Podcasts about nexus venture partners

Jishnu Bhattacharjee, Managing Partner at Nexus Venture Partners, has been investing in AI startups for over a decade. This is an excellent and insightful discussion about his AI investment thesis.

Rohit Bansal is the Co-founder Snapdeal, one of the largest online marketplaces in India. The company has raised over $1.7B from eBay, Kalaari Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Intel Capital, BlackRock, Temasek Holdings and SoftBank. He is also the Co-Founder of Titan Capital, which has invested in companies such as Mamaearth, Dealshare, OLA, RazorPay and OfBusiness. He an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. . . . Episode Notes: Introduction (2:00) What motivated Rohit to become an entrepreneur (2:57) Why is entrepreneurship on the rise in India (10:30) How did Rohit get into investing (14:30) How did and does Rohit deal with tough moments in life (19:26) How do founders continue to stay motivated over the years (27:58) What frameworks does Rohit deploy to navigate tough situations in life (31:39) Why it's important for founders to look after themselves (36:20) Looking back at his career what is Rohit the most proud of? (41:15) What is Rohit dedicating the next 5-10 years of his life towards (45:45) What advice would Rohit give his younger self? (52:02) . . . Social Links: Follow Rohit on Twitter Follow Rohit on LinkedIn Follow The Desi VC on LinkedIn Follow Akash Bhat on Twitter Follow Akash Bhat on LinkedIn

Anand Babu "AB" Periasamy is the cofounder and CEO of MinIO, a high performance object storage for AI that's built for large scale workloads. They have raised $126M in funding from the likes of General Catalyst, Softbank, Intel Capital, and Nexus Venture Partners. It's the world's fastest growing object storage company with more than 1 billion Docker pulls and more than 35K stars on GitHub. He's also an angel investor with investments in companies like H2O.ai, Isovalent, Starburst, Postman, and many more. He was previously the cofounder and CTO of Gluster, which got acquired by Red Hat. In this episode, we cover a range of topics including: - Why is storage important for AI workflows - What are the characteristics of a good data storage product - Repatriation of data from public cloud to on-prem - Running ML experiments in parallel - AI compute offerings from data infrastructure providers - Making data infrastructure faster and cheaper AB's favorite book: An Awesome Book! (Author: Dallas Clayton)--------Where to find Prateek Joshi: Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com Website: https://prateekj.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 Twitter: https://twitter.com/prateekvjoshi 

DynamoFL, which offers software to bring large language models (LLMs) to enterprises and fine-tune those models on sensitive data, today announced that it raised $15.1 million in a Series A funding round co-led by Canapi Ventures and Nexus Venture Partners.

Garima Kapoor is the Co-founder and COO of MinIO. Founded in 2014, MinIO makes one product, software-defined Kubernetes-native object storage. Garima was instrumental in raising MinIO's $100M+ Series B in early 2022 and $1B valuation, which is being used to rapidly scale the commercial side of the business. Garima is also an angel investor and advisor to 6 promising tech startups.About MinIO:MinIO is pioneering high performance, Kubernetes-native object storage for the multi-cloud. The software-defined, Amazon S3-compatible object storage system is used by more than half of the Fortune 500. MinIO is the fastest-growing cloud object storage company and is consistently ranked by industry analysts as a leader in object storage. Founded in 2014, the company is backed by Intel Capital, Softbank Vision Fund 2, Dell Technologies Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, General Catalyst and key angel investors.Let me know if you'd be interested in having Garima on your podcast and I'd be happy to arrange a conversation. https://min.ioLinkedIn linkedin.com/in/garimakapTwitter garimakapDiscover our captivating array of extraordinary guests at:https://www.savvybroadcasting.com

Google has started rolling out passkeys as an alternative to passwords for signing into its platform, the internet search giant said in a blog post yesterday. Pando, a supply chain software company, has raised $30 million in its Series B funding round, bringing the total capital raised to $45 million. Also in this brief, Infosys makes an ecosystem play in banking and financial services with a new report; fintech is estimated to hit $1.5 trillion in India by 2030; and Kazam, an EV infrastructure management platform provider, has raised $3.6 million from Avaana Climate Fund. Notes: Google has started rolling out passkeys as an alternative to passwords for signing into its platform, the internet search giant said in a blog post yesterday. Passkeys are easier and more secure than passwords as they allow users to sign in using a fingerprint, face scan or screen lock PIN, instead of relying on memorable but easy-to-guess phrases like “password123”. Passkeys are also resistant to online attacks like phishing, making them more secure than SMS one-time codes. Google Workspace administrators will soon be able to enable passkeys for end-users during sign-in. However, passwords and two-step verification will still work for Google accounts. And among Google's billions of users are its massive Android user base in India. According to the 'Internet in India Report 2022' by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and KANTAR, 52 percent of Indians (759 million) are active Internet users, with rural India driving much of the growth. The report predicts that by 2025, the number of active internet users in India will reach 900 million, with 56 percent of new users coming from rural India. However, there is a significant digital divide between states, with some having much lower levels of internet penetration than others. As mobile internet expands further into India, fintech is an area that is expected to continue to grow strongly. According to a report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and QED Investors, financial technology revenues are expected to increase from $245 billion to $1.5 trillion by 2030. In some IT services news, Infosys and HFS Research conducted a study titled "The ecosystem imperative: How to create new sources of value in BFS enterprises," which found that creating collaborative ecosystems is the new hope for driving growth and creating new forms of value for BFS enterprises. While revenue growth and profitability are still top business objectives for firms, the creation of ecosystems is a new contender. However, without an interim stage of enterprise modernization, efforts to create ecosystems may fail. Acquiring and retaining talent, lack of centralized data governance, and legacy tech are the biggest roadblocks to ROI from innovation investments. In some startup funding news, Pando, a supply chain software company, has raised $30 million in its Series B funding round, bringing the total capital raised to $45 million. The funding was led by Iron Pillar and Uncorrelated Ventures and included participation from existing investors Nexus Venture Partners, Chiratae Ventures, and Next47, as well as several American CEOs and angel investors. And Kazam, a platform for managing electric mobility infrastructure, has raised $3.6 million in a funding round led by Avaana Climate Fund, the company said in a press release yesterday.

Anand is Principal at Nexus Venture Partners where he is focused on investing in early-stage (seed, Series A) teams driven to solve large impact challenges. He is particularly interested in Fintech/Insuretech, SaaS, Health and solutions for "Bharat". We talk about: - Anand's story & how he started investing? - Investment thesis at Nexus Venture Partners - Deploying $700 Million global fund - Indian Startup Ecosystem - How Nexus supports portfolio companies? & lots more Links mentioned: Nexus Venture Partners - https://nexusvp.com/ Follow Anand on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ananddatta/ Follow Anand on Twitter - https://twitter.com/Anand_datta Full episode video at https://vc10x.com/nexus-vp

