April, May & June 2020
Startup India
Startup News Asia’s quarterly collection of India’s startup news gathered across April, May and June 2020.
The headlines listed below are tech-focused startup news headlines from Q2 2020 concerned with India’s startup space in some way – announcements by Indian startups about product releases, pivots or VC funding, or an article detailing an impact on India’s startup space, for instance.
The focus is, obviously, on India; but wider-world tech and startup news headlines are included to provide points-of-reference, food for thought for India’s startups, and to provide wider industry knowledge.
June 2020 | May 2020 | April 2020
June 2020
- India: Two low-cost COVID-19 detection solutions developed by Indian Institute of Technology Delhi gain backing from Microsoft India
- India: A monthly round-up of the country’s, tech, startup and funding news from across May 2020, from Startup News Asia
- India: T-Hub incubator partners China’s OPPO to aid startups scale up, seeking those working in fields including artificial intelligence, 5G, hardware and gaming
- India: OneTouch AppLabs startup’s ‘Remove China Apps’ passes 1M downloads in 10 days of launch due to China’s border incursions in the Himalayas
- India: BankBazaar raises near $6M to add contactless loans solutions to online financial marketplace services
- Indian entrepreneurs to gain from entry of startup-builder Antler, with inaugural program set for H2 2020 launch alongside India-dedicated fund
- India: Gov’t launches AI portal, aiming to provide a one-stop platform for all aspects of the country’s AI-related developments
- India: Gojo & Company, Japanese impact investor, boosts financial inclusion-focused investments with stakes in Satya MicroCapital and Aviom, women-focused lender
- India: Gov’t establishes Empowered Group of Secretaries chaired by cabinet secretary to boost investments into Indian startups and businesses, post-COVID
- India: Inaugural edition of Land Accelerator South Asia set for New Delhi launch in December, focusing on land degradation solutions – cohort to be announced this month
- ICYMI: Facebook inks global licensing deal with one of India’s largest music labels, giving users choice of over 100K songs in 25 languages for Facebook, Instagram posts
- India: A brief overview of Google’s reason for deleting Remove China Apps from the Play Store
- India: An intro to 18 meat-free startups aiming to change the country’s eating habits
- India: Reserve Bank creates $66M Payments Infrastructure Development Fund to improve payments ecosystem in rural and operationally expensive locations
- Uber India head role expands beyond South Asia to also encompass Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand
- India: M12, Microsoft venture arm, opens Bengaluru office to focus on B2B software startups working in AI, business applications, infrastructure, security and more
- India: LovePay fintech to launch at month-end, targeting 13-25-year-olds with under-18s receiving a parent-controlled account, and over-18s a full account
- India: A quick overview of WhatsApp Pay’s challenges, and challengers, in the country’s e-payments space
- India: Gov’t may move to introduce law banning private cryptocurrencies
- India: Draper Startup House launches seed-stage investment syndicate platform, Draper Venture Syndicate Network
- India: Flipkart e-commerce giant, owned by Walmart, to roll out AI-powered voice assistant, supporting Hindi and English and with plans for more languages
- India: Tech Mahindra’s T-Block Accelerator unveils 30 startups selected for first cohort of blockchain-focused program
- India: Rentomojo raises $2.97M with online furniture, appliance and electronics rental platform
- India: Hapramp Studio social network provider gains $1M seed with 3 creator-focused areas – online community, crypto-based reward system, and security and privacy standard
- India joins Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, multi-stakeholder global coalition aiming for ethical development and use of AI
- 8 startups selected for UNICEF Cryptocurrency Fund backing, including 2 from India and 1 from Cambodia
- India: A brief look at 19 startup funding announcements from the week July 15-20, spanning fintech, healthtech, ecommerce and more
- India: An intro to 11 of the country’s fintech startups and scale-ups, working in loans, APIs, home ownership and more
- AngelList India launches EquityList, free platform for founders to manage cap table, documenting a firm’s ownership percentages, equity value in each round and equity dilution
- India: Instasolv gains $2M from Vedantu education-tech company with ‘doubt-solving’ app for high school students
- India: 91springboard coworking space operator raises $5.9M with 27 spaces available nationwide so far
- India: An intro to AIGROEDGE Technologies, combining IoT devices and analytics platform to assess and help improve agricultural conditions
- Download: India Venture Capital Report 2020, from Bain & Company (pdf)
- India: An intro to 4 of the country’s women entrepreneurs, working in electric vehicles, air pollution, sustainable toys and sanitary products
- IndiaRath borderless incubator applications for the Summer 2020 cohort are now open, offering a 24-week program globally
