary of the technology’s popularity in light of gaming industry heavyweights such as Electronic Arts and Ubisoft investing in it to save development time and provide a more personalised user experience. Some fear they could end up supplementing AI’s efforts.

Gaming itself though remains highly popular despite ad breaks. A Comscore and Anzu report showed that 45% of gamers don’t mind watching regular or pop-up ads that offer them in-game rewards. 

Back home, while online gaming companies are hoping for a tax breather soon, the taxman isn’t going away anytime soon. 

Nazara Technologies shared in an exchange filing that two of its subsidiaries—Openplay Technologies and Halaplay Technologies—are facing GST liability notices totalling nearly Rs 1,120 crore. The calculation of GST is based on sums pooled by players rather than gross gaming revenues, according to the company.

Lastly, Tamil Nadu Story 2024—YourStory’s flagship platform to empower the startups and homegrown brands of Tamil Nadu—is just a day away. Check out what’s on the agenda here.

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• BYJU’S employees speed up job hunt
• Safeguarding personal data during breach
• Dharana Capital’s $50M bet on Urban Company

Here’s your trivia for today: What is the most expensive share in the Indian stock market?

Edtech

BYJU’S employees speed up job hunt

Investor troubles, work culture, and industry decline have led many BYJU'S employees to depart, now with the NCLT admitting bankruptcy proceedings against the once edtech giant, remaining workers are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Jobs are tough to come by, and with the firm facing financial troubles, employees are unsure if their pending dues will be processed.

Key takeaways:

• On July 16, the NCLT admitted a plea filed by the BCCI to initiate a corporate insolvency resolution process for Think and Learn Private Limited, the parent company of BYJU’S.
• At its peak, BYJU’S employed over 50,000 people, which has since nosedived and the current employee count is estimated to be around 7,000.
• Those with tech and product backgrounds have largely transitioned to new roles, however, employees in the larger sales domain are facing greater difficulty in finding new opportunities.

<Funding Alert>

Startup: Urban Company

Amount: $50M

Round: Secondary transaction 

Startup: Auxilo Finserve

Amount: $30M

Round: Undisclosed

Startup: Seeds Fincap

Amount: $8.5M

Round: Series A

Startup

Safeguarding personal data

Founded in 2019 by Anshu Sharma and Prakash Khot, Skyflow is a data privacy vault built to simplify how companies isolate, protect, and govern their customers’ most sensitive data. 

Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, the company mainly offers a privacy-focused data storage solution for companies looking to securely implement LLMs to safeguard and manage sensitive customer information. 

Stay safe:

• Skyflow’s technology ensures that in the event of a breach, its customers' personal information remains secure and inaccessible to unauthorised parties.
• The platform is built by its proprietary technology called 'polymorphic encryption', a security technology that constantly changes how data is encrypted. 
• Skyflow raised $30 million to extend its Series B funding in 2021 led by Khosla Ventures, along with earlier investors Mouro Capital, Foundation Capital, and Canvas Ventures.

Funding

Dharana Capital’s $50M bet on Urban Company

Dharana Capital, a Bengaluru-based investment firm, has acquired shares worth around $50 million in Urban Company through a significant secondary transaction. This is Urban Company's largest ESOP liquidity transaction, with shares acquired from employees and other shareholders.

Transaction:

• In May, Urban Company announced its fifth ESOP sale programme involving a secondary transaction of around Rs 203 crore. 
• This allowed current and former employees to liquidate their vested stocks, with Dharana Capital, Vy Capital, and Prosus purchasing these shares.
• Founded in 2014 by Abhiraj Bhal, Raghav Chandra, and Varun Khaitan, Urban Company is a marketplace for home services, operating in 62 cities across India, the UAE, Singapore, and Saudi Arabia.

News & updates

• Hard labour: Amazon’s warehouses are especially dangerous for workers during the company’s annual Prime Day event, as well as the holiday season, according to an investigation by the US Senate. A committee found that such events at Amazon are characterised by an “extremely high volume” of work and “intense pressure to work long hours and ignore safety guidelines.”
• Tech deal: GitLab, a US provider of cloud-based software development tools whose investors include Google parent Alphabet, is exploring a sale after attracting acquisition interest. It is working with investment bankers on a sale process that has reportedly attracted interest from peers, including cloud monitoring firm Datadog.
• Mo' money: When it comes to money buying happiness, more is better. That’s according to new research from Wharton School arguing that the correlation between wealth and well-being does not plateau once incomes reach a certain point. The research noted both millionaires and billionaires are significantly happier than people earning more than $500,000 a year.

What is the most expensive share in the Indian stock market?

Answer: MRF Ltd. As of July 17, 2024, its share price was Rs 1,33,181.60 on the NSE.

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