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff took a vacation to French Polynesia to “detox” himself from gadgets and other digital distractions, the entrepreneur told The New York Times, Business Insider reports – the original piece is behind a paywall. Benioff took a vacation after firing 10 percent of the cloud-based CRM provider's staff. Meanwhile, fintech darling Stripe burned through half a billion dollars in 2022, The Information reports exclusively, as its revenue rose much more slowly than the previous year's pandemic-driven frenzy that saw every business shifting more work online. Notes: Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff took a vacation to French Polynesia to “detox” himself from gadgets and other digital distractions, the entrepreneur told The New York Times, Business Insider reports – the original piece is behind a paywall. Benioff took a vacation after firing 10 percent of the cloud-based CRM provider's staff. “We are so addicted to our devices (at least I am) it's very freeing to leave them all behind for a while!” he texted The Times in a series of interviews. Salesforce workers knew at the beginning of the new year to expect cuts to thousands of jobs, according to Business Insider. On January 4, Benioff announced that Salesforce was planning to cut around 10 percent of its 84,000 staff over the following weeks. Stripe, a global fintech darling, burned through more than $500 million of cash last year as its revenue growth rate fell sharply, The Information reports exclusively, citing people familiar with the matter. The previously undisclosed figures paint a clearer picture of how quickly the payments giant lost steam after a pandemic-fuelled growth frenzy, according to The Information. Stripe's net revenue growth slowed to about 18 percent in 2022 to just over $2.8 billion from roughly 85 percent in 2021, according to the tech news and analysis site. The rest of the story is behind a paywall on The Information's website. A Wall Street Journal report from Jan. 26, offers some perspective and context. The Journal reported at the time that Stripe had approached investors about raising at least $2 billion in fresh cash at a valuation of $55 billion to $60 billion, a sharp decline from its last private fundraising nearly two years ago when it was valued at $95 billion. In some startup funding news in India, Venwiz, a SaaS-enabled marketplace in the Capex and MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Operations) services domain, has raised $8.3 million in Series A funding, led by Sorin Investments with participation from previous investors, Accel and Nexus Venture Partners, the Bengaluru company said in a press release. JAFCO Asia, Riverwalk Holdings and Force Ventures also participated in this round, as did several angel investors. The company had earlier raised $3 million in seed funding, bringing the total capital raised to $11.3 million. The funds will be used for product enhancement and team expansion. Venwiz is digitalising capex and industrial services procurement, focusing on the manufacturing industry. Buyers on the demand side are large enterprise clients with manufacturing plants, having industrial services requirements. On the supply side, the companies that offer these industrial services are MSMEs, with a specialised scope of projects such as mechanical, civil, automation, and turnkey jobs. Venwiz has so far onboarded more than 10,000 vendors on its platform across 40+ service categories.

feedback @ decentmakeover13@gmail.com EPISODE LINKS: Nexus Profile : https://nexusvp.com/team/anand-datta/ Twitter : https://twitter.com/anand_datta Linkedin : https://in.linkedin.com/in/ananddatta PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://anchor.fm/ryandsouza Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3NQhg6S Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3qJ3tWJ Amazon Music: https://amzn.to/3P66j2B Google Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3am7rQc Gaana: https://bit.ly/3ANS4v1 RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/609210d4/podcast/rss

Narwhal, the company behind the popular monorepo-focused open source Nx build system for JavaScript code, today announced that it has raised an $8.6 million seed funding round co-led by Nexus Venture Partners and Andreesen Horowitz.

Narwhal, the company behind the popular monorepo-focused open source Nx build system for JavaScript code, today announced that it has raised an $8.6 million seed funding round co-led by Nexus Venture Partners and Andreesen Horowitz.

In the first and second part of ‘How Bengaluru became India's Silicon Valley', we discussed the journey from Bengaluru's early history, to setting up of Indian Institute of Science, and then finally the post dot-com bubble burst scene. In this video, we take a look at how Amazon's arrival into India changed Bengaluru's entrepreneurship scene forever. Amazon hired best talent in India and focussed obsessively on customer satisfaction, and this was adopted by two of it's employees, Sachin and Binny Bansal with their own E-commerce startup, Flipkart. A month before Flipkart was started, Infibeam launched their own Amazon-inspired e-commerce platform. The company's founder, Vishal Mehta, had been working for Amazon in Seattle for 5 years before moving back to India in 2007 after realising that Amazon had put their plans to launch in India on hold. Meanwhile, Binny and Sachin were struggling financially. They'd approached Sequoia, Matrix Partners, IDG Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, but without any luck. In 2010 when Flipkart raised their headline-grabbing Series B, but they weren't the only game in town. Fabmart.com had been around since 1999, and by 2010, they had rebranded to indiaplaza.com and then there was also Myntra as well. Then, in Mumbai, Flipkart had an indirect competitor in eBay India, and there was also Naaptol, which is still around to this day. In 2010, Flipkart's real competition wasn't in Ahmedabad or Bengaluru - it was in NCR, where a number of companies were vying for a piece of the e-commerce pie. One of the earliest was Snapdeal, which got its start in 2008 as a coupon service in Delhi called MoneySaver, which was pivoted into Snapdeal in 2010, and at that time they weren't selling products, they were selling discounts, so they weren't a huge threat yet. Besides Snapdeal, you also had Homeshop18LIST starting out in 2008 in Noida, Letsbuy came onto the scene in 2009 as eTree Marketing in Gurugram and was selling items like mobile phones, cameras, laptops and home appliances, and then in 2011, Gurugram-based startups like Jabong and Shopclues appeared too. Jeff Bezos was excited by the burst of e-commerce activity in India, and finally decided to put their limited presence in Bengaluru to good use. But instead of trying to re-enter India under their own name, Amazon instead approached Flipkart in 2011 to talk about a potential acquisition13, and in response, Sachin Bansal told Amazon that he would only sell at a 1 billion dollar valuation. This deal didn't happen and Flipkart ended up raising 20 million dollars from Tiger Global, this was their Series C round, later on in 2011, at a 200 million dollar valuation. This was the single-biggest round of funding secured by an e-commerce startup in India. Flipkart would go on to raise 150 million dollars in their Series D round, then 200 million, then 160 million, then 210 million, and then a billion dollar Series G round in 2014. And they weren't the only ones raking in the capital here - in 2014, Snapdeal raised a massive round too: 600 million dollars from Softbank, and this is just e-commerce we're talking about here. There were multiple other industries being fought over by startups at around this time, like Ola and TaxiForSure, both of which were based in Bengaluru, and then Uber showed up, with Bengaluru being its first city as well. And then towards the end of 2014 and into 2015, India saw its first startup food fight, where companies like FoodPanda, TinyOwl, Swiggy, and Zomato raised hundreds of millions of dollars to capture India's food delivery space.

Welcome to Grit & Growth's retrospective on a topic that's on every entrepreneur's mind: money! Hear from startup and early stage investors in Africa and South Asia about what investors are really looking for, how to vet potential backers, pitching advice, and more. These experts provide practical guidance and strategies on how to secure funding for your venture.Money, money, money. Entrepreneurs can't stop thinking about it. Which explains why fundraising is such a critical — and ongoing — aspect of their job description.We turned to five experts for their wisdom on all things related to funding:Andreata Muforo, partner at Nairobi-based venture capital firm TLCom CapitalIdo Sum, partner at TLCom CapitalZach George, managing partner at Launch Africa VenturesSandeep Singhal, managing director of Nexus Venture Partners in IndiaPranav Pai, founding partner of 3One4 Capital in IndiaTop Seven Masterclass Takeaways Fundraising should be active, not passive. Andreata Muforo says “It's something an entrepreneur does, not something that happens to them—which means you can get better with practice.” Cast a wide net when looking for investors. Zach George has a great strategy for getting valuable facetime with busy VCs: “ask for advice and you may get some money, ask for money and you may get some advice.”Early on, it's less about the numbers, more about the people. According to Sandeep Singh, Seed and Series A funders invest just as much in founders as they do in ideas. “There are many people that want to solve problems, but these are people who are saying, I want to solve a problem at scale. I want to solve a problem with a group of people. I want to have people around me that are equally passionate about building things.”Don't get too attached to your ideas. Be willing to listen and adapt. Singh looks for founders who are passionate and flexible “if you don't listen, then you are stubborn. And the risk of being stubborn is you can hit your head on the wall and never be able to get across it.”Scale can't be achieved alone. Pranav Pai advocates for the importance of team. “If the human capital side doesn't keep up, you're almost always going to fail to meet expectations.”Due diligence goes both ways. Ido Sum urges entrepreneurs to do their homework on potential investors. “If you know what we're, after what we're investing in, how could you be relevant to what we have already invested in or to spaces we have looked at, this is extremely beneficial for us to see that you spent this time.”Know how you plan to grow. Be specific. Zach George wants the founder to have the details. “If you give me the, let me talk to my CFO, you've lost me. Like immediately, I've switched off, good founders will say, this is how I get to a hundred million dollars.”Listen to these funding experts and gain valuable insights, advice, and strategies for how to navigate the fundraising journey and establish successful relationships along the way.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mohit Kumar is the Co-founder and CEO of Ultrahuman, a metabolic health tracking platform that provides intelligent nudges based on glucose biomarkers and aims to improve users' exercise, sleep and nutrition based on deep insights from the platform. Ultrahuman was founded by Mohit Kumar and Vatsal Singhal who were also co-founders at Runnr which later merged with India's largest food delivery service Zomato.Ultrahuman has raised over $25m to date from Alpha Wave, Steadview Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Blume Ventures and iSeed fund, and a range of other angel investors including Tiger Global's Scott Schleifer.In this episode, we will cover:1. Impact of the last two years on Ultrahuman (2:50)2. How did the founding team come up with the idea for Ultrahuman (7:33)3. How did the Ultrahuman team perceive the TAM? (17:25)4. How does Ultrahuman raise public awareness about food, diet, nutrition, and lifestyle? (23:30)5. Breaking down data for customers who are not data savvy (30:15)6. The Science of Metabolic Score (35:20)7. What has Ultrahuman team learned from the pandemic user data? (39:10)8. How can men and women understand their bodies better through Ultrahuman (44:46)9. What is Ultrahuman's vision for the future (52:38)10. How does Ultrahuman intend to democratize data access? (1:09:25)11. How do investors perceive Ultrahuman? (1:11:05)

