Vikram Series rockets are uniquely built with an all-carbon-fiber structure, can launch up to 800 kg of payloads to Low Earth Orbit (LEO)….The fresh round of funding follows the Indian government’s major thrust to the space sector by opening it up to private sector players including startups and encouraging private investments into the sector….
July 2022 | August 2022 | September 2022
Asia’s tech newsletter, weekly on Substack
in September 2022
- India: Skyroot Aerospace space-tech firm raised $51M with low earth orbit satellites focus, stepping into the international space launch market
- India: Multi-billionaire head of Reliance Industries announces $25BN plan to launch 5G mobile internet in the country inside 2 months, and sights on budget 5G smartphone partnering with Google
- India looks to step up manufacturing value chain with high-stakes bid into semiconductors, packaging $10BN to attract manufacturers to establish plants and to encourage investment in related sectors
- India: GroMo platform raises $11M with more than 1.2M agents across the country, selling over 100 financial products including insurance and credit cards
- India: Directorate of Enforcement conducted searches under anti money laundering act on Razorpay, Paytm and Cashfree Payments in Bangalore, seizing $2.1M in suspicious bank accounts
- India: Gov’t to intro legislation to regulate social media influencers, including penalties growing as high as $60K for failing to disclose financial ties with brands
The State of the Metaverse in 2022 / Nextrope
- India: Tata Group is reportedly in discussions with US-based Wistron to establish a manufacturing JV for assembling iPhones in India, continuing trend of moving production away from China
- India: Agnikul nears $20M funding close with the country’s first private small-satellite system, capable of carrying 300kg payloads to low Earth orbits up to 700km
- India: MeitY Startup Hub gov’t initiative and Meta unveil XR Startup Program, accelerator to support and boost XR technology startups, skills and ecosystem
- India: Taiwan’s Foxconn and Vedanta mining giant announce $19.5BN plan to build chipmaking factory, potentially creating 100K jobs in Gujarat
- India: Google partners NASSCOM industry body and gov’t IT Ministry for first batch of Google Cloud Computing Foundations with Kubernetes, aimed at higher education students and early-career graduates
- India: ‘Digital Banks – A Proposal for Licensing & Regulatory Regime for India’ available to download from NITI Aayog, gov’t public policy think tank
- India: Reserve Bank to bring card-on-file tokenisation norms into effect October 1st, driven by cyber-fraud around card data saved on merchant websites for future payments
- India: Gov’t is building a database of anonymized non-personal data for Indian companies and startups using artificial intelligence, primarily to aid local firms in training machine learning models
Bain & Co: 2022 Technology Report
- India: Proton VPN joins ExpressVPN, Surfshark and NordVPN in leaving the country, removing servers with statement of ‘no intention of ever complying with this or any other mass surveillance law’
- India: Govt proposes law to intercept encrypted messages on over-the-top comm services – OTT – such as WhatsApp et al, and literally anything deemed in future to be a ‘telecommunication service’
- India: KPMG launches ENRich 2022 startup search, seeking solutions in energy sustainability, security and affordability
- India: Binocs crypto tax reporting platform raises $4M, aiding investors track across more than 300 exchanges, 50 wallets, NFTS and smart contracts
- India: Gov’t reportedly pressuring Apple, Xiaomi, Samsung et al with mandate to support home-grown NavIC satellite navigation system in new devices sold in India from 2023
- India: Ministry of Defence looks to add quantum-based commercial cybersecurity solutions to communications with commercial request for proposal to QNu Labs, focusing on quantum key distribution
in August 2022
India: State of the fintech Union 2022 (pdf) / Boston Consulting Group
- India: Chattybao raises $5M with shopping platform built on WhatsApp, connecting users with local stores helping offline merchants compete with those online
- India: CoinSwitch Kuber crypto trading platform launches Web3 Discovery Fund with initial corpus of $10M to back and incubate up to 100 early-stage Web3-focused blockchain startups
- India: Microsoft the first ‘big tech’ firm to join gov’t-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce, a project to provide SMEs usually deployed by large e-commerce platforms
- India: Reserve Bank issues tough guidelines, mandating digital loans must be disbursed and repaid through bank accounts of regulated entities only, with no pass-through of loan service providers or other third parties
- India: Lysto Web3 startup raises $12M with tools for gamers including Proof of Play Protocol, aiming to standardise gamer credentials and reputation across the industry
- India: “New Delhi has about 33 CCTV cameras for every 1000 people, according to a study. But Telangana’s capital city, Hyderabad, has 36 CCTV cameras per 1000 people…”
KPMG: Pulse of FinTech H1 2022
- India: Redwing Labs trials VTOL drones – vertical takeoff and landing – to boost healthcare provision to tribal and rural communities in Arunachal Pradesh
- India: MetaMorphoSys raises $3M Pre-A with API-driven insurance-tech, providing all-in-one aggregation, recommendation, onboarding and claims processing
- India: Ratan Tata backs Goodfellows, startup catering to senior citizens by offering companionship as a service, connecting seniors with young graduates
- The Digital India Act will cover everything digital, which includes social media platforms, OTT platforms and online apps, along with web3 applications including the metaverse and blockchain.’
