Podcasts about sharechat

In today's Tech3 from Moneycontrol, Oyo hits pause on its IPO plans for the third time — and SoftBank might be behind it. Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen lays out a bold AI roadmap for India, spotlighting tools like Photoshop's Generative Fill and Acrobat AI. Plus, ShareChat turns a corner, going from heavy losses to cash-flow positive, with IPO ambitions in sight. Also, Bengaluru airport could soon get a smart AI upgrade. Tune in for latest on startups and tech!

Is it time for investors to move beyond the valley when analyzing India?Dev Khare, Partner at Lightspeed agrees. He shares with us an interesting view on two funding models:The Silicon valley model begins with raising millions of dollars & going through huge negative cashflow for years. Hopefully building a great product or maybe even creating a new market. And a few years later, comes out with super fast growth & revenue potential of millions & billions of dollars.Whereas, in the Compounder model companies raise little to no funding in early days. They don't go to negative cash flow, instead growing slowly. Not at 3x ,but at 50% and keep at it for some 10 years building a large company. Thus becoming profitable in a few years following a slow J curve, and raising rounds only to accelerate growth.India has built exceptional companies in the software industry following this model. But, we can all sense that lack of approval for India's enterprise products, which we can confidently say has been achieved in the consumer markets.With 13+ years at Lightspeed, Dev has backed companies like PhysicsWallah, Razorpay, PocketFM, ShareChat, Darwinbox, Portkey.ai, Qure.ai, and Accel Data. Prior to VC, Dev started as a product manager then founded his company Covigo, a developer platform for mobile applications.This episode promises an interesting discussion on building companies in enterprise.0:00- Trailer1:12 - Early days at Lightspeed India8:11 - Learning curve of an Investor11:52 - How OYO fixed supply when Airbnb didn't16:37 - Is organic acquisition now the norm?19:02 - India must rediscover its AI edge20:20 - Compounder v/s silicon valley companies23:26 - Why Freshworks & Zoho chose mature markets?27:40 - Can India create SAAS category leaders?29:18 - Enterprise startups cap at 30%33:07 - How a $3.2B company found its niche37:42 - AI services & AI led services40:37 - Lightspeed's Investment thesis45:34 - Why we have 70% second-time founders?48:18 - Will ITC & Jio acquisitions set a trend?52:37 - Are software IPOs sparse?55:34 - India's enterprise buyer market is small1:04:47 - Missed investments & Lessons1:06:28 - Why is India having a lag effect in AI?1:10:19 - Has India built global enterprise products?-------------Hi, I am your host Siddhartha! I have been an entrepreneur from 2012-2017 building two products AddoDoc and Babygogo. After selling my company to SHEROES, I and my partner Nansi decided to start up again. But we felt unequipped in our skillset in 2018 to build a large company. We had known 0-1 journeys from our startups but lacked the experience of building 1-10 journeys. Hence was born The Neon Show (Earlier 100x Entrepreneur) to learn from founders and investors, the mindset to scale yourself and your company. This quest still keeps us excited even after 5 years and doing 200+ episodes.We welcome you to our journey to understand what goes behind building a super successful company. Every episode is done with a very selfish motive, that I and Nansi should come out as a better entrepreneur and professional after absorbing the learnings.-------------Check us out on:Website: https://neon.fund/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShowwConnect with Siddhartha on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7-------------This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice.Send us a text

It's Monday morning, and the tech and startup news is already flowing. There are two critical headlines this morning, beginning with OpenAI going to Japan with plans for an office in Tokyo and a new GPT-4 model for the Japanese language. Given that the US, the EU, and China are all racing for leadership in AI, OpenAI's expansion into the Japanese market could expand the list of leading blocs and nations.The second critical piece of news this morning comes from Tesla, which is cutting more than 10% of its total global staffing. The company told employees the cuts were due to role duplication, but with the company also cutting prices and seeing its growth ebb, demand concerns are being discussed as a partial driver for the cost cutting.And there's lots more going on: The upcoming Rubrik IPO is leaking early pricing ranges, ShareChat's valuation is taking hits, and global smartphone sales are picking up. Hit play, and let's have a quick chat to get your week started off right!We'll be back Wednesday with our mid-week startup and venture highlights.Equity is TechCrunch's flagship podcast and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. You can subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.For the full interview transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, read on, or check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. Credits: Equity is hosted by TechCrunch's Alex Wilhelm and Mary Ann Azevedo. We are produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.

Welcome to Top of the Morning by Mint, your weekday newscast that brings you five major stories from the world of business. It's Monday, April 1, 2024. My name is Nelson John. Let's get started:With the financial year wrapping up last week, a lot of data was published from the past 12 months. One crucial data set was that from the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. This act provides a 100 days of guaranteed employment to every household. Most routinely, these jobs are available in the construction sector. With a poor monsoon last year, it was expected that more people would take up MNREGA (pronounced mun-rega) jobs. However, official data shows that year-on-year jobs remained largely flat. Usually, a bad monsoon would result in less agricultural work — and in turn, more MNREGA job applicants. Mint's economy reporters Gireesh Chandra Prasad and Rhik Kundu bring you the details.The big tech development from last year was the release of ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence system that generates answers based on inputs. ChatGPT's free model runs on the GPT 3.5 version, while the paid model that costs 20 dollars a month uses GPT 4. But many users are unhappy with the output, even in the paid model. ChatGPT's founder Sam Altman agrees: he admitted that it "kind of sucks". A new version is expected this year. Mint's tech editor Leslie D'Monte writes about what we can expect with GPT-5, and how ChatGPT's competition is currently performing. If you're a tech geek, you might have heard of Carl Pei. He's the original mastermind behind the wildly successful brand of OnePlus, and later started his own company, named Nothing. The China-born CEO started out by making a website at 12 years old to help people beat a Pokemon game, and never stopped tinkering with both software and hardware. The result? Helping establish OnePlus, which ended up selling millions of phones — first in China, and then the rest of the world. But Pei still felt he needed to prove something on his own, and left in 2021 to start Nothing. Mint Lounge's Nitin Sreedhar speaks to Carl Pei about his journey and work for this fantastic profile.Chances are, you haven't been to watch a Bollywood movie in the theatres so far this year. And I won't blame you: the releases have been quite lacklustre. Mint's media and entertainment reporter Lata Jha reports that the absence of major stars from released movies has caused a drop in cinema goers. But the trend doesn't stop there: a slump in prices paid by OTTs such as Netflix, Hotstar, and Amazon Prime to stream movies post-release are also hampering the movie business.You may have heard of ShareChat and Moj. These are two short-video platforms that became popular after the Indian government banned TikTok in 2020. Both ShareChat and Moj are owned by the same company, Mohalla Tech. But despite being operational for more than four years, the companies haven't yet figured out a sustainable business model. The result? Losses adding up to more than 5,000 crore rupees in the last financial year. Where does Mohalla go from here? Priyamvada C tries to answer.We'd love to hear your feedback on this podcast. Let us know by writing to us at feedback@livemint.com. You may send us feedback, tips or anything that you feel we should be covering from your vantage point in the world of business and finance.That's all for today. Thank you for listening.We'll be back tomorrow with a fresh episode of Top of the Morning. Have a nice day!Show notes:Construction growth eases pressure on NREGA jobs amid farm slowdown Will OpenAI pull out GPT-5 from its hat next? How Nothing CEO Carl Pei is breaking barriers Film industry had a muted Jan-March, as star vehicles play truant ShareChat and Moj are floundering. Can the businesses be fixed?

Anti-Social Ramayan: ShareChat Discussion | சமூகவிரோத ராமாயணம்: ஷேர்ச்சாட் கலந்துரையாடல் ஷேர்சாட் ஏற்பாடு செய்த ஒரு கலந்துரையாடலில் ராமாயணம் மற்றும் அயோத்தி ராமர் கோயில் பற்றி பேச எனக்கு அழைப்பு வந்தது. இந்த விவாதத்தில் ராமாயணத்தின் குறிப்புகளைப் படித்து அது எப்படி ஒரு சமூக விரோத இலக்கியம் என்பதை புரிந்து கொள்கிறோம்.

This week's episode is about why India as a country loves seeking status, as we welcome Ankush Sachdeva, co-founder of ShareChat, to the Neon Show!How Have Indian Consumers Evolved In The Last 10 Years?India vs Bharat ArgumentAre Majority Of Indian Products Aimed At Tier-1 Cities?All these CAPTIVATING topics and more in this FREE-FLOWING conversation about how social media has played a part in the consumer behaviour of Indians. A deep dive into why Indians are so status-driven rather than wealth-driven… Tune in NOW!_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

"ShareChat is in final stages of deliberations to secure about $50 million in new funding that trims the startup's valuation to below $1.5 billion, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Existing backers including Temasek and Tencent are among the investors in advanced stages of talks to invest in the new round, the sources […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Generated by Tailor.Get your own personalized daily podcast! Sign up for freeIn today's recap of AI news, we cover the shocking departure of Sam Altman from OpenAI, the potential for AI-generated content detection, and Byju's violation of FEMA regulations. Additionally, there are concerns over AI's carbon footprint, the UK government establishes an AI unit, and fintechs and banks partner up. Lastly, we discuss a new autonomous robot that can repair UK roads and celebrate women making groundbreaking discoveries in astronomy. Music: Mosaic [Electro] by Hardcore Scm. Licensed under: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/News articles cited in this episode:- New OpenAI boss Emmett Shear has a wild history of social media posts https://www.dailymail.co.uk/galleries/article-12775463/New-OpenAI-boss-Emmett-Shear-wild-history-social-media-posts.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490- Elon Musk's X/Twitter Sues Media Matters After Advertiser Exodus, Alleging ‘Blatant Smear Campaign' by Research Group https://variety.com/2023/digital/news/elon-musk-x-twitter-sues-media-matters-1235802852/- The Mystery at the Heart of the OpenAI Chaos https://www.wired.com/story/mystery-at-the-heart-of-the-openai-chaos/- Elon Musk's ‘thermonuclear' lawsuit over hate-adjacent ads on X… actually confirms them https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/20/elon-musks-thermonuclear-lawsuit-over-hate-adjacent-ads-on-x-actually-confirms-them/- India's anti-money laundering agency to issue notice to Byju's https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/21/india-anti-money-laundering-agency-finds-1-billion-violation-at-byjus/- The Next Evolution Of Generative AI Will Provide Specialized Intelligence https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2023/11/21/the-next-evolution-of-generative-ai-will-provide-specialized-intelligence/- Sam Altman to Spearhead AI Research at Microsoft https://www.analyticsvidhya.com/blog/2023/11/sam-altman-to-spearhead-ai-research-at-microsoft/- Happy Holidays, nerds: Books for astronomy enthusiasts https://mitpress.mit.edu/happy-holidays-nerds-books-for-astronomy-enthusiasts/- UC Berkeley Researchers Introduce Ghostbuster: A SOTA AI Method for Detecting LLM-Generated Text https://www.marktechpost.com/2023/11/20/uc-berkeley-researchers-introduce-ghostbuster-a-sota-ai-method-for-detecting-llm-generated-text/- OpenAI Employees Threaten To Follow Sam Altman To Microsoft https://techround.co.uk/news/openai-employees-threaten-to-follow-sam-altman-to-microsoft/- X lawsuit accuses Media Matters of running a campaign to drive advertisers away from its website https://www.engadget.com/x-lawsuit-accuses-media-matters-of-running-a-campaign-to-drive-advertisers-away-from-its-website-040022933.html?src=rss- X sues watchdog group Media Matters after report on ads next to Nazi posts https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/nov/20/x-twitter-lawsuit-media-matters-nazism-ads- Dowden's ‘hit squad' aims to replace civil service jobs with AI https://www.politico.eu/article/dowdens-hit-squad-aims-to-replace-civil-service-jobs-with-ai/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=RSS_Syndication- REVEALED: OpenAI's new boss Emmett Shear's X posts on women's 'rape fantasies', kinky sex and 'literal Nazis taking over the world', as staff revolt over Sam Altman's firing https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12773569/Emmett-Shear-social-media-sex-rape-fantasies-nazis.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490- Does Worldcoin Need a Reevaluation? Understanding Sam Altman's Crypto-AI-UBI Experiment https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/11/20/does-worldcoin-need-a-reevaluation-understanding-sam-altmans-crypto-ai-ubi-experiment/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=rss&utm_campaign=headlines- 95 Percent of OpenAI Employees Threaten to Follow Sam Altman Out the Door https://www.wired.com/story/95-percent-of-openai-employees-threaten-to-follow-sam-altman-out-the-door/- OpenAI in ‘intense discussions' to unify company, memo says https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/openai-in-intense-discussions-to-unify-company-memo-says/articleshow/105376261.cms- Polymarket Traders Betting on Sam Altman's Fate Have Become Bipolar https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/11/21/polymarket-traders-betting-on-sam-altmans-fate-have-become-bipolar/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=rss&utm_campaign=headlines- ED findings on Byju's and CEO's letter to shareholders; Tesla's India ride soon https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/newsletters/tech-top-5/bjyus-rejects-ed-probe-findings-tesla-ready-to-roll-soon-from-india/articleshow/105390217.cms- X sues Media Matters to silence moderation criticism https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/20/23970274/x-elon-musk-media-matters-lawsuit-nazi-ads-filed- Is Sam Altman joining Microsoft? Satya Nadella doesn't seem to know https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/20/23970100/sam-altman-microsoft-openai-satya-nadella-interview- Byju's tells shareholders it is fully compliant with FEMA rules https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/startups/forex-violations-byju-raveendran-tells-shareholders-firm-fully-compliant-with-fema-regulations/articleshow/105386345.cms- Linda Yaccarino: advertisers fleeing from X are just “temporarily paused investments” https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/20/23969970/linda-yaccarino-memo-x-twitter-elon-musk-anti-semitism- UK startup looks at autonomous pothole repair http://startupsmagazine.co.uk/article-uk-startup-looks-autonomous-pothole-repair- How Marketers Are Starting to Address Gen AI's Green Problems https://www.adweek.com/media/how-marketers-start-to-address-ais-green-problems/- OpenAI's Board Lacked Foresight, But So Did Everyone Else https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openais-board-lacked-foresight-but-so-did-everyone-else- Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella suggests that Sam Altman might return to OpenAI https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/20/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-suggests-that-sam-altman-might-return-to-openai/- 'Crack' squad of AI experts to be set up to tackle benefit fraud, asylum backlogs and the bloated civil service https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12773369/Crack-squad-AI-experts-set-tackle-benefit-fraud-asylum-backlogs-bloated-civil-service.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490- Preparing for doomsday, the AI genius Sam Altman whose sacking sparked a Silicon Valley war https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12772781/Preparing-doomsday-AI-genius-Sam-Altman-sacking-sparked-Silicon-Valley-war.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490- OpenAI board approached Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei about top job and merger, he denied https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/openai-board-approached-anthropic-ceo-dario-amodei-about-top-job-and-merger-he-denied/articleshow/105373902.cms- Was Sam Altman fired from OpenAI for moving too fast rather than for misconduct? https://techstartups.com/2023/11/21/was-sam-altman-fired-from-openai-for-moving-too-fast-rather-than-misconduct/- Top Leadership Changes at ChatGPT Maker OpenAI https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/top-leadership-changes-at-chatgpt-maker-openai/7362971.html- In OpenAI-Sam Altman conflict, Microsoft emerges as big winner https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/in-openai-sam-altman-conflict-microsoft-emerges-as-big-winner/articleshow/105372584.cms- The winners and losers of OpenAI's wild weekend https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/the-winners-and-losers-of-openais-wild-weekend/articleshow/105372119.cms- The long shadow of Steve Jobs looms over the turmoil at OpenAI https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/the-long-shadow-of-steve-jobs-looms-over-the-turmoil-at-openai/articleshow/105371877.cms- X CEO calls article that led to latest brand exodus 'misleading and manipulated' https://www.engadget.com/x-ceo-calls-article-that-led-to-latest-brand-exodus-misleading-and-manipulated-204025411.html?src=rss- Elon Musk's X sues advocacy group Media Matters for report on ads next to hate groups' posts https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/elon-musks-x-sues-advocacy-group-media-matters-for-report-on-ads-next-to-hate-groups-posts/articleshow/105371060.cms- What is going on with OpenAI and Sam Altman? https://www.engadget.com/what-is-going-on-with-openai-and-sam-altman-215725312.html?src=rss- OpenAI interim CEO Emmett Shear has history of unfiltered posts, Microsoft disses https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/new-openai-ceo-has-history-of-unfiltered-posts-microsoft-disses/articleshow/105370647.cms- Chaos at OpenAI adds fuel to the AI talent poaching war https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/20/openai-ai-talent-poaching-war/- How Microsoft's Satya Nadella kept the 'best bromance in tech' alive https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/how-microsofts-satya-nadella-kept-the-best-bromance-in-tech-alive/articleshow/105370112.cms- Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella signals willingness to have Sam Altman rejoin OpenAI https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-signals-willingness-to-have-sam-altman-rejoin-openai/articleshow/105370026.cms- The Vast Majority of OpenAI Employees Ask the Board to Resign https://www.theinformation.com/articles/the-vast-majority-of-openai-employees-ask-the-board-to-resign- Former GitHub CEO Friedman, Scale AI Founder Wang Declined OpenAI Top Job https://www.theinformation.com/articles/former-github-chief-nat-friedman-declined-openai-interim-ceo-role- OpenAI's Customers Consider Defecting to Anthropic, Microsoft, Google https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openais-customers-consider-defecting-to-anthropic-google-cohere- Fintechs bank on credit cards for growth; ShareChat's FY23 losses jump to over Rs 4,000 crore https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/newsletters/morning-dispatch/fintechs-bank-on-credit-cards-for-growth-sharechat-parents-fy23-revenue-jumps-62/articleshow/105368925.cms- Musk sues Media Matters as advertising exodus continues https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/20/musk-sues-media-matters-advertising-exodus-00128206?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=RSS_Syndication- OpenAI investors considering suing the board after CEO's abrupt firing https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/openai-investors-considering-suing-the-board-after-ceos-abrupt-firing/articleshow/105368777.cms- Fintechs queue up for card distribution business to lift topline https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/fintech-companies-queue-up-for-card-distribution-business-to-lift-topline/articleshow/105364456.cms- Why OpenAI blew up — and why it matters https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/11/20/23969589/openai-sam-altman-fired-microsoft-chatgpt-emmett-shear-silicon-valley- Welcoming The Elephant: Education In The Age Of LLMs https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2023/11/21/welcoming-the-elephant-education-in-the-age-of-llms/- OpenAI is in a shambles as majority of its 770 workers threaten to quit in the wake of Sam Altman's shock firing - with leaders now in 'intense discussions' to unify the company https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12775367/OpenAI-shambles-workers-threaten-quit-Sam-Altman-firing.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490

