A round-up of India’s tech startup news headlines from across January, February and March, Q1 2022
- Technology, startup and funding-related news
- Headlines linked to each online article in full
- Quarterly collection for January, February and March 2022
- Free-to-read online news sources linked
- Articles, reports, downloads, commentary and beyond
January 2022 | February 2022 | March 2022
See our other editions for the variety of channels we publish to.
India: March 2022
- India: Accenture launches Women Founders Program to assist early-stage women-led Indian tech startups focusing on the B2B space
- India: WazirX cryptocurrency exchange unveils BUIDL, build-your-own exchange program for crypto entrepreneurs, providing tech guidance and more
- Download: ‘India’s $1 Trillion Digital Asset Opportunity – Embracing Web 3.0 Could be a Watershed Moment for India’ (pdf)
- India: Upswing raises $4M with open finance ecosystem enablement focused on the B2B space, following a modular, plug-and-play approach to finance-as-a-service
- India: National Startup Awards 2022 are open for applications from both startups and ecosystem enablers
- India: MeitY Startup Hub and Google unveil 100-strong cohort of early to mid-stage startups for Appscale Academy program, aiming to create high-quality apps for global audiences
- India: Amrita University launches smartphone-connected device wearable health monitoring device for home use
- India: Filo raises $23M Series A with instant live-tutoring platform that connects students with subject-expert tutors in less than 60 seconds
- India: Otipy raises $32M, sourcing fruit and vegetables directly from farmers and using local community members and businesses as its delivery partners
- India: CredoPay fintech raises $5M Pre-A with payment suite including platform-as-a-services and SaaS for banks, fintechs, merchants and beyond
- India: Assam State Gov’t and Small Industries Development Bank of India to create a joint fund to support start-up businesses, with support infrastructure in colleges and universities
- Gov’t launches the India WaterPitch-Pilot-Scale Start-up Challenge, aiming for 100 startup solutions in water security, transportation, contamination and capacity
- India: Ninjacart sets $25M fund for investments in agri-tech startups
- India: BeatOven secures $1M seed funding with AI-backed platform focused on creators and producers for advertising, marketing and more
- India: A brief intro to Spetrol, building an IoT-backed door-to-door diesel delivery service aiming for over 300 customers across Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka
- India: A look at Blue Circle, invite-only social networking platform for C-suite executives and senior management
- India: Delhi gov’t announces startup policy, including funding for incubation centre, with aim to connect innovators with banks and investors for funding
- India: BOLT, the country’s largest EV charging network, sets sights on deploying 100K charging points over the next 6 months, focusing on non-metro cities
- India: FanCraze cricket-focused NFT company raises $100M in new funding, building on recent release of 75 NFT-based moments from the ICC Men’s World Cup
- India’s GOQii raises $10M from Animoca Brands with plans for health-focused metaverse using blockchain tokens and gamification in preventive healthcare
- India: An intro to the 32 Indian tech startups selected for the Y Combinator accelerator Winter 2022 cohort, predominantly focused on fintech
India: February 2022
- India: Scaler Academy raises $55M Series B with edtech platform focused on helping college students and tech professionals upgrade their skills
- India: Finance minister announces the country will launch a digital version of the rupee, potentially this year, and a 30% tax on income from digital assets
- India: Media-Tech Accelerator launched by IIIT Hyderabad and Arka Media Works, seeking startups in virtual production, Web3, media and journalism
- India: Invact Metaversity, new project from former Twitter India head, raises funding on valuation of $33M with ‘immersive virtual MBA platform’
- India: An intro to CoutLoot, social commerce firm helping SMEs and street vendors sell online, cataloguing offline inventory for online sale and providing logistics, payments and more
- Digital currencies: “…could end up reducing the importance of intermediaries such as card networks, payments gateways and even people involved in reconciling payments…”
- India: Gov’t bans 54 more apps of Chinese origin from publishers including Tencent and Alibaba citing surveillance and espionage concerns around data transmission and storage
- India: A look at Hyderabad’s levels of public surveillance, the highest in the country with 500,000 cameras, compared with New Delhi’s 5000 cameras
- India and digital currency: ‘India needs to solve the problem of enforceability of small value commercial contracts through CBDC [but] does not need CBDC for wholesale payments…’