- India: “Delhi police, looking into identifying people involved in civil unrest in northern India in the past few years, said that they would consider 80% accuracy and above as a ‘positive’ match…”
The Quad and Artificial Intelligence
- India: Amazon Web Services and Campus Fund launch 3rd edition of Grand Challenge for student entrepreneurs, with applications closing September 15th
- India: Winuall raises $2M with toolset helping tutors to expand their business with customised, curated online courses
- India: Shellios Technolabs launches anti-pollution helmet fitted with air-purifying accessories and bluetooth-connected app which alerts the rider when the helmet requires cleaning
- Sequoia Capital India and SE Asia unveil 15 early-stage startups selected for cohort 7 of its Surge accelerator, working on SaaS solutions, dApp development, AI-produced video and more
- India: Loopworm insect farming startup secures $3.4M seed round, growing insects on food waste and processing them into products for the animal feed industry
- India Blockchain Forum launches, aiming to make India a global hub for blockchain and web3 technology, alongside building an ‘India Blockchain Stack’ as a development template
- India: Meta, Reliance Retail and Jio Platforms bring grocery shopping to WhatsApp in claimed global-first end-to-end shopping platform running on the instant messaging platform
- India: Metalbook raises $5M seed funding with digital supply chain platform for the metals industry, building a global network of processing centres, online marketplace and cloud-based manufacturing platform
- Startup India: The clock is ticking, last few hours left! Calling all aero and defence startups. The Altair Startup Grand Challenge 2022 is now live on the Startup India Portal
India Stack: APIs, digital ID, data and payments
in July 2022
- India: T-Hub innovation hub and ecosystem enabler inaugurates ‘world’s largest innovation campus’ in Hyderabad – 582,689 square feet across 10 floors
- India: Twitter sues Indian government in challenge to gov’t ‘block orders’ on political opposition tweets and accounts
- India: Iron Pillar reportedly raising $400M fund to boost Indian tech startups and scale-ups
- India: Vegrow B2B marketplace for fruit raised $25M Series B, connecting more than 20K farmers with aggregated wholesalers and traders in more than 100 cities
- India: 26% of Indian adults currently have a digital-only bank account, up from 22% in 2020, with digital banking adoption set to hit 39% by 2023 and 46% by 2027
- India: Finvu AA raises $2.5M with consent-based financial account aggregation, the first non-banking financial company account aggregator to gain a license from the Reserve Bank
- Twitter and free speech vs Indian gov’t: “…whether, when an unjust law unjustly applied makes it all but impossible for a company to protect speech, the judiciary will step in to protect it.”
- India: Dep’t of Telecommunications tightens rules for licences in advance of 5G rollout, limiting options for Huawei, ZTE to provide gear to Indian telecom operators
- India: Startup Karnataka partners CoinSwitch crypto exchange to host blockchain hackathon, themed around ‘Building Future Cities’
- India: Lightspeed Venture Partners raises new $500M fund, its largest, dedicated to India and Southeast Asia and looking at seed to Series B investments
- India: ‘Building Future Cities’ 2-day blockchain hackathon set for August 5th in Bengaluru
- India: Ola to invest $500M in battery innovation and R&D center, set to be one of the world’s largest battery cell research facilities
- India: Eka Care raises $15M, aiming to help digitize health records of Indian patients, building on integration with gov’t Ayushman Bharat Health Account
- $2BN in new export opportunities now open for India’s MSMEs with MOU inked between MVIRDC World Trade Center Mumbai and India Australia Strategic Alliance
- India: Meta reportedly to invest in Better Opinions, event trading platform allowing users to trade win cash with opinions on cricket, football, finance and more
- India: IIT Kanpur Startup Incubation and Innovation Centre launches NIRMAN Accelerator Program, seeking 15 startups healthcare and agriculture
- India: Tamil Nadu Startup and Innovation Mission opens applications for Tamil Nadu Startup Seed Grant Fund, aiming to boost 100 startups with backing
- SNA round-up: Twitter vs the Indian government; earned-wage-access fintech in Indonesia; China’s Weibo boosts CCP censorship efforts; Taiwan’s EVs in Thailand; Australia’s Intersekt fintech conference; agri-tech in Cambodia…
- India: Skye Air Mobility successfully tests drone delivery of frozen food to Curefoods cloud kitchen startup, covering 20 kms in under 30 minutes
The Indo-Pacific Strategy of the United States
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