Apple's iPhones and Android smartphones were hacked by an Italian company's spyware in Italy and Kazakhstan, Google said in a report on Thursday, according to Reuters. Flipkart has committed to decarbonising its operations by 2030 and that of its entire supply chain by 2040, the Walmart company said in a press release. And Fundamental VC, an early-stage Bengaluru investor, is raising $130 million for its first fund. Notes: Apple's iPhones and Android smartphones were hacked by an Italian company's spyware in Italy and Kazakhstan, Google said in a report on Thursday, according to Reuters. Milan-based RCS Lab, whose website claims European law enforcement agencies as clients, developed tools to spy on private messages and contacts of the targeted devices, the report said, according to Reuters. Instagram is testing new options for young people on it to verify their age, starting with those in the US, the Meta company said in a blogpost yesterday. Instagram will require them to verify their age using one of three options: upload their ID, record a video selfie or ask mutual friends to verify their age. Flipkart, the Indian ecommerce unit of Walmart, has committed to the target of decarbonising its operations by 2030 and what it calls its “larger value chain” by 2040, the company said in a press release, yesterday. Recognising that the majority of the climate impact comes from Flipkart's extended chain of suppliers, waste in operations, transportation and logistics, and product end-of-life, it will also work with its sellers, consumers and partners to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040, the company said. Fundamental VC, a Bengaluru-based early-stage VC firm, started by former startup operators Saswat Sundar and Abhishek Rathi, has launched its first fund with a target corpus of $130 million. The firm will invest up to $1.5 million in each startup and aims to support 30 startups through the fund, over 2 years. Cashify, a ‘re-commerce' marketplace that facilitates gadget trade-ins and buybacks, has raised $90 million in Series E funding from NewQuest Capital Partners and Prosus, the company said in a press release. WeRize, a financial services provider to small-town Indian customers, has raised $15.5 million from new investors, British International Investment, the UK's development finance and impact investor — formerly known as CDC group — and Sony Innovation Fund, along with existing investors. Neuron7.ai, a customer and field service software provider, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Battery Ventures and Nexus Venture Partners. Vibrant Planet, a SaaS startup that is developing a Lidar and AI-based map of land and forests in California, to accelerate the restoration of forests, has raised $17 million in seed funding, TechCrunch reports. The funding was led by Ecosystem Integrity Fund and The Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham Environmental Trust. The mapping software and related data and analytics are called Land Tender, which the company calls an “operating system for forest restoration,” according to TechCrunch. Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds: https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Reliance Retail, part of the Reliance Industries conglomerate, is acquiring an 89 percent stake in direct-to-consumer brand Clovia for $125 million. Indian Institute of Science has entered into an MoU with Ajit Isaac, founder and chairman of Quess Corp, and his wife Sarah Isaac, for establishing a Centre for Public Health at the IISc campus. Plus, Sri Lankan Cricketer Mahela Jayawardene co-founds a cyber security venture. Reliance Retail, part of the Reliance Industries conglomerate, is acquiring an 89 percent stake in direct-to-consumer brand Clovia for $125 million as the largest Indian retail chain looks to expand its footprints in the apparel and innerwear categories, TechCrunch reports. Eight-year-old Clovia, which operates a ‘bridge-to-premium D2C brand' and sells over 3,500 products across innerwear and loungewear categories for millennial women, had raised about $25.8 million before Sunday's announcement. India's Income Tax Department has found and seized “a large number of incriminating pieces of evidence” that reveals a Pune and Thane-based unicorn startup, referring to Infra.Market, “booked bogus purchases” and disclosed an additional income of more than $29.4 million, TechCrunch reports. Infra.Market's investors include Tiger Global, Nexus Venture Partners and Accel, and is valued at $2.5 billion. The startup helps construction and real estate companies procure materials and handle logistics for their projects. The company “made huge unaccounted cash expenditure and obtained accommodation entries, aggregating to the tune of over Rs 400 crore ($52.7 million),” the department said in a statement, according to TechCrunch. The Indian Institute of Science has entered into an MoU with Ajit Isaac, founder and chairman of Quess Corp, and his wife Sarah Isaac, for establishing a Centre for Public Health at the IISc campus. The Isaacs have committed a sum of Rs. 105 crore towards setting up this Centre, which will be called the Isaac Centre for Public Health (ICPH), and will be a part of the postgraduate Medical School, soon to be established on campus. The Centre will be operational by 2024. Sri Lankan cricketer Mahela Jayawardene has teamed up with technology entrepreneurs Chandita Samaranayake and Stefano Harding, to co-found Dygisec, a Singapore based cyber security company, according to a press release from the company. With operations in Sri Lanka, Singapore, the US, and with plans to expand into Australia and the UK, Dygisec will offer its agent-less, data-driven cloud compliance policy engine called Triton. The company also plans to form a Cloud Security Academy to train and certify 5,000 cloud security experts representing women, financially-challenged and differently-abled individuals in Sri Lanka over the next three years. Loop, a startup building a user research tool for software product development teams, has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding led by VC firm Speciale Invest. Additional funding for the startup, founded by Kritika Oberoi and Akash Tandon, is coming from First Cheque, angel investors and a grant from Sequoia Capital India as part of the Sequoia Spark program. Looppanel allows product and design teams to analyse and share insights from Zoom-based user interviews in minutes. Product managers and designers can quickly test their assumptions and prototypes with their own customers. Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds: https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Meesho is preparing for an IPO as early as 2023, Reuters reports, citing an internal company document it has seen. According to Reuters, the Bangalore company is working to be ready for a listing by the end of 2022 and is evaluating both Indian and US exchanges. Ninjacart, an agri-tech platform provider, has launched a $25 million fund. And CredAvenue has raised $137 million, tripling its valuation in the process, according to ET. Meesho is preparing for an IPO as early as 2023, Reuters reports, citing an internal company document it has seen. According to Reuters, the Bangalore company is working to be ready for a listing by the end of 2022 and is evaluating both Indian and US exchanges. Meesho, which raised $570 million in September last year, is moving away from its social commerce roots to become a larger e-commerce company. Its venture capital investors valued it at $4.9 billion in September. CredAvenue, an online debt marketplace for businesses, has raised $137 million in funding led by Insight Partners, B Capital Group and Dragoneer, Economic Times reports. According to ET, existing investors also participated, and the company's valuation has tripled to $1.3 billion from September last. Nikhil Sachdev, managing director at Insight Partners, will join CredAvenue's board of directors. Ninjacart, an agri-tech platform provider, has launched a $25 million fund to support emerging and new-age startups in the agriculture sector, the company said in a press release. Ninjacart will make seed investments in new startups, as well as exceptional tech teams even though they may not immediately have specific ideas or solutions. Apollo.io, a San Francisco company that provides a sales intelligence and engagement platform, has closed $110 million in a Series C funding led by Sequoia Capital, along with existing investors Tribe Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, and NewView Capital, the company said in a press release. With this funding, the Silicon Valley company, which also has a Bangalore centre, will accelerate its product-led growth, nearly tripling its investment in product and engineering. The company has raised over $150 million to date. Nasscom has announced a Launchpad Programme for Canada in partnership with the Province of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the City of Brampton that will help Indian tech companies expand into the North American Market, the Indian tech lobby said in a press release on Friday. Log9 Materials, a battery cell technologies company, has entered into a three-year agreement to collaborate on a mutual-interest basis with the Centre for Automotive Research and Tribology at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, the Bangalore startup said in a press release. Aston Martin has teamed up with lithium-ion battery cell technologies company Britishvolt to make batteries for the British luxury car maker's high-performance vehicles, according to Green Car Reports. Aston Martin plans to launch its first battery-electric vehicle in 2025, which is expected to directly replace one of the automaker's current front-engine sports cars. The automaker also aims to provide an electrified powertrain option to all new product lines by 2026. The company expects 95 percent of its lineup to be electrified (meaning hybrid or all-electric) by 2030, with the remaining 5 percent retaining gasoline-only powertrains limited to track use. Green Car Reports https://shrtm.nu/POZ6 Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds: https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Hasura raises $100 million to expand SaaS product, becomes a unicorn Hasura, which provides software for developers to connect disparate sources of data, has secured $100 million in funding in a round led by Greenoaks with participation from existing investors Nexus Venture Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Vertex Ventures, the company said in a press release. The Series C round brings the total capital raised by Hasura to $136.5 million and the company's valuation to $1 billion. Hasura plans to use the funding to accelerate research and development and expand go-to-market activities globally for the company's GraphQL Engine, which makes it fast and easy for even those with zero GraphQL expertise to compose a GraphQL API from existing APIs and databases. Vymo raises $22 million in series C funding Vymo, an Intelligent Sales Engagement platform for Financial Institutions, has raised $22 million in Series C funding, led by Bertelsmann India Investments with existing investors Emergence Capital and Sequoia Capital participating. As part of the financing, BII's Rohit Sood will be joining the company's board. In 2021 Vymo saw over 20 percent quarterly growth, 142 percent net retention rate, zero logo churn, entry into the US with wins like Berkshire Hathaway, and onboarding some of the largest Insurers in Japan, co-founder and CEO Yamini Bhat said in a press release yesterday. The latest funding will help Vymo go after a market opportunity to provide sales intelligence estimated at $10 billion. Wipro Ventures invests in vFunction in cloud services partnership Wipro, India's fourth-biggest IT services provider, has formed a joint go-to-market partnership with vFunction, a Palo Alto-based startup that has developed a technology platform for modernising Java applications and accelerating migration to the cloud, the Bangalore company said in a press release yesterday. The partnership will strengthen Wipro's cloud services business. In conjunction with this partnership, Wipro Ventures, the corporate investment arm of Wipro, has invested in vFunction's Series A funding round to deepen the strategic partnership. Wipro didn't provide financial details. UMG launches Def Jam India to take Indian rap to other markets Universal Music Group has launched Def Jam India, a new label division within India and South Asia dedicated to representing the best hip-hop and rap talent from the region, the Dutch-American music corporation said in a press release yesterday. Def Jam India will follow the blueprint of the iconic Def Jam Recordings label, which has led and influenced the cutting-edge in hip-hop and urban culture for more than 35 years. UMG aims to tap the growing popularity of hip-hop as a genre in India and take Indian hip hop to other markets. Artists it has signed on already include Dino James and Fotty Seven. Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds: https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Uniphore, a conversational automation tech company, yesterday announced its Series E funding round of $400 million, led by NEA, at a valuation of $2.5 billion. IBM has acquired Neudesic, a cloud consultancy. And the top 10 percent of the global population, by consumption, are responsible for almost half of the carbon emissions on the planet, a new study has found. Notes: Uniphore raises $400 million in Series E funding Uniphore, a conversational automation tech company, yesterday announced its Series E funding round of $400 million, led by NEA, at a valuation of $2.5 billion. This brings Uniphore's total funding to $610 million, the company said in a press release. March Capital and other existing and new investors also participated. Uniphore will use the money to invest further in voice AI, computer vision and tonal emotion, and expand its business operations in North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific. IBM acquires Neudesic, a Microsoft Azure consultancy IBM has acquired Neudesic, a US cloud services consultancy specialising primarily in the Microsoft Azure platform, along with bringing skills in multi-cloud, the company said in a press release yesterday. This acquisition will expand IBM's portfolio of hybrid multi-cloud services and advance the company's hybrid cloud and AI strategy, IBM said. Headquartered in Irvine, California, Neudesic has more than 1,500 cloud and data experts located in the US and India. The top 10 percent of the world responsible for half the CO2 emissions The top 10 percent of the global population, in terms of wealth and therefore consumption, are responsible for almost half of the carbon emissions on the planet, a new study has found. The results of the study, by researchers at the University of Groningen, Netherlands, University of Maryland, in the US, and Shandong University in China, were published in the journal Nature Sustainability on Feb. 14. “Our results confirm extreme carbon inequality across the world,” the researchers said in their paper. To visualise this inequality, they divided the global population into the bottom 50 percent, the middle 40 percent and the top 10 percent of carbon emitters. The consumption of the bottom half of global carbon emitters was contributing only one-tenth of global carbon emissions. Meanwhile, the lifestyle of the middle 40 percent accounted for 43 percent of global carbon emissions. Consumption of the top 10 percent was contributing almost half of all emitted CO2. Moreover, the global top 1 percent were responsible for about 15 percent of global CO2 emissions, the researchers estimated. GOQii raises $50 million in series C funding GOQii has raised $50 million in series C funding, led by Sumeru Ventures, to invest further in its smart-tech-enabled platform for preventive health care, the company said in a press release yesterday. GOQii's products include fitness trackers, mobile app, coaching, a health store, and insurance. Proactive For Her raises $5.5 million in series A funding Proactive For Her, a digital clinic that offers products and services for outpatient health concerns of Indian women, has raised $5.5 million in Series A funding led by Vertex Ventures South East Asia and India with participation from existing investor Nexus Venture Partners, the Bangalore company said in a press release. Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds: https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Two arrested in connection to 2016 crypto heist worth $4.5 billion today The US Department of Justice has arrested two people in connection to a crypto heist in 2016. The two, Ilya Lichtenstein and his wife, Heather Morgan, are accused of conspiring to launder cryptocurrency that was stolen during a hack of Bitfinex, a virtual currency exchange, in 2016, presently valued at approximately $4.5 billion. Thus far, law enforcement officials have seized over $3.6 billion in cryptocurrency linked to that hack, the justice department said in a statement yesterday. Razorpay starts international expansion with Malaysian acquisition Razorpay has acquired a majority stake in Curlec, a Malaysian fintech company, as part of its strategy to expand into Southeast Asia, the Bangalore based payments and financial services platform company said in a press release yesterday. Kuala Lumpur-based Curlec, founded in 2018, is building solutions for recurring payments for modern businesses of all sizes, according to the release. Razorpay didn't provide any details on the terms of the transaction, which marks its first overseas acquisition and fourth overall. Startup news Airmeet, an online meeting software provider, has raised $35 million in Series B funding. New investors Prosus Ventures, Sistema Asia Fund, RingCentral Ventures, KDDI Open Innovation Fund, DG Daiwa Ventures and Nexxus Global participated alongside existing investors Sequoia Capital India and Accel India, the company said in a press release. Mudrex, a Y Combinator-backed crypto startup with operations in Bangalore and Silicon Valley, has raised $6.5 million in a pre-series A round from Arkam Ventures, Tribe Capital, and Bolt by QED Investors. This round follows $2.5 million in seed funding four months ago led by Nexus Venture Partners and Village Global with participation from Kunal Shah, Anand Chandrashekharan and Anjali Bansal. US-based SaaS blockchain orchestration platform Cion Digital, dedicated to R&D and crypto financing and payment solutions, is opening its first office in India. The expansion strategy includes setting up an R&D centre in Pune, investing Rs. 50 crore. And Cion aims to hire more than 100 engineers with expertise in blockchain technology. TrayamBhu Tech Solutions, a blockchain startup, has raised an undisclosed amount of seed money from US-based Octave Ventures and others, the company said in a press release. TrayamBhu plans to develop newer blockchain products on climate tech covering ESG, Carbon Credit, and Tokenisation Carbon Assets. Infina, a Vietnamese startup targeting millennials interested in the capital markets, has raised $6 million in seed funding from investors including Sequoia Capital India's Surge, Y Combinator, Saison Capital, Starling Ventures, Alpha JWC, and AppWorks. GoalTeller, an automated financial planning platform provider, has raised $500,000 in pre-series A funding, the company said in a press release. Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds: https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Parallel Systems, a company founded by former SpaceX engineers to reimagine the railroad system, has raised $49.55 million in Series A funds to build autonomous battery-electric rail vehicles that move freight, the company said in a press release yesterday; Meanwhile GM said it is expanding its hydrogen fuel cells beyond vehicles to power homes, offices and malls. Former SpaceX engineers' startup out of stealth with electric rail Parallel Systems, a company founded by former SpaceX engineers to reimagine the railroad system, has raised $49.55 million in Series A funds to build autonomous battery-electric rail vehicles that move freight, the company said in a press release yesterday. The round is led by Anthos Capital and includes investments from Congruent Ventures, Riot Ventures, Embark Ventures, and others. The funds will be used to build a fleet of rail vehicles, execute advanced testing programmes and grow the team. The company, which came out of stealth mode yesterday, has raised $53.15 million to date, including $3.6 million in seed funds. “We founded Parallel to allow railroads to open new markets, increase infrastructure utilisation, and improve service to accelerate freight decarbonisation,” said Matt Soule, Co-founder and CEO, Parallel Systems. His co-founders are John Howard and Ben Stabler. GM to expand hydrogen tech beyond EVs General Motors, yesterday, announced new commercial applications of its HYDROTEC fuel cell technology. HYDROTEC projects, which are currently in development, from heavy-duty trucks to aerospace and locomotives, are being planned for use beyond vehicles, for power generation, the company said in a press release. GM is planning multiple HYDROTEC-based power generators, all powered by GM's Generation 2 HYDROTEC fuel cell ‘power cubes,' including a mobile power generator to provide a fast-charge capability for EVs without installing permanent charge points; a rapid charger, brand named EMPOWER, to help retail fuel stations add affordable DC fast charging without expanding the grid; and a palletised mobile power generator to quietly and efficiently power military camps and installations. These generators could ultimately replace gas and diesel-burning generators with fewer emissions at locations such as worksites, buildings, movie sets, data centres, outdoor concerts and festivals. They could also back up or temporarily replace grid-sourced electricity for residential and small commercial enterprises at times of power disruption, the company said. SaaS Labs, Rocketlane raise funding SaaS Labs, which builds business automation tools for sales and support teams, has raised $42 million in Series B funding led by Sequoia Capital India with participation from existing investors, Base 10 Partners and Eight Roads Ventures, the company said in a press release. The company plans to use the funds raised on R&D, to develop new products for its global users, as well as to scale newly-launched products. Rocketlane, a purpose-built customer onboarding platform, has closed an $18 million Series A funding round, the startup said in a press release. The investment is being led by previous Asana investors, 8VC, with participation from Nexus Venture Partners, Matrix Partners India, and prominent angel investor, Gokul Rajaram. Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Naren Gupta, a venture capitalist who co-founded Nexus Venture Partners to help cement Indian SaaS startups' position to the world, died on Saturday. He was 73.