Generated by Tailor.Get your own personalized daily podcast! Sign up for freeIn this episode, we discuss the latest news in tech and investment trends. One highlight is a New York indoor farming company which has raised an impressive $85.4M. Additionally, we discuss the growing importance of AI and machine learning and how investment trends may shift in the coming years. We also delve into the challenges of finding tech talent, the surge of startups, and the importance of software expertise. Finally, we take a look at exciting new developments in AI-driven factory automation and how startup founders can benefit from on-demand product management expertise. Music: Mosaic [Electro] by Hardcore Scm. Licensed under: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/News articles cited in this episode:- US-based May Mobility drives away with $105M to deploy its driverless tech to more cities https://techfundingnews.com/us-based-may-mobility-drives-away-with-105m-to-deploy-its-driverless-tech-to-more-cities/- ShareChat founders secure $3 million in funding for industrial robotics startup https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/funding/sharechat-founders-secure-3-million-in-funding-for-industrial-robotics-startup/articleshow/105185535.cms- #NYCtech Week in Review: 11/5/23 – 11/11/23 https://www.alleywatch.com/2023/11/nyctech-week-in-review-11-5-23-11-11-23/- The Weekly Notable Startup Funding Report: 11/13/23 https://www.alleywatch.com/2023/11/the-weekly-notable-startup-funding-report-11-13-23/- From the roaring twenties to the transformative 2020s: Six essential investment trends for 2024 https://www.eu-startups.com/2023/11/from-the-roaring-twenties-to-the-transformative-2020s-six-essential-investment-trends-for-2024/- Venture Deal Flow: Record Numbers Of Companies Seek Financing In Bifurcated Market https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/startup-deal-flow-ai-dry-powder-butler-thomvest/- Is The Secret to Startup Success Recruitment? https://techround.co.uk/startups/is-secret-startup-success-recruitment/- The Unseen IT Differentiator: Improved Digital Employee Experiences https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2023/11/13/the-unseen-it-differentiator-improved-digital-employee-experiences/- Maelior https://www.producthunt.com/posts/maelior- Global Entrepreneurs Week: a spotlight on disruptive technologies http://startupsmagazine.co.uk/article-global-entrepreneurs-week-spotlight-disruptive-technologies

This week's episode is about the mastermind behind India's hottest startups such as Sharechat, Sugar Cosmetics & Kuku FM as we welcome Anand Lunia, founder of India Quotient, to the Neon Show!Is The Youth Of India Bad At Saving?Can India Become The Largest Economy In The World?Why Has India Not Created a Successful Role Model In Startups?All these exhilarating topics and more in this GRIPPING conversation. A deep dive into why India Quotient understands the consumers of India so well and how India is at the cusp of glory… Tune in NOW!*Sponsor Shout Out*Looking to build a differentiated tech startup with a 10X better solution? Prime is the high conviction, high support investor you need. With its fourth fund of $120M, Prime actively works with star teams to accelerate building great companies.To know more, visit https://primevp.in/!

సోషల్ మీడియా లేని జీవితాన్ని ఊహించడం కష్టం. వినోదానికైనా, విజ్ఞానానికైనా… సామాజిక మాధ్యమాల వైపు ఎక్కువ మొగ్గు కనిపిస్తోంది. సోషల్ మీడియా అంటే గుర్తుకువచ్చే బడా సంస్థల మధ్య అడుగుపెట్టారు ఓ ముగ్గురు ఐఐటి గ్రాడ్యుయేట్స్. 15 స్థానిక భాషల్లో కోట్ల మందికి ఇష్టమైన షేర్ చాట్, మోజ్ యాప్స్ తో విజయం సాధించారు. ఇది వినితీరాల్సిన కథ! It's hard to believe our tech life without social media. From entertainment to education, it has turned into a huge resource. In such world dominated by multi national companies… three youngsters have stepped in, to claim their share of success. They have founded Share Chat and Moj and has won millions of hearts. Here is their inspiring story. Script & Voice: Geetha #TALRadioTelugu #LifeMantra #sharechat #moj #socialmedia #Geetha #touchalife #talradio #TALPodcast

To be a guest in the Sandeep Maheshwari Show, kindly email us at meet@sandeepmaheshwari.com and if you would like to attend the LIVE session, simply register yourself for free at www.sandeepmaheshwari.com Sandeep Maheshwari is a name among millions who struggled, failed and surged ahead in search of success, happiness and contentment. Just like any middle class guy, he too had a bunch of unclear dreams and a blurred vision of his goals in life. All he had was an undying learning attitude to hold on to. Rowing through ups and downs, it was time that taught him the true meaning of his life. To know more, log on to www.sandeepmaheshwari.com

“Now that organisations are more inclusive. When you embrace different communities or different genders, you are actually embracing different ideologies and different sorts of views that will actually help your organisation if not grow externally, but internally.”This new instalment of The Shape of Work podcast features Shreya Tomar, Lead Human Resources Business Partner at Sharechat. In this episode, Shreya talks about how the workplace culture has changed and about the hybrid working model.Shreya has an overall work experience of three years. She did her Bachelor of Engineering from IES IPS ACADEMY, Indore, and her Executive Postgraduate Programme from the Indian Institute of Management, Indore. She worked at AIESEC before her time in TaskUs.Episode HighlightsHow has the workplace culture changed?The hybrid work culture in the current generationWhat are some of the future trends that will be coming in?How to handle employee retention?Follow Shreya on LinkedinProduced by: Priya BhattPodcast Host: Archit SethiAbout Springworks:Springworks is a fully-distributed HR technology organisation building tools and products to simplify recruitment, onboarding, employee engagement, and retention. The product stack from Springworks includes:SpringVerify— B2B verification platformEngageWith— employee recognition and rewards platform that enriches company cultureTrivia — a suite of real-time, fun, and interactive games platforms for remote/hybrid team-buildingSpringRole — verified professional-profile platform backed by blockchain, andSpringRecruit — a forever-free applicant tracking system.Springworks prides itself on being an organisation focused on employee well-being and workplace culture, leading to a 4.8 rating on Glassdoor for the 200+ employee strength company.

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In this episode of Recsperts we talk to Rishabh Mehrotra, the Director of Machine Learning at ShareChat, about users and creators in multi-stakeholder recommender systems. We learn more about users intents and needs, which brings us to the important matter of user satisfaction (and dissatisfaction). To draw conclusions about user satisfaction we have to perceive real-time user interaction data conditioned on user intents. We learn that relevance does not imply satisfaction as well as that diversity and discovery are two very different concepts.Rishabh takes us even further on his industry research journey where we also touch on relevance, fairness and satisfaction and how to balance them towards a fair marketplace. He introduces us into the creator economy of ShareChat. We discuss the post lifecycle of items as well as the right mixture of content and behavioral signals for generating recommendations that strike a balance between revenue and retention.In the end, we also conclude our interview with the benefits of end-to-end ownership and accountability in industrial RecSys work and how it makes people independent and effective. We receive some advice for how to grow and strive in tough job market times.Enjoy this enriching episode of RECSPERTS - Recommender Systems Experts.Chapters: (03:44) - Introduction Rishabh Mehrotra (19:09) - Ubiquity of Recommender Systems (23:32) - Moving from UCL to Spotify Research (33:17) - Moving from Research to Engineering (36:33) - Recommendations in a Marketplace (46:24) - Discovery vs. Diversity and Specialists vs. Generalists (55:24) - User Intent, Satisfaction and Relevant Recommendations (01:09:48) - Estimation of Satisfaction vs. Dissatisfaction (01:19:10) - RecSys Challenges at ShareChat (01:27:58) - Post Lifecycle and Mixing Content with Behavioral Signals (01:39:28) - Detect Fatigue and Contextual MABs for Ad Placement (01:47:24) - Unblock Yourself and Upskill (02:00:59) - RecSys Challenge 2023 by ShareChat (02:02:36) - Farewell Remarks Links from the Episode: Rishabh Mehrotra on Linkedin Rishabh Mehrotra on Twitter Rishabh's Website Papers: Mehrotra et al. (2017): Auditing Search Engines for Differential Satisfaction Across Demographics Mehrotra et al. (2018): Towards a Fair Marketplace: Counterfactual Evaluation of the trade-off between Relevance, Fairness & Satisfaction in Recommender Systems Mehrotra et al. (2019): Jointly Leveraging Intent and Interaction Signals to Predict User Satisfaction with Slate Recommendations Anderson et al. (2020): Algorithmic Effects on the Diversity of Consumption on Spotify Mehrotra et al. (2020): Bandit based Optimization of Multiple Objectives on a Music Streaming Platform Hansen et al. (2021): Shifting Consumption towards Diverse Content on Music Streaming Platforms Mehrotra (2021): Algorithmic Balancing of Familiarity, Similarity & Discovery in Music Recommendations Jeunen et al. (2022): Disentangling Causal Effects from Sets of Interventions in the Presence of Unobserved Confounders General Links: Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LivesInAnalogia Send me your comments, questions and suggestions to marcel@recsperts.com Podcast Website: https://www.recsperts.com/

ShareChat, yesterday, joined a growing list of Indian startup unicorns that have laid off employees amid a funding winter. The company has laid off 20 percent of its workforce to conserve cash, as the current global economic slowdown has made it harder to raise funding, according to multiple reports. The desi social media venture is among the most funded startups in India. Also in this brief, a Swiss entrepreneur is launching a privacy-first smartphone operating system based on a version of Android, and a Chinese company has built the world's biggest wind turbine. Notes: ShareChat, yesterday, joined the growing list of Indian startup unicorns that have laid off employees amid a funding winter. The company has laid off 20 percent of its workforce to conserve cash, and as the current global economic slowdown has made it harder to raise funding, The Hindu reported on Jan. 16, citing the company. As many as 500-600 people may have been laid off, according to a report from Mint on Jan. 16. In December, ShareChat shut its fantasy gaming platform Jeet11, resulting in about 100 employees being laid off, according to Mint. Mohalla Tech, ShareChat's parent company, announced $520 million in funding led by Google, in June 2022, which privately valued the desi social media venture at $5 billion. ShareChat will provide employees total salary for notice periods, and two weeks' pay for every year served while allowing employees to retain their work assets. Employees will also receive health coverage until June 2023, with the ability to encash their leave balances of up to 45 days as per their gross salary. Employees' stock options will also continue to vest up till April 2023. The tech job scene continues to worsen globally as we head into 2023. For example, “the hiring party is over at Amazon,” Slashdot reported yesterday, citing the low number of open jobs in the Software Development category at Amazon. The number has declined to 299 in January 2023 from 32,692 in May 2022, according to Amazon's Jobs site, Slashdot reports. Apostrophy AG, a Swiss software startup, is set to unveil a smartphone operating system that puts privacy first, according to a Bloomberg report that appeared in SwissInfo on Jan. 16. Founder Petter Neby, who already has one company selling high-design, low-tech mobile phones, has put together more than 50 employees globally and is raising 10 million euros ($11 million) this year, according to the report. The company's software, named AphyOS, is built on an open-source version of Android called GrapheneOS. China's MingYang is launching its latest wind turbine with blades that span 140 meters, or about as tall as a 70-storey building, NewAtlas reports. The MySE 18X-28X will be the largest wind turbine ever built, and it is meant to be deployed in offshore wind farms, according to the report. The number of science and technology research papers published has soared over the past few decades, but the ‘disruptiveness' of those papers has dropped, according to an analysis of how radically papers depart from the previous literature, Nature reports. The researchers, Michael Park and Russell J Funk, from the University of Minnesota, and Erin Leahy from the University of Arizona, looked at data from millions of manuscripts. They published their findings in Nature on Jan. 4.

