CreditVidya raises $3 M; Which phones do Indians love?

Tuesday January 29, 2019 , 3 min Read

Fintech startup CreditVidya raised funding of $3 million in a round led by Bharat Innovation Fund, with participation from the founding members of Falcon Edge Capital - Ryan Khoury, Navroz D.Udwadia and Rick Gerson. This is an extension of its $5 million Series B round, which was raised in September 2017 led by Matrix Partners. With the new capital, the startup plans to expand its credit underwriting services to companies in various sectors that are looking to extend credit facilities to their customers.

Indians prefer mid-range phones more than budget ones

Although budget phones are still widely bought in India, a new generation of smartphone buyers, interested in better features and better design, are eyeing the mid-range phone segment, between Rs 10,000 and Rs 20,000. The findings are based on research conducted by gadget discovery site 91Mobiles, who found out that almost 50 percent of users looked up phones in the mid-range segment. In comparison, less than 30 percent of people on their site were interested in budget phones.

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Meet the Monopoly Man

When Google CEO Sundar Pichai was being questioned about the company’s data practices, privacy policies, and transparency at a Congressional hearing last month, there was another person in the same room who put up a spectacular show - the Monopoly Man. A popular board game character, Monopoly man has been brought to life by Washington DC-based policy lawyer Ian Madrigal. In conversation with YourStory, Madrigal sheds light on their brand of ‘cause-play’ and their hopes from Monopoly Man ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

WhatsApp will roll out new features

In a move to win over more users, WhatsApp is rolling out a host of new features for both WhatsApp mobile app and WhatsApp Web in the weeks to come. These new features would include a fingerprint lock, a dark mode (to reduce the pressure on your eyes at night), 3D touch action, a revamped audio picker, private reply option, sticker integration, and picture-on-picture – a feature that will allow users to watch videos without exiting WhatsApp.

The OYO of learning

Founded by Manish Dhooper and Kunal Malik, Planet Spark is a Gurugram-based edtech startup that aims to transform traditional tuitions for KG to Class 8 students by combining physical teaching with mobile technology. It follows an OYO-like model to blend the gamified learning aspect with offline teachers. With this ‘blended’ learning approach; the startup is looking to establish a presence in 10 cities with 20,000 learning centres in the next three years.