Naren Gupta, a venture capitalist who co-founded Nexus Venture Partners to help cement Indian SaaS startups' position to the world, died on Saturday. He was 73.

America and Japan have reopened their borders, easing entry bans imposed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The US has reopened its borders to fully vaccinated travellers, ending restrictions imposed by former President Donald Trump in March 2020 that had affected non-US citizens from over 30 countries, BBC reported on Monday. Ending a de facto ban on foreign visitors due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Japan will allow business visitors, international students, and technical trainees to enter the country, Nikkei reported on Monday. The mandatory self-isolation for fully vaccinated business travellers could be as few as three days, according to the report. Daniel Ek, the Swedish entrepreneur founder of Spotify, who is now also famous for taking on Apple and Google for the way they run their app stores, has made the first investment from the € 1 billion ($1.16 billion) fund he started last year. Ek's funding vehicle, Prima Materia, has invested € 100 million in Helsing, a defence tech startup that produces live maps of battlefields, Financial Times reported. Helsing's AI software will integrate data from infrared, video, sonar and radio frequencies data from sensors on military vehicles, to create a real-time picture of battlefields, according to the report. IBM has opened a client innovation centre in Mysuru, the eighth such facility in India, the company said in a press release. The innovation centre is part of IBM Consulting and specialises in design, software engineering, and analytics. IBM aims to hire more than 10,000 staff for its innovation centres, in the current quarter globally. H2O.ai, the AI cloud provider in Silicon Valley, has closed $100 million in Series E funding led by Australia's largest bank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) with participation from Pivot Investment Partners. Founded by Indian American entrepreneur Sri Ambati, H2O.ai has now raised about $250 million. The latest investment values the company at $1.7 billion, H2O said in a press release. Existing investors include Nexus Venture Partners, Crane Venture Partners, Goldman Sachs and NVIDIA. The company's AI cloud is used by enterprise customers around the world, and it will use the latest funding to expand its operations. (3:21) Interview: Abhishek Bansal, founder and CEO of Shadowfax on his vision for a comprehensive gig economy platform Last-mile delivery is a rapidly growing segment of the logistics and supply chain industry, around the world. The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the demand for quick deliveries of online purchases, food and medicines. Today 30-minute deliveries are not uncommon and some startups are looking at even quicker fulfilment of orders. That said, Abhishek Bansal, founder and CEO of Shadowfax, a fast-growing third-party logistics startup, thinks that the picture is much bigger than just deliveries. And to that end, Shadowfax has overhauled its app, used by delivery personnel across the country to find their next gig. In today's interview, Abhishek talks about his vision for a gig economy platform where people can find short term work ranging from delivery jobs to even software development.

Nektar.ai, a B2B productivity startup, has raised an additional $6 million seed funding round led by B Capital Group, 3One4 Capital, and Nexus Venture Partners. Several well-known Go To Market players in the US-Asia cross-border SaaS ecosystem took part in the round.McAfee Enterprise has announced the launch of MVISION Private Access, an integrated strategy for granular ‘Zero Trust' access and extending data and threat security capabilities to private apps hosted across hybrid IT environments. Baxter International Inc., a global medical products firm, is partnering with Amazon Web Services (AWS). As part of a company-wide push to increase cloud usage, Baxter has extended its multi-year strategic partnership with Amazon Web Services.Bridgestone Americas enters a definitive agreement to purchase Azuga Holdings for $391M from shareholders to strengthen its Silicon Valley presence and accelerate its progress towards delivering sustainable tire-centric and mobility solutions. Salesforce announced a definitive acquisition agreement with Servicetrace (financials undisclosed) to integrate it with a previously acquired company, MuleSoft. The transaction would close this October and the new Robotics Process Automation (RPA) capabilities of Servicetrace would enhance Salesforce's Einstein Automate solution and enable end-to-end workflow automation.Nozomi Networks has announced a $100M in Series D and a pre-IPO funding round led by Triangle Peak Partners. It states that this has been a year of record growth, topping a 110 percent increase in annual recurring revenue and a two-fold increase in customer base.