ShareChat, the Indian social media startup backed by Twitter, Google, Tiger Global and Temasek, has laid off 20% of its workforce — or over 400 employees — just a month after eliminating more than 100 roles.

In this Episode, we take a look back at 2022, revisiting the year that it has been and some of the best episodes on the show. Wishing everyone listening, Merry Christmas and a great close to the year, 2022. It's been another year since the podcast has been running and I could not be more thankful to all of you for listening and supporting this journey. As we conclude the year, I figured it would be interesting to try a different format and summarise the year, instead of a new Episode! And so through the episode, I go ahead and share a brief recap of the year that it has been for the Podcast, along with some very interesting best episodes + learnings through the year. We published 51 Episodes through the year before this one, which included 3 masterclasses and 48 episodes as a part of the general series without missing a single week of publishing through the year. From covering Gaming to Logistics to FinTech to Real Estate, this year had some of the most mature conversations on the podcast! Looking back, I have so many favorites - highlighting some is very difficult, but let me try. We had some great Venture Episodes through the year, including the one with Vikram of Matrix, Hemant of General Catalyst, Deven of Insight, Mridul of Elevation, Vaibhav of Better. The common learnings through these episodes around business cycles, sustainably winning, building culture at VC Funds and pattern recognition are a gold mine of insights. If you're looking to understand the Venture World better, this is a great place to dive deeper. I hosted some of the best Founders in the ecosystem through the year. Some unforgettable episodes include the ones with Vasanth of smallcase, Rohit of Darwinbox, Sai of MPL, Ankush of ShareChat, Ankit of CureFoods, Shashank of The Whole Truth, Gaurav of Yubi, Awais of Pixxel, Pratham of Masters' Union and Ruchi of Oxyzo. All of these episodes and the others, highlight distinct founder traits and learnings from journeys' which exhibit great perseverance, grit and passion for building. I am so grateful to have started the podcast and I continue to cherish each & every new conversation on the show. I would like to thank you all for supporting us through another very interesting year for the Startup Ecosystem and hope I can add value to your lives via the podcast, with each new Episode. Thank you, Stay Tuned & Keep Building. Wishing you all a great close to 2022! --- Special thanks to our sponsor for these episodes, Stride Ventures. Here is a quick note on them: Stride Ventures, which is one of India's leading Venture Debt Funds, becoming synonymous with innovative startup financing in India. Stride provides comprehensive solutions, going beyond venture debt, to cater to distinctive challenges faced by high-growth and inherently strong businesses, backed by leading institutions. The fund has a portfolio of over 60+ diversified companies, having deployed more than Rupees 1500 Crore to date. In just over two years, Stride Ventures has emerged as the preferred venture debt lender in the Indian Ecosystem. To know more about this phenomenal fund, visit - https://strideventures.in/

In this episode, we hear from Amit Zunjarwad, Chief Product Officer at ShareChat and Moj about India's home-grown, video-led social platform that has more than 1 million daily active users. The availability of affordable high-speed internet has encouraged the growth of video consumption in India. With that, ShareChat has positioned itself as a leading social media platform in the country that focuses on supporting video content creators and consumers. Along with short video app Moj, Amit talks about the creative economy and how content creators can drive social conversations and connect people across different parts of India, in 15 different languages. He also shares his strategy for growth, and plans that include turning Sharechat into a modern advertising platform through bite-sized content on the go. With concepts like virtual gifting where people can buy and send virtual gifts to content creators already in place, learn how the brand is boosting the Indian ecommerce industry while shaping the next generation of consumers.

In this episode, we hear from Amit Zunjarwad, Chief Product Officer at ShareChat and Moj about India's home-grown, video-led social platform that has more than 1 million daily active users. The availability of affordable high-speed internet has encouraged the growth of video consumption in India. With that, ShareChat has positioned itself as a leading social media platform in the country that focuses on supporting video content creators and consumers. Along with short video app Moj, Amit talks about the creative economy and how content creators can drive social conversations and connect people across different parts of India, in 15 different languages. He also shares his strategy for growth, and plans that include turning ShareChat into a modern advertising platform through bite-sized content on the go. With concepts like virtual gifting where people can buy and send virtual gifts to content creators already in place, learn how the brand is boosting the Indian ecommerce industry while shaping the next generation of consumers.

In der Mittagsfolge sprechen wir heute mit Maximilian von Wallenberg, CEO und Co-Founder von Unstoppable Finance, über die erfolgreich abgeschlossene Finanzierungsrunde in Gesamthöhe von 12,5 Millionen Euro. Unstoppable Finance hat mit Ultimate ein Wallet entwickelt, das jedem das dezentrale Finanzwesen (DeFi) eröffnen soll, indem es Tokenized Assets, Web3 und Digitale Identitäten in nur einer Lösung zugänglich macht. Eine intuitive und leicht verständliche Nutzererfahrung soll mit einer nativen Integration ausgewählter DeFi-Protokolle dazu führen, den Massenmarkt anzusprechen. Der Beta-Launch soll noch im August 2022 erfolgen und es stehen laut eigenen Angaben knapp 300.000 User auf der Warteliste. Der endgültige Start ist im Laufe des Jahres 2022 für Android und iOS geplant. Das FinTech wurde von SolarisBank-Co-Founder Peter Grosskopf, dem ehemaligen Soundcloud-Ingenieur Omid Aladini und Maximilian von Wallenberg-Pachaly, ehemaliger CEO des Bereichs Digital Assets der Börse Stuttgart, im Jahr 2021 in Berlin gegründet. Mittlerweile beschäftigt das Jungunternehmen mehr als 25 Mitarbeitende. Unstoppable Finance hat nun in einer Series-A-Finanzierungsrunde 12,5 Millionen Euro unter der Leitung von Lightspeed Venture Partners eingesammelt. Die im Jahr 2000 gegründete mehrstufige Risikokapitalgesellschaft konzentriert sich auf Innovationen in den Bereichen Unternehmen, Verbraucher, Finanztechnologie und Gesundheit. In den letzten zwei Jahrzehnten hat der VC hunderte Founder unterstützt und den Aufbau von mehr als 500 Unternehmen weltweit gefördert. Die Partnerstruktur von Lightspeed ist paritätisch und insgesamt wurden über 700 Millionen US-Dollar in Gründerinnen investiert. Zum Portfolio gehören u.a. Personalis, Snap Inc., Epic Games, Giphy, Wheel, Calm, Guardant, Orcabio, Blend, Riverbed, Arctic Wolf, Carta, Nutanix, Grafana, Exabeam, Rubrik, Netskope, Appdynamics, MuleSoft, Grab, ShareCHat, Honest, Nest, Byhus, Grubhub, Faire, Affirm und TripActions. Weitere Investoren der Serie A sind Speedinvest, Rockaway Blockchain Fund, Backed VC, Inflection, Discovery Ventures, Fabric Ventures und Anagram. Mit dem frischen Kapital soll das Wallet während der Beta-Phase weiterentwickelt und massentauglich gemacht werden. One more thing wird präsentiert von OMR Reviews – Finde die richtige Software für Dein Business. Wenn auch Du Dein Lieblingstool bewerten willst, schreibe eine Review auf OMR Reviews unter https://moin.omr.com/insider. Dafür erhältst du einen 15€ Amazon Gutschein.

In this week's episode of Figuring Out we have Ankush Sachdeva Co-founder and CEO of ShareChat. His team created a Moj, a replica of the popular Chinese short video platform TikTok in just 30 hours after the ban of TikTok. In this podcast we have discussed:-How did he create Moj in just 30 hours after the ban of TikTok?-How he built ShareChat after 14 failed startups?-Love & Breakup, Next Big Industry?When we talk about our present, Social Media is one of the prime things out there, that made a place in our life. There is hardly anyone who is not on any social media. In this scenario, one Indian decided to find a social media platform that will change the way Indians perceive social media.Ankush Sachdeva is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Co-Founder of the Indian social media platform, Sharechat, which was launched on 8 January 2015. He supervises the company's growth strategy and examines product development. Ankush Sachdeva is the Founder of Mohalla Tech Private Limited firm which owns Sharechat. Sharechat has over 180 million monthly active users and the app supports 15 Indian languages, He built and experimented with 14 startup ideas before finding success with ShareChat.Mohalla Tech hit unicorn status with a valuation of $2.1 billion, after a $502 million fund raise led by Lightspeed Ventures and Tiger Global.Watch this podcast till the end to know about  short form content and AI, Funding, building in India, social status, and more.Ankush Sachdeva's Social Media Handles ⤵︎Twitter @AnkushSachhttps://twitter.com/AnkushSachLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankush-sachdeva/•   •   •

Dubverse co-founder, Anuja Dhawan, joins SlatorPod to talk about launching the machine dubbing startup and powering video content dubbing using the latest AI language models and tech.Anuja starts with her journey to co-founding Dubverse with Varshul Gupta as a result of the rise of English speaking video-generated content during the pandemic. She goes through the company's core team structure where the focus is on scaling through AI and technology.She discusses how they tailor their product to language demand in India as roughly only 10% of the population understands or speaks English fluently. She talks about their approach to tackling technical challenges when producing highly natural, emotional AI voices.Anuja notes the importance of dubbing short-form content from large social media and video networks like YouTube, TikTok and, specific to India, ShareChat. She unpacks a human-in-the-loop model where they onboarded a translator to improve linguistic nuances in their automated workflow.She also shares the story behind connecting with Dubverse's first investor, Kalaari Capital, and the lessons learned from the interview process. The pod rounds off with the startup's future plans to make dubbing published content even simpler for creators, so they can break the language barrier.

Google's parent Alphabet will slow the pace of hiring and investments through 2023, responding to the global economic slowdown, CEO Sundar Pichai said in an email to employees on Tuesday, CNBC reports. HCL Technologies reported its services business grew strongly in its fiscal first quarter, joining TCS in signalling customers continue to invest in the move to the cloud. And Lightspeed announced a half-a-billion-dollar fund close for India and south-east Asia. Notes: Google's parent Alphabet will slow the pace of hiring and investments through 2023, CEO Sundar Pichai said in an email to employees on Tuesday, CNBC reports. “Like all companies, we're not immune to economic headwinds,” Pichai wrote in the memo, which was seen by CNBC. “We need to be more entrepreneurial working with greater urgency, sharper focus, and more hunger than we've shown on sunnier days,” Pichai wrote, according to CNBC. Pichai said in the letter that the company hired 10,000 employees in the second quarter. And “because of the hiring progress achieved so far this year, we'll be slowing the pace of hiring for the rest of the year, while still supporting our most important opportunities,” he wrote. “For the balance of 2022 and 2023, the company will focus on hiring on engineering, technical and other critical roles,” Pichai wrote, according to CNBC. HCL Technologies, yesterday, reported fiscal first-quarter revenues of $3.025 billion, a 15.6 percent increase year over year in constant currency, and 2.7 percent over the previous quarter. Noida-based HCL Tech, India's third-biggest IT services company, joins larger rival TCS in signalling customers are continuing to invest in moving more IT to the cloud, which is helping India's biggest software services companies win larger orders. The company's main services business, which contributes the bulk of its revenues and profits, rose strongly at 19 percent year over year. “Our services business continues to have robust growth momentum … driven by our digital engineering and digital application services with cloud adoption being a horizontal theme across all services and verticals,” CEO C Vijayakumar said in a press release. The company's new orders grew by 23.4 percent with a good mix of large and mid-sized deals and its pipeline remains near a record high, he added. Lightspeed yesterday announced the closing of a $500 million early-stage fund, the LSIP Fund IV, for India and Southeast Asia as part of its global $7 billion fundraise bringing its total capital under management to about $18 billion. Lightspeed has been investing in Indian startups since 2007, and in addition to the fourth fund, it invests in growth-stage companies from its Select and Opportunity funds. Lightspeed's investments in this region include Indian Energy Exchange, Oyo, Byju's, Grab, Acko, Razorpay, Udaan, Sharechat and Innovaccer. Wheelocity, a supply chain network provider for fresh produce, has raised $12 million in series A funding led by Lightspeed. The round, a mix of equity and venture debt, also saw participation from Anicut Capital and other investors, according to a press release. Wheelocity was started in September 2021 by Selvam VMS, Senthil and Cdr. Amresh. Its customers include Swiggy's Instamart, Ninjacart, Dunzo and Blinkit. Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds: https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

In this Episode, I speak with Ankush Sachdeva, Co-Founder & CEO of Sharechat. Sharechat is India's leading social media platform, building for the next billion Internet users of India. Started in 2015 by a group of IIT Kanpur graduates, Sharechat is dominating the consumer social landscape of India, having a total of 300 Million Monthly Active Users across both Sharechat and Moj, their short form entertainment application. Valued at $5 Billion Dollars as of its last round, Sharechat is building a truly long term organization and is one of the first companies from India to recruit global talent. I sat with Ankush, its Co-Founder & CEO to decode how they have gotten here. Through our conversation we discuss the nuances of building a company at scale, the traits of rapid iteration, the culture at Sharechat and decode the future of content & content creators. (Time Stamps Coming Soon) About our sponsor: Stride Ventures, which is one of India's leading Venture Debt Funds, becoming synonymous with innovative startup financing in India. Stride provides comprehensive solutions, going beyond venture debt, to cater to distinctive challenges faced by high-growth and inherently strong businesses, backed by leading institutions. The fund has a portfolio of over 60+ diversified companies, having deployed more than Rupees 1500 Crore to date. In just over two years, Stride Ventures has emerged as the preferred venture debt lender in the Indian Ecosystem. To know more about this phenomenal fund, visit - https://strideventures.in/ Hope you liked the 105th Episode on the Indian Silicon Valley Podcast - Building India's Largest Consumer Social Company! That was it from this Episode, thanks again for tuning in! :) If you liked the episode, do share with your friends or drop us a quick review! Also, do follow us on social media to stay updated with all new episodes: Twitter: https://twitter.com/isv_podcast LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/indian-silicon-valley-podcast/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/indiansiliconvalleypodcast/ Gallery of all Episodes: https://airtable.com/shrTOFf1z5UT0q9p8 You can also subscribe to the YouTube Channel of the Podcast : https://www.youtube.com/c/IndianSiliconValley/ "If you never try, you never know" Stay Tuned, Keep Building.

