EV batteries get a second life; Luxury chocolates for couples

Hello,

Something old, something new at Ola.

Ola Cabs is rebranding to Ola Consumer as the company spreads its wings beyond mobility. 

It has launched Ola Coin, a loyalty programme for users across mobility, ecommerce and logistics services, and also relaunched its shared cabs feature.

The company also has massive ambitions for its AI venture Krutrim, which will design and develop India’s first AI silicon chips by 2026 to manage complex AI tasks and workloads.

Also, just a few days after its blockbuster listing on the Indian stock market, e-scooter maker Ola Electric is tapping into the electric motorcycle segment. The company has launched ‘Roadster’ series of motorcycles priced between Rs 74,999 and Rs 2 lakh.

Moving on, Flipkart continues to deliver for Walmart.

The US-based retailer, whose international revenue (including Flipkart, PhonePe, and Myntra) grew by 8.3% YoY in the April-June 2024 quarter, said that Flipkart delivered double-digit topline growth and positive contribution margin.

ICYMI: X’s new AI image generator is going berserk and sparing no one.

Lastly, TechSparks 2024—YourStory’s flagship startup-tech summit—will decode the next phase of growth with our theme: Building Bharat: Level 3.0.

Grab your First Movers pass now for the grand 15th edition to be held in Bengaluru on September 26-28.

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Giving EV batteries a second life
• Luxury chocolates for couples
• An AI chatbot for women's health

Here’s your trivia for today: How many days does Tour de France last?

Startup

Giving EV batteries a second life

At the end of their lifecycle, some EV batteries are improperly disposed of, which can pollute the environment and harm plants, animals, and humans, while others are recycled.

This is where the technology developed by BatX Energies comes in. The startup recycles lithium-ion batteries to mine critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, and nickel, which are then used to make new lithium batteries. 

Circular economy:

• BatX has developed an in-house proprietary process that produces black mass—a mixture of valuable metals, including lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese, produced while recycling used lithium batteries—with less than 1% impurities.
• The startup spends most of its capital sourcing used batteries, either from EVs or consumer electronics. It sources batteries from across the country as well as from Malaysia, the UK, Germany, and the Philippines.
• BatX is currently working towards bringing its higher-capacity hydrometallurgy plant live and expanding its black mass production capacity to 10,000 metric tonnes from the current 3,000 metric tonnes. 

Startup

Luxury chocolates for couples

Coimbatore-based entrepreneur couple Praween KR and Sindhuja K want to build on the strong connection between chocolates and love with their brand of artisanal chocolates laden with nuts, berries and natural aphrodisiacs. 

Born in June last year, TheCocoLove is bootstrapped with an initial investment of Rs 20 lakh from personal savings.

Made with love:

• TheCocoLove offers four variants of chocolate—Crunchel, filled with quinoa pops and cashews; Enchanted with cranberries and almonds; Fruition, packed with hazelnuts and raisins; and Velveto, filled with pure cocoa. 
• The brand has an R&D facility in Mumbai and a manufacturing facility in Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh. It sources cocoa beans from Idukki, Kerala, and other ingredients from farms in northern India.
• It fulfilled around 5,500 orders in six months since January when it started selling its products. In the first quarter of 2024, it achieved sales of Rs 50 lakh. About 60% of its sales come from women.

Health

An AI chatbot for women's health

Myna Bolo is an LLM-powered chatbot that claims to provide medically accurate information on the sexual and reproductive health of women on topics such as family planning, pregnancy, infertility, and menstrual hygiene.

Source of information:

• The chatbot is being developed by a Mumbai-based women’s organisation Myna Mahila Foundation, which has been working in the area of women’s health since 2015. It is built on OpenAI’s ChatGPT4 model.
• Local women from the community are validating the chatbot's response in terms of understanding and offering localised responses. This approach aligns with the human-in-the-loop strategy for accuracy and human empathy.
• “The bot responses are continuously monitored by medical professionals to mitigate any risks. This will soon also be supported by an automated system set up for real-time checking,” says Tanvi Divate, Lead and Director of the chatbot project.

News & updates

• Outperformance: Cisco shares jumped in extended trading after the networking company said it’s cutting 7% of its global workforce and reported quarterly results that topped analysts’ estimates. It said in a filing that it’s implementing a restructuring plan that will result in $1 billion in pretax charges to its financial results 
• Chip design: SoftBank held talks with Intel about producing an AI chip to compete with Nvidia but the plan foundered after the US chipmaker struggled to meet the Japanese group’s requirements. SoftBank is now focusing on discussions with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, the world’s largest contract chipmaker.
• AI acting: The Hollywood actors’ union SAG-AFTRA announced a deal with online talent marketplace Narrativ that enables actors to sell advertisers rights to replicate their voices with AI. The new agreement seeks to ensure actors derive income from the technology and have control over how and when their voice replicas are used.

How many days does Tour de France last?

Answer: 21.

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