Welcome to Grit & Growth's masterclass on the investment landscape in India, featuring Sandeep Singhal, Managing Director of Nexus Venture Partners. A pioneer of venture capital in India, Sandeep shares practical tips for entrepreneurs seeking early-stage funding.After working in Silicon Valley and at McKinsey, Sandeep cofounded one of India's first incubators in the 1990s. Over the last several decades, he has witnessed the tremendous growth of entrepreneurship and investment in India. Today, he works at Nexus Venture Partners, one of the first India-US venture funds that invests in global technology products and technology-led businesses for India.In this episode, Sandeep explores the evolving market trends in India, and shares how he evaluates investment opportunities. He also discusses the most common mistakes that entrepreneurs make during early fundraising stages. Top Six Takeaways:The Indian market is evolving from a value or discount based market towards one of convenience.Familiarize yourself with the investor ecosystem: identify potential investment partners and their areas of interest in advance.To attract early-stage investors, you need to demonstrate passion and a strong focus on product-market fit with a scalable go-to-market strategy.Don't go-to-market stating a valuation expectation ― have the market tell you what it thinks is a fair valuation.It's important to have clarity on the risks your business faces.To attract strong partners, you need to demonstrate real insight into the competitive landscape of their market.Listen to Sandeep's advice to help you raise capital and grow your business.Resources:Nexus Venture Partners: https://nexusvp.com/ Stanford Seed: http://stanfordseed.co/GritSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Anand is passionate about helping entrepreneurs build high impact enterprises in Fintech, InsureTech, Education, Logistics. With a background in operations at high growth companies, Anand is keen to help start-ups with his experience. He believes in the immense scope that “Bharat” presents for innovative India specific models.Anand was an entrepreneur and business leader prior to joining Nexus. He was a founding team member of MagicPin, a hyperlocal deal discovery platform. Most recently he was heading New Market P&L and Growth across Asia for BIMA (Milvik) – a global insure tech company. Previously Anand worked with Bain & Co. as a strategy consultant where he advised Technology and Consumer Goods companies in India and Silicon Valley.Anand holds an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad and B.Tech from IIT Kharagpur.Key TakeawaysHow a background in consulting has helped Anand in his career as an entrepreneur and a VCWhat is first principle thinking and how you can apply it to solve large problemsWhy ‘being calm is a superpower' for a founder going through the topsy turvy journey of building a startupWhy founders should focus on communication as part of their product's distribution, marketing, customer onboarding, customer support, and how startup teams can develop their communication skills2 startup pitches that stood out out for Anand, the core questions a startup should be answering while pitching to VCs & control rights to keep in mind while working with a VCWhy lending is a business of collectionsChallenges of a category building business and why your story matters more than anything else while you are building a category building businessHow the Indian tech ecosystem has matured and why now you see startups building products for the global marketsWhy lesser the regulation, the better for the tech ecosystem and why the next 10 years is going to be a golden period for the Indian tech ecosystem 

Meet Aditi Shrivastava, Cofounder and CEO of digital entertainment company Pocket Aces, and learn how the company identified investors to support them on their journey to entertain hundreds of millions of Indians in a rapidly shifting media landscape. Early on in 2013, Pocket Aces identified a huge gap in the market: content specifically designed for India's youth, where they wanted to consume it—on a smartphone. Fast forward to 2021, and the company is now one of the country's largest mobile content producers and distributors, with popular media brands FilterCopy and Dice Media, shows like Operation MBBS, and partnerships with the likes of Netflix and Facebook. How did Aditi and her cofounders build such a successful digital entertainment company, so quickly?It wasn't easy—Pocket Aces was raising capital where capital hadn't been raised before, and some investors either didn't understand the opportunity or were not confident that the supporting ecosystem would get there. In this episode, learn how Aditi and her cofounders found the right partners to grow the company, from their first angel investor to seed, Series A, bridge financing and Series B rounds. You'll also hear from a few investors about how they assessed this opportunity, including Sandeep Singhal of Nexus Venture Partners, and Pranav Pai of 3one4 Capital.Resources:Pocket Aces: https://pocketaces.in/ 3one4capital: https://3one4capital.com/Nexus Venture Partners: https://nexusvp.com/Stanford Seed: seed.stanford.eduSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Channext, a software-as-a-service platform connecting vendors and business partners, has raised USD 0.8 million in a seed round. Channext will use the funds received in this round to extend its European footprint in countries such as Italy, the Nordics, and Spain. Despite the difficulties of starting a business during a pandemic, he continued, their company has expanded significantly in the last year.Pathfndr.io, a no-code SaaS startup, has raised an undisclosed amount in pre-Series A round led by Arali Ventures. Other participants include SEA Fund, Wayfare Ventures, KPB Family Trust, Acsys Investments, and Capital A, JAZFund LLC, Shravan Gupta, and founders of unicorns Freshworks and Chargebee. Pathfinder.io is the operating name of Bengaluru-based MeTripping Technologies Pvt Ltd. The firm said in a statement that the additional money would be used to continue investing in product innovation at scale and expand its worldwide sales force.Tomi.ai, an AI-powered platform optimizing digital ads, has announced its seed fundraise of $1 million from Begin Capital and Phystech Leadership Fund. Konstantin Bayandin, founder and CEO of Tomi.ai, on his LinkedIn handle, announced the funding and thanked the investors. According to reports, Mr. Bayndin would use the proceeds from the fund to expand the company's platformHyderabad-based BigLeap has raised ₹5 crores ($0.67 million) in a debt fund from Anup Kumar Yama, a roller skater athlete from India and the CEO of Yama Skating Academy. Reports state that the funding was raised for the startup's initiative, BigLeap.AI, a stealth-mode HR product aimed at simplifying the job search experience. According to the Times of India, The BigLeap.AI app is expected to be rolled out in September this year and would help job seekers to tap into active vacant jobs in different sectors.New York-based Batch has raised $5 million in a seed round funding co-led by Coatue Seven Seven Six as per reports. The round witnessed participation from the Weekend Fund, Shrug Capital, and the Chainsmokers, among others. The startup provides QR codes to help retailers selling to customers, make re-ordering of their products fast and simple. Currently, the startup uses Apple's App Clip technology assisting the users in loading a small part of the app on demand but plans to make it work on both iOS and Android eventually.Acryl Data has come out of stealth mode, raising $9 million in a seed round led by 8VC, with LinkedIn and Insight Partners' participation to help companies use their tools for their big data requirements. Golden Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm, has raised its fourth fund of $100M. The funds will be utilized to invest in new companies and follow-on investments in businesses outside of Golden Ventures' portfolio. At this time, the fund's primary goal is to profit from the growing trend of increased opportunity in the Canadian environment.Mitiga, a cloud security startup, has raised $25 million in a Series A funding round led by DNX, ClearSky Security, and Atlantic Bridge.  According to the Israeli firm, the money will be used to “continue to disrupt how incident preparation and response is delivered,” as well as to “significantly” increase its cybersecurity, engineering, sales, and marketing employees.Pequity, a compensation software builder for equitable pay, has raised $19 million in a Series A funding round led by Norwest Venture Partners. Other participants include Scribble Ventures, First Round Capital, and Designer Fund. The funds will be used to invest in products as well as hiring. The firm now has 20 employees on its payroll and plans to double that number by the end of the year, after favorable market feedback.Frumtak Ventures has launched its third fund, Frumtak III, to invest in post-seed and Series A startups. The $57M fund would have a ticket size ranging from one to five million dollars for the companies it would invest in. The VC firm targets early-stage companies having a high growth potential.Embark Trucks Inc. and Northern Genesis Acquisition Corp II have jointly announced that both the companies will be entering a definitive business combination agreement that will make Embark Trucks go public. This deal will give Embark Trucks a market value of $5.2 billion. Embark Trucks is an autonomous software technology developer for the trucking industry. Aircall, a cloud-based call center software firm with a $1.1 billion value, has raised $120 million in a Series D round, making it a unicorn. The business plans to hold an enormous technology stack and collaborate with large telecom companies to use their networks.Vercel, a platform for creating, evaluating, and deploying Jamstack sites, has received $102 million in a Series C round with a valuation of $1.1 billion, making it a unicorn. Vercel is the open-source Next.js React framework's creator. Traffic to all of the company's websites and applications has tripled since October 2020, indicating significant growth. Carhartt, Github, IBM, McDonald's, and Uber are among Vercel's clients.PlanetScale, the pioneer of Vitess, a database clustering system for MySQL, has announced its Series B fundraise of $30 million, led by Insight Partners. Andreessen Horowitz and SignalFire participated in the round.Forto, a provider of digital logistics technology, digitized freight forwarding supply chain solutions, has turned a unicorn, raising $240 million in a Series C round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. The company's valuation now stands at $1.2 billion.In a move to unify developer experiences, providing intelligent applications, Amazon Web Services, and Salesforce have announced the expansion of their strategic partnership. The move would facilitate customers to use Salesforce and AWS capabilities in tandem to deploy robust and new business applications accelerating digital transformation quickly. Drata, a compliance and security automation company, has announced its Series A fundraise of $25 million in a round led by GGV Capital. Angel and other investors – SVCI (Silicon Valley CISO Investments), Okta Ventures, Basis Set Ventures- participated in the funding round.Rocketlane, a B2B SaaS, received $3 million in initial investment from Matrix Partners India and Nexus Venture Partners. According to a senior corporate executive, the cash will be used to grow the company and hire more employees. Srikrishnan Ganesan, Vignesh Girishankar, and Deepak Bala established Rocketlane in 2020 as a purpose-built unified workplace for interacting with clients on onboarding efforts.