This week in Indian Startup News, Unacademy opens first offline learning center in Kota to take on Allen and other players, Paytm Shows Strong Growth in Lending Business, Shiprocket acquires Pickrr, Mensa Brands buys Pebble, Sequoia Closes Largest India & SEA Fund At $2.85 Bn. In Founder Spotlight, we have the founders of Dukaan, Subhash Choudhary and Suumit Shah, who have announced plans to take Dukaan global. In Funding news we have, upGrad, WOW Skin, infra.market and 18 other Indian startups raise more than $1 Million. Unacademy Open first Offline Center: India's Edtech sector is seeing a major shift as billion-dollar startups are now taking on Offline coaching centers like Allen in offline space. After the impact of Covid going down and schools reopening, ed-tech startups have seen their growth slow down as we saw in the case of Byju's and Whitehat Jr and other startups like Unacademy, Vedantu and Lido Learning laying off hundreds of employees. This move by Unacademy has brought a big pushback from Allen as their founder Brajesh Maheshwari released a video warning it's teachers not to leave it. In response, Unacademy has asked for police protection for it's teachers. Founder Spotlight - Subhash Choudhary and Suumit Shah: Subhash and Suumit started Dukaan in 2020 to help Indian small businesses go online. After having a great run in local market, they have now decided to go global and take on Shopify. They have identified the issues that brands face with Shopify and they want to solve them. The major issue that they feel brands are facing with Shopify, is speed and performance and this is causing merchants to lose out on sales if customers have to wait even a few additional seconds for sites to load. Now this move by Dukaan would further solidify Indian SaaS companies reputation worldwide and would inspire more entrepreneurs to make products for the world. Funding this week: This week saw at least 21 Indian startups raising more than $637.6 Million. Edtech startups - upGrad raised $225 Million D2C startups - Skincare Brand WOW Skin raised $48 Million Social-tech startups - Mohalla Tech - parent company of Sharechat raised $77 Mn Construction sector - infra.market raised $50 Million Paytm Shows Strong Growth in Lending Business: After a period of sad state of affairs for Paytm ever since it's IPO in November last year, there is finally some good news for Paytm in it's lending business. For the two month period ending May 2022, Paytm has seen growth of over 471% YOY (year on year) as compared to the same period last year. Along with this rise in lending business, total number of users transacting on Paytm have also increased by almost 50%, to 74 Million compared to 50 Million during same time period last year. Shiprocket acquires Pickrr, Mensa Brands buys Pebble: Logistics startup Shiprocket has acquired it's rival Pickrr in a $200 Million deal. Started in 2017, Shiprocket has been one of the market leaders in logistics space and now they are looking at an inorganic channel of growth as they are on a massive acquisition spree. Since the start of this year, they have acquired majority stakes in Glaucus Logistics, market automation startup Wigzo, B2B logistics platform Rocketbox and SaaS-based Logibricks and Pickrr is their 5th acquisition this year. Mensa Brand acquiring Noida-based wearable brand Pebble is next and this acquisition will allow Mensa Brand foray into India's smart wearable segment. Pebble was started in 2013, by father and daughter duo – Ajay Agarwal and Komal Agarwal and it offered audio products, fitness wearables, chargers and cables. Now Pebble was a very significant player in the smart wearable segment, with more than 10 Million customers in 9 countries.

Alta da inadimplência atinge varejistas, COO da Meta anuncia saída e os investimentos High-Tech na moda... Essas e muitas outras notícias no Pills de hoje! ___ Este podcast é patrocinado por digitaliza.ai, a loja de soluções para digitalizar negócios Acessem www.digitaliza.ai   Link das notícias:   Sheryl Sandberg, COO da Meta, anuncia saída após 14 anos na liderança do Facebook. Agora a executiva vai se dedicar ao seu trabalho para empoderar mulheres e ocupará uma cadeira no board da Meta. Google investe 300 milhões de dólares em startup indiana chamada ShareChat, rival do TikTok Alta da inadimplência atinge grandes varejistas. O aumento dos calotes já apareceu nos números do primeiro trimestre de Marisa, Riachuelo e Renner Banco Central anuncia que real digital chegará ao mercado em 2023 e revela que poderá travar saques e congelar dinheiro se necessário MP que cria sistema eletrônico de cartórios volta para a Câmara, mas deve entrar em vigor em 31 de janeiro de 2023  NFTs já movimentaram mais de R$ 144 bilhões este ano, mas o mercado associa os números a transações pontuais e volumosas Em parceria com a fabricante brasileira Voltz, iFood lança moto elétrica de R$ 10 mil para entregadores. A plataforma de delivery vai vender as motos como forma de reduzir sua pegada de carbono, e ainda oferecer um modal mais econômico para os trabalhadores. WWDC 2022, conferência anual da Apple, acontecerá entre 6 a 10 de junho Até o final do ano, os investimentos das Lojas Renner na digitalização da criação de coleções devem chegar a R$ 30 milhões. Esqueça o LinkedIn - sua próxima oferta de emprego pode vir via Slack. Grupos e fóruns estão sendo utilizados para indicações e troca de experiências entre profissionais Venture capital despenca e startups brasileiras captam 60% menos em maio CI&T compra Box 1824, agência que explica geração Z para Nike e Google Clubbi do Brasil levanta US$ 12 milhões em Série A para ampliar seu marketplace de suprimentos de supermercado

As principais notícias sobre tecnologia e inovação aplicadas ao seu negócio, em poucos minutos do seu dia! ___Este podcast é patrocinado por digitaliza.ai, a loja de soluções para digitalizar negócios Acessem www.digitaliza.ai Link das notícias: Sheryl Sandberg, COO da Meta, anuncia saída após 14 anos na liderança do Facebook. Agora a executiva vai se dedicar ao seu trabalho para empoderar mulheres e ocupará uma cadeira no board da Meta. Google investe 300 milhões de dólares em startup indiana chamada ShareChat, rival do TikTok Alta da inadimplência atinge grandes varejistas. O aumento dos calotes já apareceu nos números do primeiro trimestre de Marisa, Riachuelo e Renner Banco Central anuncia que real digital chegará ao mercado em 2023 e revela que poderá travar saques e congelar dinheiro se necessário MP que cria sistema eletrônico de cartórios volta para a Câmara, mas deve entrar em vigor em 31 de janeiro de 2023 NFTs já movimentaram mais de R$ 144 bilhões este ano, mas o mercado associa os números a transações pontuais e volumosas Em parceria com a fabricante brasileira Voltz, iFood lança moto elétrica de R$ 10 mil para entregadores. A plataforma de delivery vai vender as motos como forma de reduzir sua pegada de carbono, e ainda oferecer um modal mais econômico para os trabalhadores. WWDC 2022, conferência anual da Apple, acontecerá entre 6 a 10 de junho Até o final do ano, os investimentos das Lojas Renner na digitalização da criação de coleções devem chegar a R$ 30 milhões. Esqueça o LinkedIn - sua próxima oferta de emprego pode vir via Slack. Grupos e fóruns estão sendo utilizados para indicações e troca de experiências entre profissionais Venture capital despenca e startups brasileiras captam 60% menos em maio CI&T compra Box 1824, agência que explica geração Z para Nike e Google Clubbi do Brasil levanta US$ 12 milhões em Série A para ampliar seu marketplace de suprimentos de supermercado

Alta da inadimplência atinge varejistas, COO da Meta anuncia saída e os investimentos High-Tech na moda... Essas e muitas outras notícias no Pills de hoje! ___ Este podcast é patrocinado por digitaliza.ai, a loja de soluções para digitalizar negócios Acessem www.digitaliza.ai   Link das notícias:   Sheryl Sandberg, COO da Meta, anuncia saída após 14 anos na liderança do Facebook. Agora a executiva vai se dedicar ao seu trabalho para empoderar mulheres e ocupará uma cadeira no board da Meta. Google investe 300 milhões de dólares em startup indiana chamada ShareChat, rival do TikTok Alta da inadimplência atinge grandes varejistas. O aumento dos calotes já apareceu nos números do primeiro trimestre de Marisa, Riachuelo e Renner Banco Central anuncia que real digital chegará ao mercado em 2023 e revela que poderá travar saques e congelar dinheiro se necessário MP que cria sistema eletrônico de cartórios volta para a Câmara, mas deve entrar em vigor em 31 de janeiro de 2023  NFTs já movimentaram mais de R$ 144 bilhões este ano, mas o mercado associa os números a transações pontuais e volumosas Em parceria com a fabricante brasileira Voltz, iFood lança moto elétrica de R$ 10 mil para entregadores. A plataforma de delivery vai vender as motos como forma de reduzir sua pegada de carbono, e ainda oferecer um modal mais econômico para os trabalhadores. WWDC 2022, conferência anual da Apple, acontecerá entre 6 a 10 de junho Até o final do ano, os investimentos das Lojas Renner na digitalização da criação de coleções devem chegar a R$ 30 milhões. Esqueça o LinkedIn - sua próxima oferta de emprego pode vir via Slack. Grupos e fóruns estão sendo utilizados para indicações e troca de experiências entre profissionais Venture capital despenca e startups brasileiras captam 60% menos em maio CI&T compra Box 1824, agência que explica geração Z para Nike e Google Clubbi do Brasil levanta US$ 12 milhões em Série A para ampliar seu marketplace de suprimentos de supermercado

Welcome to #72 episode of The Startup Operator Roundup. Today we have Roshan Cariappa and Gunjan Saha discussing -  1. Large Cheque fundraise - ShareChat raised nearly $300 million 2. Slice raised $50 million / What is the future of BNPL? 3. Jio-bp, MG Motor and Castrol ink partnership to bolster EV adoption in India 4. Mensa Brands achieves Rs 1,500 cr net revenue in first 12 months of operations and more! Click here to get regular updates on WhatsApp: https://wa.me/message/ZUZQQGKCZTADL1 Hit the like button if enjoyed this roundup, and do not forget to share among your operator friends!  Listen to our interviews and conversations with investors, operators, and founders on your favourite podcast platforms. #startups #unicorns  #technology #roundup #podcast #news #IPO #Layoffs #funding

Farid Ahsan, Co-founder & COO ShareChat chats with Amit Somani, Managing Partner Prime Venture Partners.Listen to the podcast to learn about01:00 - Founding ShareChat: Rejections & Insights12:45 - How First-Time Internet Users Use Internet20:00 - Content, Commerce, Livestreams & Monetisation36:00 - Dealing with Down Moments as a FounderClick here to read the full transcriptFound Farid Ahsan's journey insightful? Next, listen to Harsh Jain CEO and Co-Founder of Dream Sports. In this episode Harsh talks about Raising Money(100+ rejections and lessons), Forgiving nature of large TAMs, Tier 2,3 Consumers(Sachets Not Bottles), Web3, Play to Earn, Sports NFTs and much moreEnjoyed the podcast? Please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts and subscribe wherever you are listening to this.Follow Prime Venture Partners:Twitter: https://twitter.com/Primevp_inLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/primevp/ This podcast is for you. Do let us know what you like about the podcast, what you don't like, the guests you'd like to have on the podcast and the topics you'd like us to cover in future episodes. Please share your feedback here: https://primevp.in/podcastfeedback

Amid a funding slowdown, Sharechat's parent Mohalla Tech is expected to announce a $300 million funding round led by Google, India's Times Group and Singapore's Temasek, Reuters reports. Airbus has set up an R&D facility in the UK for cryogenic fuel technologies for its proposed hydrogen planes. One AI, an Israel and Silicon Valley NLP company has come out of stealth mode, raising $8 million in seed funding. Notes: Google, India's Times Group and Singapore's Temasek Holdings have invested nearly $300 million in Mohalla Tech, which runs the Indian social media platform Sharechat and short video app Moj, Reuters reports. The deal values Mohalla Tech at nearly $5 billion, two sources involved in the deal discussions told Reuters. The deal is set to be announced as early as next week, according to Reuters. It comes at a time when Indian startups are cutting costs and laying off staff as funding is drying up due to a global economic downturn. India's government is ready with a consultation paper on cryptocurrencies, economic affairs secretary Ajay Seth told reporters on the sidelines of an event on Monday, Reuters reports. Seth said there needed to be a global consensus on cryptocurrencies and India would look at regulations enforced in other countries before deciding how it would regulate them. Uncertainty over crypto regulation in India has led some crypto startups to move their base from the country to locations such as Dubai. Former Disney CEO Bob Iger has acquired a stake in the Australian design company Canva and agreed to be an advisor to the privately held company, CNBC reports. Iger and Canva didn't reveal the size of the investment. Canva raised money in September, valuing the company at $40 billion, according to CNBC. One AI, an NLP-as-a-service startup that helps developers to embed Language AI in their products, officially launched yesterday, with $8 million in seed funding, the Israel and Silicon Valley company said in a press release. Angel investors and VCs, including Ariel Maislos, Tech Aviv, and Tomer Wiengarten, CEO of Sentinel One, invested in the company. Airbus has launched a hydrogen technologies facility in the UK, in its latest move to support the design of its next generation of aircraft, CNBC reports. Airbus said in a statement last week that the Zero Emission Development Centre in Filton, Bristol, had already begun working on the development of the tech. One of the site's main goals will centre around work on what Airbus called a “cost-competitive cryogenic fuel system” that its ZEROe aircraft will need. Details of three zero-emission, “hybrid-hydrogen” concept planes under the ZEROe moniker were released back in September 2020. Airbus has said it wants to develop “zero-emission commercial aircraft” by the year 2035, according to CNBC. Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds: https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Google to back India ShareCaht in $300 million funding. People and businesses are packing up and leaving Hong Kong for Singapore. The War with Russia and Ukraine is causing Insurance to go up while at the same time it's changing the oil markets. Finally, there are talks of a Recession on Wall Street. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Our guest today is Rishabh Mehrotra, ex Tech Lead at Spotify and Director of Machine Learning at ShareChat. In our conversation, Rishabh first talks about his transition from working as an analyst at Goldman Sachs to his PhD at UCL where he worked on deep models for user understanding, knowledge discovery and decision optimization. We then explore Machine Learning at Spotify which Rishabh joined in 2017 as a founding member of the research lab. We dig into recommender systems and discuss how AI can be used to improve user experience by understanding their behaviours and recommending personalised songs / playlists. Rishabh also talks about his new role at ShareChat, a leading Indian social media platform with over 300 million users. We discuss the impact of machine learning on the creator economy, the main challenges, the importance of metrics to train and monitor ML models but also share advice on how to become a good Data Scientist / ML Engineer and progress in your career. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe to my Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWvn6k4aeceyYKjAleML9VA 