- The Philippines’ Ayannah fintech merges with India’s Electronic Cash and Payments Solutions to focus on digital financial services to SEA’s growing middle class
May 2020
- India: An intro to Carbon Craft Design, partnered with US’ Air-Ink to make tiles from processed airborne pollution
- India: Garuda Aerospace startup selected to deliver automated drone-based sanitisation to disinfect public spaces to contain the spread of coronavirus
- India: Pratilipi vernacular self-publishing firm raises $9.4M led by China’s Tencent, with discovery and reading platform allowing writers to e-publish their works
- India: Pedagogy platform raises $400K with focus on students preparing for engineering and medical entrance exams
- India: YourNest Venture Capital VC firm launches SOAR incubation program, aiming to boost startups in the IT sector with cheques from $250K to $1M
- India: Classplus edtech startup raises $9M Series A with app-based focus on tutor supply
- Data shows India now has more internet users in rural areas than in urban cities – 227M active users, 10% more than urban India’s 205M
- India: LetsVenture launches LetsVenture Plus growth-stage investment platform seeking participation from family offices and ultra-high net-worth individuals
- India: LoanAdda loan aggregator startup gains backing, offering small-ticket loans via mobile app and website
- India: VernacularAI raises $5.1M Series A with multilingual artificial intelligence-driven automation services built on speech recognition
- India: Spyne gains pre-A funding with AI-driven online image editing suite focused on photographers and photography-using businesses
- An intro to the 9 startup solutions selected under the UN Environment Programme’s 2020 Asia-Pacific Low Carbon Lifestyles Challenge
- India: Intello Labs raises $5.9M with AI-backed tools to monitor quality of, and to grade, fruits and vegetables
- India: Stepathlon Lifestyle fitness startup raises funds from 9 global investors, aiming for expansion into fan and community engagement and corporate wellness
- A brief intro to 10 plant-based food tech startups boosted by Germany’s ProVeg Incubator
- India: A look at Whitehat Jr, education-tech startup focused on cloud-based remote learning in STEM subjects
- India: An intro to Evo Foods, food-tech startup focusing on plant-based liquid egg products
- India: An intro to Walrus banking and payments app, offering teens 13 years and over a free bank account, debit card, and ability to request money from friends
- India: Pradhan Mantri e-VIDYA initiative for digitally-delivered education launched, allowing the country’s top 100 universities to run online courses, along with startup opportunities
- India: Khatabook fintech raises $60M with 8M active merchants across 11 languages
- India: Rupifi digital lending startup secures pre-A funding with software-as-a-service offerings for SMEs
- India: Pixxel nano-satellite startup selected for first batch of 10 startups in Techstars Starburst Space Accelerator in Los Angeles
- India: AngelList India head launches iSeed micro-VC fund, aiming to back up to 35 early-stage startups
- India: Agri10x agritech startup to work with gov’t to help remote farmers sell produce directly to consumers via blockchain- and AI-driven platform and village-level entrepreneurs program
- India: An at-a-glance intro to the 14 startups backed by Venture Catalysts since January with investments of up to $2M
- India: Okinawa Oki100 electric motorcycle set for Q3 launch, boasting top speed of 100kmh
- India: Illumnus raises $100K with software-as-a-service education platform
- The Indian advertising sector recorded a growth rate of over 25% in digital in 2019, reaching 21% of the country’s total ad spends
- ICYMI: $300M Alpha Wave Incubation Fund launched by Abu Dhabi’s ADQ to back early-stage companies in India and SE Asia
- India: Zaggle gains partnership with Visa to launch payment solutions for SMEs and startups, including Founders Card credit card
- India: Bharti Airtel telco acquired stake in Voicezen, early-stage startup focused on conversational-AI applications in the customer services space
- India: Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone, country’s largest port operator, join TradeLens shipping-focused blockchain platform founded by IBM and Maersk
- An intro to the 3 blockchain startups selected for the Starfleet India Accelerator
- India: An intro to 4 women entrepreneurs working on SaaS platforms spanning retail, hospitality and more
- India: Google reportedly mulling 5% stake in Vodafone Idea, joining Facebook and Microsoft in entering India by way of network operators
- India: VestaSpace to launch 35+ satellites alongside 8 ground stations and 31K data receptors from September 2020, aiming to facilitate pan-India 5G service
April 2020
- India: FarEye logistics SaaS firm raises $25M to grow international markets, backed by Microsoft’s M12 venture fund
- India: Plunes raises $300K pre-A with platform aggregating doctors and healthcare service providers
- India: Government amends Foreign Direct Investment law to protect world’s 2nd-largest internet market from hostile takeovers
- India: EWar Games gaming platform raises $200K with user base of 500K and 45K games played on the platform each month