Zostel vs Oyo: Zostel and Oyo have been engaged in a legal battle for more than 3 years. When Oyo refused to acquire Zostel back in 2016, Zostel believed that they had signed a binding agreement but Oyo considered it to be a non-binding agreement. Zostel believes Oyo owes them a 7% stake in the company for transferring their business as part of the deal. The tribunal has finally come to a decision that is still a little vague. The tribunal has said that Zostel is entitled to costs in the cause without putting any monetary value but it also said that ‘definitive agreements have yet to be executed'. CCI asks MakeMyTrip to relist Oyo rivals Treebo and FabHotels on its platform: Back in 2018, Oyo had signed a commercial agreement with MakeMyTrip and soon Oyo's rivals Treebo and FabHotels were delisted from MakeMyTrip. In 2019, FHRAI had filed a complaint against MakeMyTrip for stifling competition by not letting Treebo and FabHotels use MakeMyTrip's platform. While the probe is still underway, CCI has asked MakeMyTrip to relist both Treebo and FabHotels providing them interim relief. Paytm's new app turns smartphones into POS machines: Paytm has launched a Smart POS app that can turn any NFC-enabled android smartphone into a POS machine. In order to process payments using their Smart POS app, customers simply need to tap their credit/debit cards at the back of a merchants' smartphone. Acquisitions: Tata is reportedly in talks with an online search engine for local businesses Just Dial for an acquisition or a strategic alliance. Logistics technology startup FarEye has acquired another logistics technology startup PY Technologies to scale customer implementation and incubate new ideas. VerSe Innovation, the parent company of dailyhunt and Josh, has acquired photo-sharing platform Vebbler to boost the camera and social capabilities of its short video app Josh and build a comprehensive product platform for Indian language users. Turtlemint raises $46 million: Turtlemint has raised $46 million in series D from Jungle Ventures, GGV Capital, American Family Ventures, Mass Mutual Ventures, SIG, Sequoia Capital India, Blume Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, Dream Incubator and Trifecta Capital. NODWIN Gaming raises $22.5 million: NODWIN Gaming, a subsidiary of IPO-bound Nazara Technologies, has raised $22.5 million from PUBG Mobile developer Krafton. Ecom Express raises $20 million: Ecom Express has raised $20 million from the CDC Group. Quizizz raises $12.5 million: Quizizz has raised $12.5 million from Eight Roads Ventures, GSV Ventures, Rocketship.vc, Nexus Venture Partners and Prime Venture Partners. Riscovry raises $5 million: Riskcovry has raised $5 million from Omidyar Network India, Pentathalon Ventures, DMI Sparkle Fund, Bharat Inclusion Seed Fund, Varanium Capital and Better Capital. Follow Backstage with Millionaires to remain updated with our latest developments. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/backstagewithmillionaires/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/bwmillionaires/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/backstagewithmillionaires/ Discord: https://discord.gg/XySGGhXKep

Nexus Venture Partners (www.nexusvp.com) is India's leading venture capital fund, with offices in India and Silicon Valley. It has over $1.5B under management across 5 funds and an active portfolio of over 70 companies across technology, internet, media, consumer and business services sectors. In this episode, Roshan Cariappa hosts Pratik Poddar, who is Principal at Nexus Venture Partners. As an entrepreneur turned VC, Pratik is most passionate about consumer, community/content, education, e-commerce, financial services, and healthcare startups. (01:37) Transitioning from an associate to principal (05:17) Competing to work with the best startups (07:12) Decision-making principles (15:38) Overcoming covid-19 challenges (21:20) Healthy market cues (24:08) Evolution of EdTech (27:45) Impact of edtech on teachers (32:53) What makes content business investable? (38:37) The next 10 years for India VCs Connect with Pratik: Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pratikpoddar Twitter - https://twitter.com/pratikpoddar ------------------- Found this episode informative? Let us know by hitting the like button & subscribing to our podcast. You can also Tweet or DM us on - LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/startup-operator Twitter - https://twitter.com/OperatorStartup --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/startup-operator/message

This week in Indian Startup News, BigBasket vs dailybasket, Earth Energy EV launches three EVs, Flipkart to deploy 25,000 EVs by 2030, CCI investigates Google Pay for antitrust claims and layoffs at Ninjacart and Bounce and acquisitions by Dailyhunt, DeHaat & Vedantu. In funding news, Zomato raises $250 million, Innovaceer raises $105 million to become a unicorn, Infra.Market raises $100 million and Hubilo raises $23.5 million. BigBasket vs dailybasket: BigBasket believes it owns the word ‘basket' and now it wants dailybasket to stop using ‘basket' and also hand over their domain to BigBasket. According to BigBasket, dailybasket, which is a small online grocery platform operational in Coimbatore, is trying to use the brand and goodwill of BigBasket to lure its customers into thinking that they are associated with BigBasket. Earth Energy EV launches three EVs: Earth Energy EV has launched three electric vehicles – Glyde+ (smart electric scooter), Evolve Z (bike) and Evolve R (smart cruiser). All these electric vehicles are now available for pre-booking. The company claims that their electric cruiser Evolve R comes with fast charging capabilities but it can only be used at their dealerships. Flipkart to deploy 25,000 EVs by 2030: Indian e-commerce giant has decided to add 25,000 electric vehicles to its delivery fleet by 2030 and they have already partnered with three manufacturers – Hero Electric, Mahindra Electric and Piaggio. CCI investigates Google Pay for antitrust claims: Back in November 2020, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) had ordered a probe against Google Pay to check if Google was using its dominance to gain an unfair advantage over its competitors in India's digital payments space. While the probe was ordered last year, formal investigations have started in January of this year. Layoffs at Ninjacart and Bounce: Ninjacart and Bounce have fired 200 employees each. Acquisitions by Dailyhunt, DeHaat and Vedantu: Dailyhunt's parent VerSe Innovation has acquired AI-based startup Cognirel Technologies, DeHaat has acquired FarmGuide and Vedantu has acquired InstaSolv. Zomato raises $250 million: Zomato has raised $250 million from Kora, Fidelity, Tiger Global Management, Bow Wave and Dragoneer. Innovaceer raises $105 million to become a unicorn: Healthcare focused SaaS startup Innovaceer has raised $105 million from Tiger Global Management, OMERS Growth Equity, Steadview Capital, Dragoneer, B Capital Group, Mubadala Capital and M12. Infra.Market raises $100 million: Infra.Market has raised $100 million from Tiger Global Management, Foundamental, Accel Partners, Nexus Venture Partners, Evolvence India Fund, and Sistema Asia Fund. Hubilo raises $23.5 million: Hubilo has raised $23.5 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners, U.K.'s Balderton Capital, John W. Thompson and Chris Schagen.