This week in Indian startup news, OYO's road to IPO clear - HC dismisses Zostel's petition, Sharechat's Moj acquires MX Player's TakaTak, Cult.fit acquires Gold Gym's India business. In funding news, Glance raises $200 million from Jio Platforms, Altigreen raises $40 million, Kenko Health raises $12 million, RENEE Cosmetics raises $10 Million, Join Ventures raises $10 million, Healthysure raises $1.2 Million, Aulerth raises $1.1 Million, Swipe raises $2.2 Million, Runo raises $500k. OYO's road to IPO clear as HC dismisses Zostel's petition: Back in 2015, OYO had entered into talks with Zo Rooms (the owner of Zostel) to acquire Zostel but after the deal fell through, the two have been logging heads in the courtroom. While Zostel says that OYO had signed a term sheet that was legally binding, OYO says otherwise and from Zostel's perspective, OYO owes them a 7% stake in the hospitality giant as part of that deal. And the issue came to the forefront once again when OYO filed for an IPO and Zostel filed a petition with the Delhi High Court to suspend their IPO – to keep OYO from changing their ownership structure. However, in what is a big relief for OYO, the Delhi High Court has decided to dismiss Zostel's petition. Sharechat's Moj acquires MX Player's TakaTak: Sharechat's short video app Moj has acquired MX Player's MX TakaTak in a cash and stock deal which is estimated to be worth anywhere between $600 to $900 million by various news reports. While both Moj and MX TakaTak will be operating as separate apps for now, they two are expected to be merged in the next six months. With this acquisition, Moj and MX TakaTak which have 160 million and 150 million monthly acquire users (MAUs) respectively will together have access to 310 million monthly active users – making them one of the biggest players in the short video space. Cult.fit acquires Gold Gym's India business: Health and fitness startup Cult.fit has acquired Gold's Gym's India business for an undisclosed amount by picking up a majority stake in F2 Fun & Fitness India – making Cult.fit the master franchise partner of Gold's Gym in India. While Cult.fit operates more than 350 owned and partner centres across the country, Gold's Gym is the second-largest player in the fitness space with 150 gyms across 95 cities in the country. As a part of this acquisition, Cult.fit will continue to operate Gold's Gym as a separate brand to leverage the brand's 19 yearlong brand equity they have built-in India and also plans to scale Gold's Gym to 200 centres in the next 24 months. Not just in India but they plan to expand Gold's Gym across geographies like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal and Bhutan. Glance raises $200 million from Jio Platforms: Glance, an InMobi-owned lockscreen content platform, has raised $200 million in a round led by Jio Platforms to build Glance into the world's largest live content and commerce platform. Altigreen raises $40 million: Commercial EV manufacturer Altigreen has raised $40 million in a round led by Sixth Sense Ventures, Reliance New Energy (a subsidiary of Reliance Industries), Xponentia Capital, Accurant International and Momentum Venture Capital. Kenko Health raises $12 million: Healthtech startup Kenko Health has raised $12 million in a round led by Sequoia Capital to add new products and OPD categories like dental, mental health, at-home care and sexual health and to expand their userbase to 250,000 by the end of March 2022.

In this episode, we have Dharmesh Ba with us on Audiogyan. He is a product designer turned user researcher committed to building delightful digital services for India through research and design. He is currently building a research team for Udaan and Thousand faces Club.Tune in to the episode as Kedar and Dharmesh talk about the significance of a user researcher in an organisation and how research and insights help an organisation.Follow Dharmesh Ba on LinkedIn- https://in.linkedin.com/in/dharmeshbaFollow Kedar Nimkar on Twitter https://twitter.com/nimkarkedarFollow Audiogyan on Twitter- https://twitter.com/audiogyanYou can listen to this show and other awesome shows on the new and improved IVM Podcast App on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/iosYou can check out our website at http://www.ivmpodcasts.com

In the week leading to Valentine's, some companies got a lot of love, some folks got a lot of hate and we got a lot of stories to bring to you in this episode of Think Fast with Varun & Suchita.They discuss a Metaverse shaadi, Ola's scaling issues, and some Crypto updates followed by a rapid-fire on Twitter's downvote button, Peloton's possible acquisitions, rounding up Shark Tank S1, Times Internet's recent disinvestment, and Zomato's BNPL model. Suchita probes into what Content to Commerce is, and Varun lists all the drama around Ashneer Grover, the ScoopWhoop case, John Foley, and Jeff Zucker. And we have a guest- Front Row's Ishaan Preet Singh who gives us a masterclass on the Subscription Model- how it has existed since long and has just gone digital and boomed, how brands try to retain consumers via loyalty programs, and much more. Fins Ishaan on Twitter @ishaanpreetCheck Out Front Row at (https://frontrow.co.in/)Varun's book is out!Suchita Recommends AirMail Varun Recommends The Book of Boba Fett on Disney + HotstarYou can follow Varun Duggirala on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/varunduggi and on Instagram athttps://instagram.com/varunduggiFollow Suchita Salwan on Twitter at https://twitter.com/suchitasalwan and on Instagram athttps://instagram.com/suchitasalwanListen to this show and other awesome shows on the new and improved IVM Podcasts App on Android or iOS.

In the episode, we discuss the waning interest in the wine business . That's right, millennials don't like to wine and dine anymore. Additionally, we also outline the recent ShareChat acquisition. The Indian social media platform is buying MX TakaTak. Is this a win-win situation? Tune in to learn more about this!

Farid is a co-founder and COO of one of India's largest homegrown social media apps, ShareChat & it's sister app Moj. In this episode he spoke about what it's like to building for the bharat user, what the bharat user is like, what it means to be socially responsible and how they're empowering creators from the farthest corners of India. Topics: 00:00 Introduction 01:41 Building for the Bharat user in 2014 12:49 The "Aha" moment 18:03 Importance of having a support network 22:20 Going from 0-100mn users 34:34 Building a growth team 39:21 What is the bharat user like? 42:25 Being socially responsible 46:48 Principles for monetization 50:32 Empowering content creators across India 53:32 How do you think about competition 56:31 High level challenges Farid is solving 58:37 Books and Podcast recommendations ------------------------------------- Click here to get regular WhatsApp updates: https://wa.me/message/ZUZQQGKCZTADL1 ------------------------------------- Connect with Farid : Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/faridahsan/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/frdahsan ------------------------------------- Connect with Us: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/startup-operator ​Twitter: https://twitter.com/OperatorStartup​​ ------------------------------------- If you liked this episode, let us know by hitting the like button and share with your friends and family. Please also remember to subscribe to our channel and switch on the notifications to never miss an episode! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/startup-operator/message

Bharat is not a homogeneous lump of 500+ Mn basis access to Internet, Socio-economic background or a vernacular cut. It has more refined layers and sub-cultures that drive it. With a stronger aspirational participation to the Indian economy & shift to producer mindset than consumers - building for Bharat means getting away from the mindset of stripped down version of products for affordability - but to re-engineer a suite of products from first principles needs, wants & desires of these users. In this talk, Ekta shares personal anecdotes from user research, defining the right goals, "living" their lives, contrast it with other matured products for different user segments and how to set yourself up as Product leaders to build products that positively shape the lives of these users. The talk was done as part of ProductgeeksConf - world's first audio conference. The conference happened on FWD app.

This week in Indian startup news, Log 9 Materials partners with Hero Electric for their disruptive 15-minute battery technology, Ola begins delivery of their electric scooters and Polygon acquires Mir Protocol for $400 million. In funding news, Sharechat raises $266 million, Ninjacart raises $145 million, Uni raises $70 million and Juspay raises $60 million. Log 9 Materials partners with Hero Electric for their disruptive 15-minute battery technology: Earlier this year, Log 9 Materials had announced that they were piloting their disruptive battery technology that lets you charge the battery in just 15 minutes. The startup has now partnered with Hero Electric – allowing the company to use Log 9's batteries in all their electric scooters. Ola begins delivery of their electric scooters: After multiple delays, Ola has finally started shipping out their electric scooters to the customers in Bengaluru and Chennai who have been waiting for months. However, it looks like that some of the key features like cruise control, voice commands and Bluetooth might not be available for the customers just yet and they might have to wait a little longer to have these features enabled through an OTA software update. Polygon acquires Mir Protocol for $400 million: Indian Ethereum-based layer 2 scaling solution Polygon has now acquired another Ethereum-based scaling startup Mir in a deal worth $400 million. With the acquisition of Mir, Polygon will get access to their Zero-Knowledge (ZK) proof solution – which will allow them to verify many Ethereum transactions with just a single tiny proof without sharing any details about the transaction. Sharechat raises $266 million: Mohalla Tech, the owner of Indian language social media platform Sharechat and short video app Moj, has raised $266 million in a round led by Alkeon Capital at a $3.7 billion valuation as they plan to strengthen their live and social commerce play. Ninjacart raises $145 million: B2B agritech startup Ninjacart has raised $145 million in a round led by Walmart and Flipkart – making this the largest ever funding round for an agritech startup in India. This will allow Ninjacart to improve their technology and invest in upgrading its infrastructure to optimize their supply chain, while enabling Flipkart to expand their grocery delivery presence. Uni raises $70 million: Fintech startup Uni – which offers pay-later cards like recently turned unicorn Slice, has raised $70 million in a round led by General Catalyst to help them launch four new products including a credit card. Juspay raises $60 million: Digital payments platform Juspay has raised $60 million in a round led by Softbank's Vision Fund II enabling them to invest in technology and product development to scale their digital payments business.

Shilpi talks about her journey as a product manager at ShareChat , role of data in informing decisions, well designed apps , love for telegram and much more.

How has the venture fund narrative shaped up in India? Is there a so-to-say Indian way of venture funding? What are the big areas of future growth for those wanting to build brands and businesses in this market? In episode 4 of Speakeasy with Dheeraj Sinha, we deep-dive into understanding the Indian investment landscape with our guest Anand Lunia, Founding Partner at India Quotient, A Venture Capital company borne out of India.Anand elaborates on the need for an Indian UI/UX to better suit the sensibilities of Indian audiences, what it takes to build a scalable business and be a successful entrepreneur in India.Find Anand on Social Media:Website | TwitterFind Dheeraj Sinha on Social Media:Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn Check out our website: (https://speakeasywithdheerajsinha.in/) Follow Speakeasy on Social Media:Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn Find Leo Burnett on Social Media:Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn

On this episode of The Signal Daily podcast Chinmay Bhogle fills you in on Epic Games’ battle with Google, Apple and film making. Also, a little about Sharechat's Moj acquiring Mx TakaTak

Harsh Pokharna and I discuss how to make apps for Bharath, unusual influencers, cracking Y Combinator, building Trust, killing idea babies and so much more!Resources Mentioned:Lean Startup - How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses.Y CombinatorPS: Proceeds from the Amazon link above go to my Thick Chocolate Shake Fund. Thanks In advance.About our sponsor: Kaleyra, Inc. (NYSE American: KLR, KLR WS) serves omni-channel communication solutions to businesses worldwide. It is a globally trusted cloud communication platform that helps enterprises and organizations connect with billions of users in a scalable, reliable, and secure manner.To know more about Kaleyra's offerings, visit http://bit.ly/38KcPJ5Stay in touch:LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/3cGxUFpTwitter - https://bit.ly/3vtjBN7Facebook - http://bit.ly/3rX46LdInstagram - https://bit.ly/38OLo0IReach out to Harsh:Instagram: elpsykongroo_Linkedin: Harsh PokharnaOkCredit: https://okcredit.in/  

Farid is the Co-founder and COO of Indian startup ShareChat & Moj. ShareChat (recently valued at $2.9bn) is India's largest homegrown social media platform with about 200mn users, while Moj is the largest short video app of India with more than 160mn active users. ShareChat has prominent investors including Tiger Global, Temasek and Lightspeed, along with global networks Twitter and Snapchat. Farid did his undergrad from IIT Kanpur in 2014. He is also a Venture Partner at First Cheque, and has done a few angel investments like OkCredit, Giva, Saveo, AbleJobs, FrontRow, BharatAgri amongst others.

Amit is the co-founder and CEO of Weekday (backed by Y Combinator). He previously built and exited Memer to Sharechat and was part of an early stage VC firm. Weekday is building an alternative tech hiring platform which helps companies hire software engineers who are vouched by others. Amit talks about benchmarks startups should follow in hiring Indian software engineers, and how to navigate tech hiring in remote-first world.

This week in Indian Startup News, Grofers' 15-minute express delivery, Zomato's successful IPO, Ola could launch a used car marketplace, Byju's acquires Great Learning and Toppr for $750 million, Unacademy acquires Rheo TV and Unacademy offers stock options to teachers. In funding news, GupShup raises $240 million, Droom raises $200 million to become a unicorn and Sharechat raises $145 million. Grofers' 15-minute express delivery: Online grocery startup Grofers announced that they had fulfilled more than 7,000 deliveries in Gurugram in just under 15 minutes on a single day – marking their entry into the express delivery segment. Zomato's successful IPO and listing: After a successful IPO which was subscribed 38 times, Zomato's stock was listed on the stock markets at a 50% premium – raising their valuation to a massive $13.5 billion and ranking them among the top 50 most valuable publicly traded companies in India. Ola could launch a used car marketplace: There have been reports that Indian ridehailing startup Ola could go for an IPO next year and looks like they are planning to enter the online used car retailing business to boost their revenues ahead of the IPO. Byju's acquires Great Learning and Toppr for $750 million: World's most valuable edtech startup Byju's has acquired two Indian edtech startups, Great Learning and Toppr, worth a whopping $750 million expand into the professional upskilling market and to strengthen their exam preparation vertical. Unacademy acquires Rheo TV: Edtech unicorn Unacademy has acquired live game streaming platform Rheo TV and as a part of the deal, Rheo TV founders will be joining their team at Relevel. Unacademy offers stock options to teachers: In a first of its kind move, Unacademy has decided to announce stock options for the teachers on their platform. More than 300 of their teachers are already eligible for the grant and they plan on allocating Teacher Stock Options or TSOPs worth $40 million in the coming years. GupShup raises $240 million: GupShup has raised an additional $240 million – taking their total series F funding to $340 million. Droom raises $200 million to become a unicorn: Online marketplace for automobile Droom has raised $200 million at a billion-dollar valuation – making them the 16 Indian unicorns this year. Sharechat raises $145 million: Mohalla Tech, the owner of Sharechat and Moj, has raised $145 million at a $2.88 billion valuation.