- India: Vogueme Technologies secures $400K with Toch, platform for meta-tagging objects, people, emotions, locations, scenes and activity in video in real time
- India: DailyHunt news aggregator app raises $24M in latest round, with Goldman Sachs Asia and China’s ByteDance investing
- India: A brief intro to 9 startups developing solutions to fight Covid-19, working with IoT, drones and more
- India: Facebook launches Fundraisers program, expanding partnerships with state governments for WhatsApp and Messenger helplines focused on COVID-19
- India: YAP, API infrastructure startup, raises $4.5M Series A, providing digital payments infrastructure to over fintech firms
- India: Paytm Payments Bank partners Mastercard to issue physical and virtual debit cards, enabling contactless in-store transactions, ATM cash withdrawals globally and more
- India: KarbonCard raises $1M with corporate solutions providing credit access to early-stage startups
- India: A look at the likely impacts on 60M MSMEs, 120M farmers and 30M small merchants of Facebook’s planned $5.7BN investment in Reliance Jio telco
- India: An intro to the 15 startups selected for Surge, Sequoia Capital India’s rapid scale-up program for early-stage startups
- India: GUVI edtech startup raises $780K pre-Series A with education platform offering courses in vernacular languages
- India: CollabCAD network launches to provide a platform for students across the country to create and modify 3D designs and share design data
- India: An intro to SmartVizX’s Trezi, VR platform allowing architects, suppliers and real estate developers in the construction industry to collaborate and communicate
- India: Venture Catalysts launches 9Unicorns Accelerator, modelled on similar lines to US-based Y Combinator Fund
- India: Fittr raises $2M pre-Series A with focus on health and fitness services delivered online
- India: Memer meme-sharing app startup acquired by ShareChat, Twitter-backed video-sharing social network
- India: Super-app competition set to heat up with Facebook’s investment in Jio mobile operator likely to set the stage for Paytm challenge
- India: Karnataka state gov’t to require quarantined individuals to install app and send a selfie every hour to verify location, a new level of COVID-19 surveillance madness
- India: A brief look at the boom in coworking in India’s Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities
- India: A brief look at survey results from Paxful, peer-to-peer bitcoin marketplace, gauging interest in and concerns around cryptocurrency
- India: Recko fintech startup raises $6M, aiming to streamline and automate payments reconciliation across transaction lifecycle and commercial contracts
- India: An intro to Marut Dronetech, deploying drones to spray disinfectant in public spaces in effort to prevent the spread of the coronavirus
- India: Recko enterprise fintech secures $6M Series A with artificial intelligence to reconcile digital transactions
- India: An overview of HungerBox’s journey from startup to full-spectrum food-tech service offering pre-ordering, live tracking, digital payments and more
- India: Fingpay raises $3.5M Series A with range of payment solutions and points-of-contact for merchants and customers
- India: Ergos agri-tech startup gains $5M backing with ‘grain bank’ providing storage, digitisation, credit and liquidation for small and marginal farmers via single platform
- India: DeHaat agritech raises $12M Series A with platform connecting small farmers with small suppliers of farm input and equipment, aiming for one-stop seed-to-sale service
- India: My Game Mate mobile gaming platform raises $200K seed funding for North America push, initially focusing on Canada’s estimated $317M esports market
- India: A look at Mall91, language-focussed social commerce startup with a presence in 2000 of the country’s small towns
- India: Plop, mobile-based interactive multimedia platform, gains funding to allow writers and publishing houses create and monetize interactive fiction
- India: Futurepreneur Grand Challenge 2019-2020, hosted by Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship, unveils 15 winning food-and-beverage focused women entrepreneurs
- India: With 91% of the world’s student population out of school, India’s online learning platforms and edtech startups are surging
- India: Zupee online gaming startup gains $8M with app-based live quiz tournaments and over 10M games played per month
- India: Vedantu Innovations interactive online tutorial platform raises $12.7M, with sights set on service expansion to cover kindergarten to Class 5 level
- India: A brief intro to 5 of the country’s female entrepreneurs working in the fintech space
- India: An intro to TravelDilSe, AI-backed travel assistant platform providing customised holidays, price comparison and bookings, itinerary management and more
- India: An intro to 10 of the country’s data analytics-focused startups
- India: Sikkim Manipal University partners LetsAccelerate, incubation arm of LetsVenture angel investing platform, for accelerator program, selecting 16 startups
- Germany’s ProVeg Incubator selects Australia’s Heuros and India’s Mister Veg for plant-based and cultured food program
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