Pratik Poddar is the Principal at Nexus Venture Partners. As an entrepreneur turned VC, Pratik is excited about working alongside technology entrepreneurs to create an impact on the lives of millions of people in India. He is most passionate about consumer, community/content, education, e-commerce, financial services, and healthcare startups. Prior to joining Nexus, Pratik spent three years working on his startups in social e-commerce and content marketing spaces where he experienced firsthand the challenges of building a company. Earlier, he worked as a quant analyst and algorithmic trader at Morgan Stanley, and private equity analyst at Blackstone. Pratik has a B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay.In this episode, we will cover:1. Look back at 2020 (2:15)2. Will VCs look at portfolio constructions differently post the pandemic? (4:50)3. What signals is Pratik looking for from an investment deal? (6:12)4. How should VCs protect themselves so as to not fall prey to bad deals? (9:01)5. What does a Principal at a VC firm do? (11:47)6. How does Pratik add value to startups (14:50)7. Opportunities and challenges of bottoms-up investing (18:55)8. How does operating experience help investors in VC? (23:05)9. Products vs Platforms: How can founders of today think about converting products into platforms? (30:27)10. What don't founders realize about building for India? (39:49)11. What don't VCs understand about middle India? (46:05)12. How does Nexus look at new sectors and what is their approach to investing? (51:16)13. Rapid fire (55:25)

Sameer Brij Verma, Managing Director of Nexus Venture Partners, started his journey in India's venture capital ecosystem back in 2007. That year, he joined Reliance Ventures, where he focused on early-stage investments in technology, media and entertainment, and telecommunications. His operational expertise lies in product management, business development, sales acceleration, recruiting, follow-on fundraising, and scaling. At Nexus, Sameer focuses on consumer internet, enterprise / SaaS, ed-tech, healthcare, and b2b commerce domains. He has invested in over 38 companies including the likes of Roadrunnr (Zomato), Postman, Zolo, Unacademy, and Hasura.io Join Roshan and Sameer as we breakdown the basics of venture capital, in addition to - - A day in the life of a VC - Finding the right startups and founders - Sameer's journey with venture capital - Lessons from investing - Frameworks for evaluating investing opportunities - Building differentiators as a VC firm - What sets the great founders apart ------------------------- Connect with Sameer - LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sbverma/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/s_brij_verma ------------------------- Know more about Moolya - https://moolya.com/ Know more about Clergo - https://www.clergo.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/startup-operator/message

Sameer is a Managing Director at Nexus Venture Partners, where he opened & leads their Bangalore office. At Nexus, he has led investments in Postman, Unacademy, Hasura, Infra.market, Zolo, Ultrahuman, Zomato (via RoadRunnr), Rocketlane, Quandl (NASDAQ), Goodera, MayaData, Joveo, Jumbotail, MyUpchar, Goals101 & Indix (Avalara). Prior to Nexus, Sameer was the founding member at Reliance Capital's early stage venture capital fund (Reliance Ventures) where he led investments in PayTM (stake acquired by Chinese internet giant), HealthSpring (Columbia Pacific), Tessolve Semiconductor (Hero Electronix), Dhama Innovations (buy-back), Greendust, Stoke (Mavenir Systems) & EBand Communications (CarrierCom). His operational expertise is product management, business development, sales acceleration, recruiting, follow-on fundraising, and scaling. He is on the advisory board of The Digital Fifth, an Advisor to AngelList India, Microsoft Ventures India and voted as a “40 under 40 Alternative Investment Professionals" in India by IAAIF. He is also a Global Panel Member at MIT Technology Review and a Kautilya Fellow (Class of 2020). Sameer has served in operating roles at UTStarcom, Inc, Ericsson, and American Wireless BroadBand, as a Product Manager, Solutions Architect, and Network Architect. A life-long learner, Sameer earned a B.S. in Computer Engineering as an International & Founders Scholar from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago.

What makes a winning startup?  Having been a founder before becoming a venture capitalist, Anand Datta, Vice President of Nexus Venture Partners, shares his thoughts and insights on what makes a startup successful. Tune in to this episode of the startup operator as we understand more about the current startup ecosystem. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/startup-operator/message

EP03 of Stars & Startups : Manuj shares the incredible rise of MyUpchar from an obscure platform for health content in 2016 to being at the forefront of startups that prioritized the vernacular web in India. The story behind monetizing a content service and having offered 1 million FREE consultations offered by the 50,000 doctors who have signed up for no cost. "As per our data 80% medical queries can be solved through tele-consultation, of the remaining 15% can be solved through video consultation. There are only 5% queries which need a physical checkup" say Manuj. "We live in a nation where people love to choose Hindi over English on any phone IVR"  -  being a key insight into creating the country's largest online resources for health information in 6 Indian languages ( May, 2020). Dr. Garg has a PhD in Economics from Stanford University and had worked at the BCG in San Francisco prior to starting his first venture. Manuj can be found on linkedin.com/in/manujgarg or on twitter.com/garg_manuj Show Notes 00:11 -  Introduction to MyUpchar 09:21 - The thesis behind MyUpchar 11:51 -  Ensuring credible content for real healthcare information 16:57 -  Drawing audience attention 21:02 -  The focus on small towns & helping native language speakers 26:08 -  {Ad break} Get affordable health insurance for your team at Wellmo www.wellmo.in 26:36 -  Building a credible product 34:46 -  Converting content consumers to paying customers 45:57 -  Limitations of digital consultations 51:00 -  Validation of the platform and trust from Doctors 56:10 -  Selling the story - Investors 1:00:34 -  COVID19 impact & MyUpchar You can learn more about MyUpchar @ https://www.myupchar.com/ The startup has raised $5 million in Series A round from Nexus Venture Partners, Omidyar Network, and Shunwei Capital. It also raised $350,000 in its angel round from Rajan Anandan, Alok Mittal, Mohit Satyanand, and investors from LetsVenture platform. Visit app.wellmo.in to find health insurance options for your small business or team. Prioritize employee wellbeing over anything else! Affordable plans that won't strain your budget.

Mark Kahn is the Managing Partner at Omnivore, a venture capital firm which funds entrepreneurs building the future of agriculture and food systems. Mark co-founded Omnivore in 2010 with Jinesh Shah, ex-CFO at Nexus Venture Partners. Previously, Mark was the Executive Vice President (Strategy & Business Development) at Godrej Agrovet, and also had stints at Syngenta and PFM. He earned a BA (Honors) from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he graduated as a Baker Scholar.You can follow Mark Kahn (@agri_technology) and host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) on Twitter.…Glossary of terms:1. Upstream investments – Upstream investments refer to infusion of capital into businesses that utilize material inputs needed for production e.g. seed, fertilizers, machinery etc.2. Downstream investments – Downstream investments refers to the infusion of capital into businesses where products get produced and distributed. e.g. e-commerce, grocery stores, logistics etc.…In this episode, we will cover:1. Mark's venture into agri-business2. The broad definition of agri-tech and what it encompasses3. Evolution of agri-tech as sector4. Omnivore's thesis for India5. Upstream vs downstream investments in agri-tech6. Sectors and geographies within agri-tech in India7. Metrics Omnivore pays close attention to while evaluating for investment8. Concepts of sustainability and how it correlates to success of the Indian agri-industry9. Challenges within agri-tech and for agri-tech startups10. The global opportunity for Indian agri-tech startups

Pati was key in the development of modern day computer chips.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

H20.ai‘s mission is to democratize AI by providing a set of tools that frees companies from relying on teams of data scientists. Today it got a bushel of money to help. The company announced a $72.5 million Series D round led by Goldman Sachs and Ping An Global Voyager Fund. Previous investors Wells Fargo, NVIDIA and Nexus Venture Partners also participated. Under the terms of the deal, Jade Mandel from Goldman Sachs will be joining the H2O.ai Board.

Ankur is co-founder of Emergent Ventures. Previously, Ankur was a venture investor at Nexus Venture Partners investing in US and India. Prior to that, Ankur was venture investor at Blumberg Capital investing in US and Israel. Prior to that, Ankur did strategy consulting at Accenture across a range of verticals including healthcare, financial services and... The post The Indian Startup Ecosystem System, Investing Cross-Border and Using Mindfulness and Meditation as an Investment Filter with Ankur Jain of Emergent VC appeared first on The Syndicate.

Unacademy founders Roman Saini, Gaurav Munjal and Hemesh Singh Bangalore-based Unacademy will add more educators to its online learning platform, which claims to be India's largest, after closing a $21 million Series C. The funding comes from Sequoia India, SAIF Partners and Nexus Venture Partners, with participation from Blume Ventures (all four firms are returning from Unacademy's Series B last year).

ZenProspect, a startup that emerged from the Y Combinator Winter 2016 class to help companies use data and intelligence to increase sales, announced today that it was rebranding as Apollo. It also announced a $7 million Series A investment. The round was led by Nexus Venture Partners. Social Capital and Y Combinator also participated. Apparently Y Combinator liked what they saw enough to continue to invest in the company.