Apple reported another set of record-breaking earnings results on Tuesday, but warned of supply constraints and that sales could be slowing down in the current quarter. The company had double-digit growth in many markets and “especially strong growth in emerging markets, including India, Latin America and Vietnam” for the June quarter, CEO Tim Cook told investors. And in our tech conversation today, Mayank Tiwari at ReshaMandi talks about digitalising the sericulture supply chain in India

In today's episode, we take a look at the top 10 Indian social media startups building for Bharat. #10 Leher: Founded by Vikas Malpani and Atul Jaju in 2018, Leher allows you to host live audio and video discussions with your club members who share the same interests. Despite being early to the live audio scene, Leher didn't get as much attention as its counterpart Clubhouse. However, their platform now has more than 150,000 users without the help of any investors. #9 Lokal App: Founded by Jani Pasha and Vipul Chaudhary in 2018, Lokal is a hyperlocal news sharing platform that started offering news in Jani's hometown Kodad in his native language Telugu. They have since expanded their reach by enabling more than 7 million users to access news in their own language. #8 Pocket FM: Founded by Prateek Dixit, Nishanth S, and Rohan Nayak in 2018, Pocket FM is an Indian language audio streaming platform that only managed to get 10,000 users in the first 18 months of their launch. However, they continued to build their content library by partnering with content creators. Now, it has skyrocketed to 20 million users. #7 BulBul TV: Founded by Sachin Bhatia, Sanjay Yadav, and Atit Jain in 2018, BulBul is an online live video shopping platform that lets influencers sell products directly to their followers by answering their queries live in their own language. #6 TrulyMadly: Founded by Hitesh Dhingra, Rahul Kumar, and Sachin Bhatia in 2013, TrulyMadly started as an online dating platform. However, despite raising $5.7 million in 2015, TrulyMadly was unable to find much success in India's dating world. The startup was about to shut down after all the founders jumped ship in 2018. But things changed for TrulyMadly when one of their founding team members Snehil Khanor stepped up and decided to build TrulyMadly from scratch after pivoting towards marriage and finding long-term partners. #5 Kutumb: Founded in 2020, Kutumb is enabling Indian language users to build interest-based communities - serving as a platform for sharing news, member updates, and encouraging discussions. Unlike WhatsApp groups, where the number of members is limited to just 256, Kutumb's communities can be scaled to 10 million members offering an experience much like Reddit but for Indian language users. #4 Bombinate Technologies (Vokal and Koo): Founded by Aprameya Radhakrishnan and Mayank Bidawatka, Bombinate Technologies first launched Vokal in 2018, which is an Indian language knowledge-sharing platform – also referred to as the Indian version of Quora. After the success of Vokal, they launched Koo App in 2020 – which is a vernacular microblogging platform. Also, termed as the Indian version of Twitter. #3 Apna: Founded by Nirmit Parikh in 2019, Apna is a professional networking platform for blue-collar workers. Apna is enabling these blue-collar workers to upskill, network and find jobs – much like what LinkedIn is doing for the white-collar professionals. #2 Meesho: Meesho's journey started in 2015 when Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal launched a location-based fashion discovery platform FashNear. While their initial idea failed within a couple of months, they realized an even bigger opportunity in helping these retailers create their own digital storefronts, enabling digital transactions and handling their logistics. #1 Mohalla Tech (Sharechat and Moj): Founded by Ankush Sachdeva, Bhanu Singh, and Farid Ahsan, Mohalla Tech launched Sharechat in 2015 - which is one of India's most popular vernacular social media platforms. Today, they have more than 160 million monthly active users on their platform. They also launched a short-video app called Moj in 2020 after the ban of TikTok which has also garnered more than 120 million monthly active users.

In this Speak, I (@Jivraj Singh Sachar) speak with Bejul Somaia, Managing Director of Lightspeed Venture Partners. Lightspeed India Partners is one of India's largest and most successful venture funds, having funded the behemoths of the Indian Startup Ecosystem including the likes of BYJU's, OYO, Udaan, ShareChat and many more. Bejul Somaia is one of the legends of India's Venture Ecosystem, having started Lightspeed in India back in 2008 and now expanding it to South-East Asia.The man with the Midas touch, Bejul had famously led the investment in OYO, which led to a 35x Exit and has further backed phenomenal companies like Udaan, Shuttl, Magicpin and many more. Through this Episode we discuss the following: 1. (02:28) : How does a Venture Investor make decisions? 2. (05:04) : How does Bejul continue to be a Founder as a VC? 3. (07:54) : What really counts as Winning in the Venture Business? 4. (10:53) : How does the double-edged sword of pattern recognition work in Venture? 5. (14:22) : Do Venture Investors really take risk? ~ Understanding risk in the Venture Business 6. (16:53) : How does Lightspeed look at Venture Capital and What is the fund's strategy? 7. (20:40) : What stands out amongst the extremely special founders? 8. (24:00) : How does coaching work in Venture and How does Bejul think about the Investor-Founder Partnership? 9. (27:55) : Understanding how to build genuine long-lasting Relationships! 10. (30:51) : Conclusion Here is the 50th Episode of the Indian Silicon Valley Podcast - The Venture Business Decoded! That was it from this Episode, thanks again for tuning in! :) We're available on Instagram & Twitter. Feel free to drop in your feedback! Do not forget to Subscribe to our WhatsApp Newsletter. Do share the Episode with your friends if you liked the content :) I, Jivraj, am reachable on LinkedIn & Twitter! "If you never try, you never know" Stay Tuned, Keep Building.

Mohalla Tech, which operates one of India's largest local language content-based social media and short video apps, Sharechat and Moj, respectively, is rewarding employees with a share buyback worth $19.1 million. Also in the programme, BharatPe is said to be raising $250 million at over $2.5 billion valuation; Google is working on a ‘find my device network'; and Kushal Nahata, co-founder and CEO of FarEye talks about the plans ahead for his logistics intelligence company that recently raised $100 million in fresh funding.

Venture debt was introduced in India 15 years ago. However, it has gained traction in the last decade.In the last 6 years itself, approximately $4 bn of debt has been deployed across 150+ deals in India. But, not very often you come across an investor talking proactively about both debt & equity investments in the startup ecosystem! That's why in this episode we've brought Ashvin Chadha from Anicut Capital. During the podcast, Ashvin talks about the various debt funding deals he came across at Anicut, and while he considers debt funding to be lucrative over equity investments over a short period, but for people who are willing to stay invested for over 10-15 years, he points out how we are in the golden age of early-stage investing.He also talks about how a lot of VCs in the Indian Startup ecosystem are already getting 100x returns on their equity investments, we shouldn't be surprised to see 1000x returns becoming normal in years to come.Notes - 01:56 - Setting up Anicut Capital03:24 - Initial equity & debt investments04:51 - Structuring debt investments by setting up an AIF in 201506:04 - Investing in Sharechat during an internal bridge round09:19 - Exits & thesis with debt investments10:52 - “In my view it takes 10-15 years to build brands in India and if you don't stay the course, your compounding doesn't happen.”13:55 - Parameters & mental models while making equity investments15:56 - Learnings from portfolio companies hitting a roadblock24:12 - “We are in the golden age of early stage investing.”26:56 - “A good company will last even in a bad market.”27:07 - Backstory & thesis of investing in Bira 9130:51 - Backstory & thesis of investing in Wingreen Farms42:02 - Backstory & thesis of investing in Neemans

Welcome to another episode of The Startup Operator Roundup, where Roshan Cariappa and Gunjan Saha discuss -

“We don't think of ourselves as fund managers. The fund manager is someone managing 100s of millions of dollars, your job is largely doing money management. Our job is not to do money management, our job is to look at the new trends, try to meet the smartest of the smartest guys, and somehow try to convince them to take out money, and be a good part of the ecosystem and make other good people within the ecosystem come and talk to us.”Can you ever imagine someone who has been an NGO worker for a long time, suddenly switch careers and;# Setting up a VC firm# Raising $120.9M+# Investing in 102+ companies# Getting 11 exitsWell, that's the story of Madhukar Sinha, Co-founder, India Quotient, and the guest of this week's episode.Most of us get comfortable in our jobs post the age of 30, let alone the thought of setting up a VC firm. But that's exactly what Madhukar, along with his Co-founder Anand Lunia did, back in 2012.During the podcast, Madhukar talks about his first experience with 3G, how he didn't let his NGO background limit his career choices, and much more. Notes - 01:12 - Early life: Growing up in Jamshedpur to working in NGO06:14 - Understanding what India really is, not only in metros, but in terms of Tier-II & Tier-III cities06:47 - NGO background stereotyping & limiting his career choices07:12 - Completing his MBA and joining Aavishkaar10:55 - Experiencing the potential of smartphones after getting his first 3G phone in 201112:32 - Co-founding India Quotient in 2012; at the age of 3515:51 - Being more of Entrepreneur, less of Fund manager26:18 - Not continuing what you aren't comfortable with32:35 - Making investment decision for early stage companies43:05 - Talking about portfolio companies - Sharechat, Lokal & BharatAgri50:28 - Fund return expectation in 5+ year period57:54 - First Cheque: Investing in unique ideas that don't directly match India Quotient's thesis1:02:34 - Getting personalised deal flow via founders of portfolio companies

Last month, six Indian startups, CRED, Meesho, Pharmeasy, Groww, Sharechat, and Gupshup reached a valuation of more than a billion US Dollars. I did some research and analysed the founder backgrounds and their journeys to see what might be the top traits of a solid founder. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/indiastartuptalk/message

[Product roadmap] The role tech played in the journey of Bharat-focused social media startup ShareChat. In this week’s Product Roadmap we feature ShareChat, one of India’s newest unicorns. Here’s the story of how technology helped the Bharat-focused social media content platform build a 280-million user community along with video platform Moj. Read more at: https://yourstory.com/2021/04/product-roadmap-social-media-startup-sharechat-unicorn Follow us on Social Media: Facebook: www.facebook.com/yourstorycom Instagram: www.instagram.com/yourstory_com Twitter: www.twitter.com/YourStoryCo YouTube: www.youtube.com/yourstorytv Write to us: podcast@yourstory.com This story was reported by Sindhu Kashyaap on 14th April 2021 with edits by Teja Lele. Hosted by Julius Sharma!

Sharechat is a growing social media platform in India - learn more about it. Hero is changing how it manages customer relationships - learn more about it. India's watch market? You gussed it! Learn more about it - only on the StrictlyBusiness podcast

In Episode 2 of Summit Series, Mayank Khanduja (Partner, Elevation Capital), speaks to Ankush Sachdeva (Co-Founder & CEO, Sharechat) about his incredible journey as CEO of India's first purely non-English social networking platform. He talks about the evolution of Sharechat over the last 6 years and the culture of rapid experimentation in the company. Ankush shares his vision for Mohalla Tech (which owns Sharechat and Moj) as going beyond being just a social media platform to being India's first AI-powered content ecosystem. He tells Mayank of the power of AI in bringing tailored content to the user, in preventing abuse, and in creating a much more engaging content ecosystem overall. He also speaks about what drives him to greater heights and how his vision for the company is limited only by his dreams and ambitions.

Music business news, analysed in brief by Music Ally's Stuart Dredge and Joe Sparrow. Indian social media firm ShareChat is behind one of the most successful new TikTok rivals in India: Moj. It now has more than 120 million monthly active users – making it one of the leaders in the scramble to replace TikTok, after that app was banned in India last summer. ShareChat has just raised a $502m funding round, with investors including Snap, Twitter and Tiger Global Management. Joe 'n' Stu analyse the implications for the music business and the wider context of western tech firms scrambling to invest in these Indian companies.

Tiger Global goes super aggressive with Investments in India. The Early backer of Flipkart and Ola, Tiger Global is close to concluding over two dozen deals in India this year alone. The New York-headquartered firm, has recently closed a $6.7 billion fund. They last week led investments in social network ShareChat, business messaging platform Gupshup, and investment app Groww, and participated in fintech app CRED's round, helping all of these startups attain the much sought after unicorn status.Microsoft Corp. is in advanced talks to buy artificial intelligence and speech technology company Nuance Communications Inc. The price being discussed could value Nuance at about $56 a share. This would give Nuance an equity value of about $16 billion.Google has confirmed that it's ending support for the Google Shopping apps on Android and iOS. The focus is now more on Google web shopping. It comes as Google has been expanding shopping functionality in Search, Image Search, and YouTube, while increasingly leveraging augmented reality. This change lets Google conserve engineering resources.Clubhouse data has been leaked, days after scraped data from more than a billion Facebook and LinkedIn profiles, was put for sale online. The upstart platform seems to have experienced the same fate, with an SQL database containing 1.3 million scraped Clubhouse user records leaked for free on a popular hacker forum. Clubhouse has responded saying they have not experienced a breach of their systems and said that the data is already publicly available and that it can be accessed via their API which raises some questions about the privacy stance of the company allowing for anyone to gather even public profile information on a mass scale. 

This week in Indian Startup News, WazirX announces NFT marketplace for India, Starlink India rollout in trouble, PolicyBazaar IPO, MFine launches tool to monitor oxygen saturation levels using smartphone, Byju's acquires Aakash and goes international with Byju's Future School. In funding news, Swiggy raises $800 million, six startups turn unicorn in a week – Meesho raises $300 million, CRED raises $215 million, PharmEasy raises $350 million, Groww raises $83 million, ShareChat raises $502 million and Gupshup raises $100 million. WazirX launches NFT marketplace for India: Crypto trading platform WazirX has launched one of India's first Non-Fungible Token (NFT) marketplaces – enabling users to buy and sell digital assets like artworks, in-game avatars, virtual property, video files, audio files and even tweets. Starlink India rollout in trouble: Broadband India Forum has asked TRAI and ISRO to stop Elon Musk's Starlink to take pre-orders in the country as they have failed to comply with the guidelines, don't have their ground stations in the country and they don't even have the required authorisation. PolicyBazaar IPO: After Zomato and MobiKwik – online insurance aggregator platform Policybazaar is expected to file for IPO next month in Mumbai which could value the company at $3.5 billion. MFine launches tool to monitor oxygen saturation levels using smartphone: Healthtech startup MFine has launched an app-based tool that can monitor your oxygen saturation levels without the need for any additional device. Byju's acquires Aakash and goes international with Byju's Future School: Byju's has announced the acquisition of Aakash Educational Services in a deal that is pegged at nearly $1 billion. Apart from that Byju's has announced their global expansion plans with the launch of Byju's Future School across in the US, UK, Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico – starting with coding and math classes. Swiggy raises $800 million: Swiggy has raised $800 million at nearly $5 billion valuation from Falcon Edge Capital, Amansa Capital, Think Investments, Carmignac and Goldman Sachs. Meesho raises $300 million: Social commerce startup Meesho has raised $300 million at a $2.1 billion valuation led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 – turning it into a unicorn. CRED raises $215 million: Kunal Shah's CRED has raised $215 million in their series D round led by Falcon Edge Capital and Coatue Management – pushing their valuation from $800 million to $2.2 billion within three months. PharmEasy raises $350 million: PharmEasy has raised $350 million led by Prosus Ventures and TPG Growth at a $1.5 billion valuation as the company looks to onboard more pharmacies on their platform. Groww raises $83 million: Online investment platform has raised $83 million in a round led by Tiger Global Management at valuation of more than $1 billion. ShareChat raises $502 million: Indian language social media platform ShareChat has raised $502 million in round led by Tiger Global Management valuing the company at $2.1 billion. Gupshup raises $100 million: Conversational messaging platform Gupshup is the last startup to become a unicorn this week after raising $100 million in a round led by Tiger Global Management.