- India: NXP India Tech Startup Challenge 2022 launches, backed by gov’t, to boost startups in IP, processor development, semiconductors and embedded products
- India’s Tata Consultancy Svcs launches Digital Garage innovation and digital collab centre in Sydney, Australia, to bring the firm’s global capabilities to the Australian market
- India: SmartCoin micro-lending startup raises near $7M Series B with small-ticket personal loans to merchants, the self-employed, SMEs and others
- India: Krishify raises $3.5M with platform allowing farmers, rural communities and other agri-stakeholders to discover, interact and transact among themselves
- India: An intro to STEMROBO, helping students to learn, program and experiment in STEM-robotics, with 1500 schools now running in-class education and coding sessions
- India’s Bharti Airtel telco giant takes stake in Singapore’s Aqilliz blockchain platform, aiming to implement at scale across primarily advertising endpoints
- India: Bhanzu raises $2M with mathematics-focused edtech delivered via live online sessions, clocking over 1M student teaching hours to date
- Malaysia’s Curlec fintech firm has majority stake taken by India’s Razorpay, widening Razorpay’s regional growth moves
India: January 2022
- India: AIC-SMUTBI selected as first incubator from Northeast India to become part of Startup India Seedfund portfolio, serving 73 startups from across the region
- IndiaTech, industry association representing consumer internet startups, writes to Finance Minister for clarity on crypto taxation, hoping to clarify crypto vs digital asset status
- ICYMI: Startup India Innovation Week is taking place this week, January 10-16 2022
- India: An intro to Sea6 Energy’s Sea Combine, an automated catamaran that simultaneously harvests and replants seaweed in the ocean
- India: Agility Ventures angel investor network gains Securities and Exchange Board of India approval for $60M angel fund, looking at 3-4 years’ worth of startup investments
- India: Pepper Farms raises $1M with end-to-end virtual management of a growing network of vegetable farms, combining small and fragmented farms into a single market entity
- India: Rupeek raises $34M with lending against gold as collateral, aiming to monetise India’s $1.5TN privately-held stores of the precious metal
- “Indian SaaS firms could corner about 8% to 9% of the global market by 2025, churning out as much as $30 billion in annual revenues…”
- India: MedPiper Technologies launches MConnekt, a web-based platform where doctors can ‘discover, engage, and connect’ with digital health platforms whilst seeking work opportunities
- India: Turnip raises $12.5M with mobile-first gaming community platform supporting slow ‘net connections and basic devices, looking at Web3, tokenization, NFTs and more
- India: National Startup Awards unveils 46 firms selected for 2021 awards, evaluated across 6 parameters including social impact
- India: IIM Udaipur launches Climate Change Innovation Grant for eligible startups, with applications closing February 11th
- India: Ministry of Electronics and Information opens Chips to Startup Programme, aiming to train 85K engineers in bid to boost domestic semiconductor industry
- India’s nCore games firm raises $10M in round led by Animoca Brands and Galaxy Interactive, with portfolio of gaming studios and sights on NFTs, the metaverse and tokenization
- India: StockGro gains $32M Series A funding with ‘social investment platform’ that also helps users to learn about and participate in stock markets
- India: Delhi gov’t partners Camp K12 edtech startup to bring coding and 21st-century skills to schools, rolling out a a coding curriculum on school campuses
- India: Reevoy raises $4M with platform helping importers source products from Indian exporters, whilst also providing working capital to finance transactions
- India: National Payments Corporation is testing a new solution for Unified Payments Interface framework to enable digital payments without active internet connections
- India: T-Series music label partners Hefty Entertainment for Hefty Metaverse NFT project, focusing on Hungama’s 90M active users, and Hefty’s 395M YouTube subscribers
- Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry, Indian Angel Network and others join to launch $150M UAE-focused startup fund
- India: 6th edition of Sequoia Surge unveils 20 tech startups from sectors including cybersecurity, digital payments, education-tech and more
- India: Our Food raises $6M with franchise model allowing farmers to run regional crop-specific processing, procuring and processing material from multiple farmers from nearby villages
- India: iMocha raises $14M Series A with AI-driven simulators, interviewing tools, and talent analytics to help organisations find job-matched candidates
- India: Ola ride-share platform to expand Ola Dash ‘quick commerce’ service with 500 new ‘dark stores’ – online order fulfilment facilities – in 20 cities over the next 6 months
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