Sydney Sims / UnsplashThis post discusses trends in suicide and self-harm, and what platforms can do to intervene. If you or anyone you know is in dis... the National Suicide Prevention Lifelinethe Trevor Projectat this linkthat number had nearly quadrupled, to 42 percentPreliminary data about suicides in 2020 is mixedSelf-Harm Policies and Internet Platformsa separate set of policiesClarence Thomas wants to blow up platform policy as it exists todayshifting the way it measures harm on the platformTwitch developed a policy for policing creators’ behavior on other platformsTikTok joined the Coalition to End Wildlife Tracking OnlineA 500-million person dataset of user information scraped from LinkedIn has been posted for sale onlineGoogle’s blocklist designed to prevent ads from running on hate videos contains obvious holes, this analysis findsA quadrennial report from the National Intelligence Council predicted accelerating polarization and inequality as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, with surveillance tech playing a starring, dystopian rolepotentially steep, Orwellian erosions of civil libertiesThe vote count is under way in the historic Amazon union election in Bessamer, ALthe union says it will challenge any loss, saying Amazon interfered with the vote count in egregious waysIn a legal filing, Apple argued it “has no monopoly or market power in gaming,” and so Epic’s claims against the company should be dismissedUS Customs and Border Protection paid more than $700,000 for licenses to the encrypted chat app WickrAt least 14 channels promoting QAnon content managed to evade YouTube’s ban, and some are running adsAn advocacy group sued Facebook for failing to effectively police anti-Muslim hate speechIn the days before Clarence Thomas issued his opinion that Section 230 possibly violates the First Amendment, his activist wife emailed supporters “to raise awareness for a new website fighting ‘corporate tyranny’ and social media’s growing power over political speech.”Signal’s move to add cryptocurrency payments is “an incredibly bad idea,” says security expert Bruce SchneierThe global chip shortage is getting so bad that even Apple, with all its massive procurement power, is experiencing production delays for Macs and iPadsA Google engineer movingly recounts how her experience of being sexually harassed by her manager led the company to manager her out of the organizationThe ascension of Rachell Hofstetter, better known as Valkyrae, to co-owner of gamer collective / lifestyle brand 100 Thieves shows the inroads that streamers are making in traditional entertainmentIndia’s ShareChat raised $502 million, valuing the company at $2.1 billionFacebook and Instagram suffered a temporary outageA skeptical look at the rise of augmented reality filters in social apps, particularly among young peopleThe best of Yahoo Answerscasey@platformer.news

Facebook's internal R&D group, NPE Team has released its latest experiment “Hotline” into public beta testing. Many say this Web app is a mix of Instagram Live & Clubhouse. In other news: Indian social media firm ShareChat has raised more than half a billion dollars to grow its popular short-video app Moj, from Tiger Global, Twitter, Snap & more. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/whatsnewonthenet/message

And finally the episode you all waited for! Probably the last guys on bhoomi to talk about Bhoomi In this 25th episode of Tea Kada Benchu we analyse in-depth about Jayam Ravi's 25th cult classic BHOOMI Drug Lord joins us after 3 months to discuss 10 reasons why we all loved watching Bhoomi alongside Cat and Robo. This movie has already set the benchmark for other Farming based movies with some top notch emotional scenes, a multinational corporate villain who leaves all his works aside just to take down a NASA scientist in a small town in Tirunelveli with some goose bump songs in-between! The gripping screenplay consists of all Whatsapp forwards and ShareChat posts that you have ever come across in your entire life We have no personal hatred towards Jeyam Ravi (Robo is a personal kanni of his movie Thani Oruvan) This episode was recorded mainly to inform people with the right stats and figures which were misleading in the movie! Now you may ask us that most movies never have logic! Yes, we agree to that but this is not some commercial mass masala or a sci-fi movie! This is a movie was meant to tell you the plight of farming in India and how evil these foreign corporates are! The BHOOMI crew wanted to give you a message! And we wanted to give you the right information! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mba-meme-school/message

The start-up that owns the biotechnology behind the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine has confidentially filed for an initial public offering in the US, Indian social media group ShareChat has raised more than $500m to grow its popular short-video app Moj, and Austrian activist Max Schrems has filed a privacy complaint against Google in France. Plus, the FT’s Washington bureau chief James Politi has details on the US’s offer to the rest of the world to tax multinational companies. US offers new plan in global corporate tax talkshttps://www.ft.com/content/847c5f77-f0af-4787-8c8e-070ac6a7c74fBiotech start-up behind AstraZeneca vaccine files for US listing https://www.ft.com/content/ff260c57-66f9-474b-9643-7640dc918009ShareChat valued at $2bn in wake of TikTok ban https://www.ft.com/content/3a5e44e2-b2c0-4f37-9c4a-f51c6ef46eb6?Max Schrems accuses Google of illegally tracking Android users https://www.ft.com/content/4617cc99-3ed2-49e1-b97f-db4f1b45b5db? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On this episode of the RISE Offstage podcast, host Casey Lau welcomes Akshay Bhushan, a Partner at Lightspeed who is leading the firm’s Southeast Asia investments, focusing on consumer tech investing across both Southeast Asia and India and in companies like Sharechat, Chilibeli, Grab and more. Akshay talks about how the pandemic has helped them to deploy more capital, which are the big Asian markets Lightspeed is looking at and the next group of exciting verticals they are looking into like The Passion Economy and empowering SME’s in Asia to more efficiently run their businesses using technology. This is a fascinating chat discovering what Lightspeed is looking at in terms of startup investments across Asia and their big bets on India, Indonesia and Vietnam.To get a warm intro to Akshay please reach out to Casey on Twitter.SHOW NOTESAkshay Bhushan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akshaybhushan/Lightspeed Venture Partners: https://lsvp.com/portfolio/Sharechat: https://sharechat.com/Chilibeli: https://www.chilibeli.com/Grab: https://www.grab.com/The Passion Economy: https://www.passioneconomy.xyz/SME Market in Southeast Asia via EY 2019: https://assets.ey.com/content/dam/ey-sites/ey-com/en_sg/topics/growth/ey-smes-in-southeast-asia-redesigning-for-the-digital-economy.pdf====WE ARE HIRING IN JAPAN: https://www.websummit.com/careersCollision https://www.collisionconf.com/RISE https://www.riseconf.comWeb Summit Tokyo https://www.websummit.com/tokyoCasey Lau on Twitter: https://twitter.com/casey_lauCasey Lau on Clubhouse: https://www.joinclubhouse.com/@casey_lau

This week on the Sociall.in Social Media and Digital Marketing Podcast, we're talking about Google Phrasing out Broad Match, Facebook and Australia's news law, and ShareChat's maiden operating revenue.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk at an event in Berlin in December. (Hannibal Hanschke-Pool / Getty Images)I. Andreessen Horowitz and the backdoor pilotHey, did yo... Elon Musk went on Clubhousethe 2015 South by Southwest festivala story about the cafe’s emergence as a hub for tech-boom dealmakingin its blog postin the sharp framing of Ben Thompsonhad recently become a general partner at A16zis releasing the conversation officially as the first episode in a new live podcast seriesbackdoor pilot— maybe the recordings should feel more like Snapchat storiesbought Anchor for $150 millionI’ve had my concerns about Clubhouse’s early inattention to moderationnow seems to be taking those concerns appropriately seriouslyMusk has been vocally skeptical about the company’s moves to stop users from buying GameStop stockEric Newcomer put ithis recent piece on A16z and its independent media ambitionsThe first was $1 billion; the second was $2.4 billiongradually letting people buy stocks again: Who’s ready for two movies about WallStreetBetsAn analysis of Apple’s new privacy and nutrition labels found a variety of misleading statementsGoogle salvaged Robinhood’s one-star rating by deleting nearly 100,000 negative reviewsappeared to be yesA Google blog post incorrectly stated that Snap would be one of its primary cloud clients in Saudi Arabia, triggering human rights concerns — but apparently it wasn’t trueThe Robinhood stock mania of the past week bears more than passing resemblance to the rise of TheDonald, according to this astute analysiswell beyond itnightmareaccording to the companyReddit CEO Steve Huffman said the company monitors a previously unknown metric known as “Daily Active Shitheads.”It doesn’t matter how mad you are, you probably still won’t win your lawsuit against RobinhoodGoogle will begin allowing betting and gambling apps in more countries, including the United StatesFacebook is looking for a new head of US head of policyThe Chan Zuckerberg Initiative announced a new $350 million effort focused on criminal justice reformA new web standard called Global Privacy Control allows users to opt out of all third-party data tracking with a single click for websites that have enabled itFacebook is developing newsletter tools that would challenge Substack and TwitterFacebook is preparing an antitrust lawsuit against Apple, alleging the company forces it to follow App Store rules that Apple itself ignoresFacebook is developing tools that would prevent News Feed ads from running next to topics like crime and politicsFacebook hired its first chief compliance officerWhatsApp added biometric authentication to its web and desktop versionsGoogle opened its first Safety Engineering Center in Dublin to focus on the spread of illegal and harmful contentA single Clubhouse user invited hundreds of journalists to join the app in an effort to increase the amount of scrutiny the platform receivesReddit-like ShareChat is surging in IndiaYouTube’s TikTok rival, Shorts, is getting 3.5 billion daily views in India after launching there in Septembercasey@platformer.news

ShareChat, which added Twitter as an investor in 2019, is in talks to add two more American giants to its captable. The Indian social network is in advanced stages of talks to raise money from Google and Snap, three sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. The new financing round — a Series E — […]

Google/Alphabet workers launch an official union drive. We’ve got a date for the Galaxy Unpacked event. Microsoft wants to give Windows a good scrubbing this year. Everyone wants a piece of ShareChat. Gazelle is getting out of the trade-in business. And LG doesn’t want to give up on tv screens you can hide away when not in use.Sponsors:Fundrise.com/techmemeLinkedIn.com/rideLinks: Google, Alphabet employees seek to form a union (TechCrunch) Samsung officially confirms Galaxy S21 event for January 14th (The Verge) Microsoft planning ‘sweeping visual rejuvenation of Windows’ (The Verge) Google and Snap in talks to invest in India's ShareChat (TechCrunch) Trade-in site Gazelle is ending trade-ins (The Verge) Apple will let Amphetamine app stay in the App Store after wrongly telling developer it violated App Store rules (The Verge) This LG display transforms from flat to curved for immersive gaming (The Verge)

Pandemic-led social distancing saw people consume unprecedented levels of content on social media in 2020 to stay connected, updated and entertained ShareChat's Content Strategy Director, Shashank Shekhar, Co-Founder of Trell App Pulkit Agrawal, Content Creator Niharicka Singh and ET's Megha Mandavia take us through the social media journey in 2020 and some trends for 2021.

We are trying out a new radio bulletin feature which gives you all the important news and headlines, without wasting a single second. Do give it a hear and share your feedback.

Sharechat is planning to acquire meme pages and hire meme creators right now - There is a big scam going on right now on OLX using QR codes so please be aware on online frauds - OLA is planning to hire 1000 engineers for their electric fleet operations - In future you can save and replay memories using Elon Musk's AI Brain Chip and many other business news from August 24 to 30 presented by Robo and Cat. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mba-meme-school/message

In today's special episode of the INSIGHTS podcast on ‘student entrepreneurship', we cover the journeys of two well-known founders in the startup community whose entrepreneurial journeys started right from their college days: Shashank Murali from Tapchief and Farid Ahsan from Sharechat.We hear from Shashank and Farid on their early life and college days, how they decided to take up entrepreneurship, how they arrived on the idea they went after, how they worked progressively to build their companies, and finally how they would do it differently if they were to do it all over again. Listen hereSpotify                Apple                                     

After completing his MBA from IIM Lucknow in 1998, Anand started his first EduTech company around the Dotcom boom - Brainvisa which became one of the largest eLearning companies in India and later on got acquired by Indecomm Global Services. From 2007 to 2012, he backed several startups as an Angel Investor - Fasoos & MyDentist. Later in his career in 2012, he became a Founding Partner at IndiaQuotient, Venture Capital Firm which has invested in over 50 startups in the last 8 years. Some of his portfolio companies are LoanTap, Clip, and Sharechat among others. In this podcast, Anand shares his understanding of the Indian Middle-class consumer & also shares his learnings on how can startups build products for them. Notes - 00:35 - His Journey from Starting the first company in Dotcom boom to becoming a VC in 2012 01:50 - Experience with Early Portfolio Companies - Financial Services & Content 09:00 - Understanding Indian consumers & building products for them 16:55 - Investing in Indian Cosmetics Brand - Sugar 20:50 - Serving the average Indian consumer with disposable income 27:30 - Thesis behind building Indian Consumer Brands 32:50 - Core Themes for future Portfolio companies at IndiaQuotient 38:50 - Portfolio Companies in Small Business Software - Vyapar, Fleetx, BharatAgri 39:48 - Being bold & Taking Contrarian bets as a VC

In the first episode of 2020's #InsightsPodcast series, we take a look back to round up the learnings that 2019's series left us with.We kick-start 2020's #InsightsPodcast series with a special episode that offers a quick roundup of our 2019 podcasts and presents the top 12 highly recommended insights for entrepreneurs. Finding the right opportunity The bare essential task of identifying the right opportunity is something that every founding team must go through. 1.Farid Ahsan of Sharechat shares how he and his co-founders went about discovering the idea. “We started observing why people were making WhatsApp groups and sharing content on them.” 2.Ritesh Arora of Browserstack shares the importance of thinking global from early on, helping expand the opportunity set for the startup. 3.Kunal Shah of Cred shares his framework on how startups can validate whether their idea is creating a delta change in consumer behaviour and emphasises the importance of picking a market opportunity with good tailwinds. “Great product-market fits even with mediocre founders create a lot of value while terrible product-market fits with great founders can never create value. Fighting headwinds only burns fuel.” Building a team and culture to go after that idea The team forms the building block of any organisation and is an integral contributor to the success of a startup. A good culture keeps the team motivated to keep going after the problem. 4.Naveen Tewari of Inmobi talks about the importance of having a co-founder in the roller-coaster of a journey that entrepreneurship comprises. “Most of the moments in the journey are low moments. The co-founder's role is to bring you out of these low moments that you're in and vice versa.” 5.Binny Bansal of Flipkart shares about the importance of being willing to ‘let go' and empowering your team. “We realised that only way to scale the company was to hire people like us, to do the things that we do - there were going to be hundreds of things to do and we would need hundreds of people would need to work like we work, every day.” 6.Girish Mathrubootham of Freshworks talks about focusing about culture and building a work environment that motivates and inspires the team. “Anybody can create a happy work environment, but the real happiness is when people really feel that they're playing to their strengths, the job is tapping their potential and giving them an opportunity to learn, and that they have managers who they see as role models.” Raising money and building a sustainable company With a boundless vision comes the need to find the right support, and finding the right investor can really help a startup. 7.Harsh Jain of Dream11 talks about the advantage of meeting investors ahead of fundraising. “Meet VCs six months or a year before raising money and get honest, open feedback. When the journey and progress is shared with VCs, they're much more vested.” 8. Deep Kalra of Makemytrip talks about the importance of unit economics and scaling sustainably. “Irrespective of the kind of business, you should not be losing money on a variable cost basis.” Key lessons for founders' growth In the greater scheme of the startup journey, the founder's individual self often gets ignored. Here are some key insights on keeping a founder's growth on track. 9. Shradha Sharma of YourStory talks about the founder's growth journey being more internal and how entrepreneurship is a journey of patience and perseverance. “You have to internally reflect very deeply on what you want.” 10. Nandan Nilekani of Infosys and the man behind the Aadhaar programme talks about the importance of being execution-focused. 11. Ritesh Agarwal of Oyo talks about the importance of perseverance. 12. Dheeraj Pandey of Nutanix shares his valuable insights on balancing family life along with running a startup.

Ally raises $8M Series A for its OKR solution OKRs, or Objectives and Key Results, are a popular planning method in Silicon Valley. Like most of those methods that make you fill in some form once every quarter, that employees find rather annoying and a waste of their time. Ally wants to change that and make the process more useful. The company today announced that it has raised an $8 million Series A round led by Accel Partners, with participation from Vulcan Capital, Founders Co-op and Lee Fixel. The company, which launched in 2018, previously raised a $3 million seed round. Most companies that adopt this methodology, though, tend to work with spreadsheets and Google Docs. Over time, that simply doesn’t work, especially as companies get larger. Ally, then, is meant to replace these other tools. The service is currently in use at “hundreds” of companies in more than 70 countries, Vellore tells me. Simon Data hauls in $30M Series C to continue building customer data platform As businesses use an increasing variety of marketing software solutions, the goal around collecting all of that data is to improve customer experience. Simon Data announced a $30 million Series C round today to help. The round was led by Polaris Partners . Previous investors .406 Ventures and F-Prime Capital also participated. Today’s investment brings the total raised to $59 million, according to the company. Companies tend to use a variety of marketing tools, and Simon Data takes on the job of understanding the data and activities going on in each one. Then based on certain actions — such as, say, an abandoned shopping cart — it delivers a consistent message to the customer, regardless of the source of the data that triggered the action. They see this ability to pull together data as a customer data platform (CDP). In fact, part of its job is to aggregate data and use it as the basis of other activities. In this case, it involves activating actions you define based on what you know about the customer at any given moment in the process. RedDoorz raises $70M to expand its budget hotel network in Southeast Asia Singapore-based budget-hotel booking startup RedDoorz is tiny in comparison to fast-growing giant Oyo. But it is holding its ground and winning the trust of an ever-growing number of investors. The four-year-old startup announced it has raised $70 million in a Series C financing round, less than five months after it closed its $45 million Series B. The new round, which is ongoing, was led by Asia Partners and saw participation from new investors Rakuten Capital and Mirae Asset-Naver Asia Growth FundRegardless, the new funds will help RedDoorz fight SoftBank-backed Oyo, which is already aggressively expanding to new markets. Oyo currently operates in more than 80 nations. The startup operates in 80 cities across Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines and Vietnam, and plans to use the new capital to expand its network in its existing markets, said Saberwal. At least for the next year, RedDoorz has no plans to expand beyond the four markets where it currently operates, he said. Twitter leads $100M round in top Indian regional social media platform ShareChat ShareChat, a four-year-old social network in India that serves tens of million of people in regional languages, just answered that question with a $100 million financing round led by global giant Twitter . Other than Twitter, TrustBridge Partners, and existing investors Shunwei Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, SAIF Capital, India Quotient and Morningside Venture Capital also participated in the Series D round of ShareChat. The new round, which pushes ShareChat’s all-time raise to $224 million, valued the firm at about $650 million, a person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. ShareChat declined to comment on the valuation. This investment will help ShareChat grow and provide the company’s management team access to Twitter’s executives as thought partners Moving on to acquisitions: Salesforce is acquiring ClickSoftware for $1.35B Just days after closing the hefty $15.7 billion Tableau deal, salesforce opened its wallet again, this time announcing it has bought field service software company ClickSoftware for a tidy $1.35 billion. This one could help beef up the company’s field service offering, which falls under the Service Cloud umbrella. In its June earnings report, the company reported that Service Cloud crossed the $1 billion revenue threshold for the first time. This acquisition is designed to keep those numbers growing. What else caught our eyes- Developers accuse Apple of anti-competitive behavior with its privacy changes in iOS 13 A group of app developers have penned a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook, arguing that certain privacy-focused changes to Apple’s iOS 13 operating system will hurt their business. In a report by The Information, the developers were said to have accused Apple of anti-competitive behavior when it comes to how apps can access user location data. With iOS 13, Apple aims to curtail apps’ abuse of its location-tracking features as part of its larger privacy focus as a company. Today, many apps ask users upon first launch to give their app the “Always Allow” location-tracking permission. Users can confirm this with a tap, unwittingly giving apps far more access to their location data than is actually necessary, in many cases. There will now be a new option upon launch presented to users, “Allow Once,” which allows users to first explore the app to see if it fits their needs before granting the app developer the ability to continually access location data. This option will be presented alongside existing options “Allow While Using App” and “Don’t Allow.” The app developers argue that this change may confuse less-technical users, who will assume the app isn’t functioning properly unless they figure out how to change their iOS Settings to ensure the app has the proper permissions.

One of the biggest funding this week was raised by online reseller network Meesho, gaining $125 Mn in a round led by Naspers, with participation from Facebook and existing investors SAIF, Sequoia, Shunwei Capital, RPS and Venture Highway. This fund raise will help it to make deeper inroads in areas outside India’s major metro regions, by creating more entrepreneurs, and as a result, reaching remote customers not serviced by traditional e-commerce marketplaces. Also, rumours are rife that the Japanese conglomerate is reportedly looking to invest $200 Mn in the company as well. Another major round was raised by ShareChat, adding $100 Mn in its latest Series D round of funding. Twitter and TrustBridge Partners are two new investors joining this latest funding round, while existing investors participating in this round include Shunwei Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, SAIF Capital, India Quotient and Morningside Venture Capital. The round took the total funding raised by ShareChat to $224 Mn. Bengaluru-based AI startup Parentof raised $1 Mnin a seed funding round led by V Srinivas and other existing investors. Parentof is a decision sciences organization which provides insights into child growth and decision analytics. With this, total funding raised by Parentof is $2 Mn. The funds will be used towards further evolving their technology, as well as expanding their partner network. Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending startup Faircent raised a fresh round of funding from Das Capital and Gunosy Capital. Existing investors Starharbor Asia and M&S Partners have also participated in the round. The startup will use the funding to strengthen its technology backend, expansion of its product offerings and reach. Chennai-based conversational AI startup Uniphore Software Systems raised $51 Mn in its Series C funding round led by March Capital Partners. Chiratae Ventures (formerly IDG Ventures), Sistema Asia, CXO Fund, ITP, Iron Pillar, Patni Family also participated in the round. The funds will be used to accelerate its go-to-market in North America, invest in research and development for the next wave of innovation on its platform and grow its talented employee base globally. Robotics startup Emotix, popularly known as Miko, which develops educational and recreational robot toys for children, announced to raise an INR 53.42 Cr ($7.5 Mn) Series A led by Chiratae Ventures. YourNest Venture Capital, investor Bruno Raschle and a group of angel investors are also participating in Emotix’s latest round. The company said it would be using the funding to expand internationally to North America, UK and the Middle East. A portion of the funds would be allocated for developing new products and R&D in the areas of emotional and artificial intelligence, which form a crucial component of the Miko emotive robot toy. Easy Home Finance: Real estate and lending tech company Easy Home Finance Limited announced a strategic partnership with Harbourfront Capital, a group company of Das Capital. The VC firm will invest an undisclosed amount in the real estate financing company. Easy will be utilising the funds from Harbourfront in expanding its assets under management (AUM) base and for further investment in its technology platform. Gurugram-based credit card bill payment startup Cred raised a bridge Series B round of INR 27.55 Cr ($4 Mn) from Sequoia Capital India. The company issued 20,179 Series B CCCPS shares priced Rs 13,653.31 each. The company said in its filings that the Bridge Series B funds will be used for growth, expansion, marketing and general corporate activities of the company. Moving on to acquisitions: Bengaluru-headquartered coworking space provider CoWrks acquired The UnCube for an undisclosed amount. The Gurugram-headquartered UnCube provides on-demand workspace solutions. Post-acquisition, CoWrks will rename the combined entity to CoWrks Go. CoWrks is now expanding its network of productive spaces by bringing on board a chain of cafes, restaurants, hotels, business lounges, etc. Ola acquihired Pikup.ai, a Bengaluru-based artificial intelligence startup. The deal value remains undisclosed, however, Pikup.ai founders — Inder Singh and Ritwik Saikia — along with its team will join Ola. With the acquihire, Ola aims to advance the application of machine learning and AI to identify deep insights that can lead to improved mobility outcomes. What else caught our eyes? Mukesh Ambani announced free Jio connectivity and Jio-Azure cloud services for tech startups in India by 2021. Startups will have to register on the Jio portal to access these services, which are expected to be available from January 2021. To provide these cloud services, Reliance Jio has announced a partnership with the tech giant Microsoft and its Azure cloud vertical.

Is there room for another social media platform? ShareChat, a four-year-old social network in India that serves tens of million of people in regional languages, just answered that question with a $100 million financing round led by global giant Twitter . Other than Twitter, TrustBridge Partners, and existing investors Shunwei Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, SAIF Capital, India Quotient and Morningside Venture Capital also participated in the Series D round of ShareChat.

In this podcast with we explore Mayank Khanduja’s journey as an investor at SAIF Partners India. SAIF is among the Tier-1 early stage investors in India, investing across all sectors. Mayank comes from a family of engineers so getting highest education was the top priority in his family. After completing his engineering from Delhi, Mayank went on to MBA from IIM-Calcutta. After working 5 years in Technology consulting in McKinsey, Mayank itch to work closely with technology companies brought him to world of early stage investing with SAIF Partners. Some of the companies at SAIF, Mayank has been involved and invested in, are Sharechat, PropTiger, NoBroker, Playsimple, Treebo, TravelTriangle, Airblack. Mayank has spent most of the time at seed stage of the companies. SAIF had invested in 2015 in Sharechat. Back then there was no wave of content startups. It was a thesis from SAIF looking at growth of content consumption in China and asked themselves will India get to that stage in 3-4 years. Yes of course it will. And once data and handsets are available to Next Billion Users, which is a big term now. Back then they thought next 200-300 Million users what will they do first. They will like to access some content, some entertainment on their phones. And that was SAIF thesis when they invested in Sharechat there was a new wave of users coming in India and they would like to access some form of entertainment content on their handsets. In the podcasts Mayank continues to share his insights on: 1. Importance of storytelling in building a large company. Can it be learned or great founders are born with it ? 2. What happen when your competitor in a large market raise tons of money from VC like Softbank ? 3. How to spot the Founders who create 10x - 20x value for their stakeholders ? 4. Key skills for Founders to learn and keep building on ? 5. The current exit scenario in India and some of the SAIF portfolio exits ? 6. Book recommendations by Mayank for founders on scaling and thinking ? 7. What habits Mayank attributes in his success as a Venture Investor ? 8. What is the one most important factor which will have disproportionate impact on the size of outcome you generate ?

In total, this week, 14 startups raised $111.86 Mn funding and three startup acquisitions took place. This week, one of the biggest funding rounds in the Indian startup ecosystem was raised by Bengaluru-based real estate platform NoBroker.com. The company raised $51 Mn in Series C funding led by General Atlantic, along with existing investors BEENEXT and SAIF Partners also participated in the round. The company looks to use the fresh funds for expansion and improving the user experience. This brings the total funding raised by NoBroker to $71 Mn. Gurugram-based Pristyn Care raised $4 Mn in Series A funding round from Sequoia India. The company will use the capital to improve its medical capabilities, invest in technology and expand its team of medical professionals. The startup is currently operational in 20 clinics across Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad, and plans to expand its clinic network to 50 by December 2019. Bengaluru-based self-publishing platform Pratilipi raised $15 Mn (INR 105 Cr) in a funding round led by China-based venture capital Qiming Venture Partners. The startup’s existing investors including Nexus Venture Partners, Omidyar Network India, Shunwei Capital, Contrarian Vriddhi Fund and WEH Ventures had also participated in the round. With this fundraise the company will be focusing primarily on improving the technology infrastructure including its recommendation and personalization engines and on expanding the number of writers on the platform. Ola-backed scooter sharing app Vogo raised $3.6 Mn (INR 25 Cr) from Alteria Capital. The company positions itself as a cost-effective alternative to cabs and autos for short distances. It will use this investment to further fuel its growth. Delhi-based budget hotel chain FabHotels raised INR 54 Cr (around $7.8 Mn) from existing investor Goldman Sachs along with marquee venture capital firms Qualcomm Ventures, and Accel Partners India, who is one of the early backers of the company. FabHotels had raised a total of $42.8 Mn funding till now. Moving on to acquisitions: Mumbai-based motor insurance provider startup Acko acqui-hired Mumbai-based automotive company VLer Technologies. The financial details of the deal have not been disclosed yet. Following this acquisition deal, both the VLer founders, Sanjay Bharti and Akash Saxena have joined the Acko Technology team. CleanseCar announced its acquisition of Carnanny, a subscription-based daily car wash and car care services, in an all-stock deal. The acquisition was mediated by CleanseCar’s investor and Carnanny’s mentor Dhianu Das, Founder, Alfa Ventures. What else caught our eyes? Paytm is reportedly in talks to acquire Mumbai-based online insurance startup Coverfox for $100-120 Mn in an all-cash deal. Reportedly the Paytm board is in the process of finalising the deal. ShareChat may raise $100 Mn at $600 Mn – $650 Mn valuation. Reportedly, the investment is likely to come from new investors, the microblogging site Twitter and Hong Kong-based investment management firm Hillhouse Capital, with backing from existing investors including Xiaomi, Shunwei Capital and Morningside Venture Capital. Rising traffic congestion and longer urban commutes are leading people to look for alternative ways to reach their destination in the most convenient, affordable, and time-efficient manner. This might show an increase in startups that leverage micro mobility to solve commuters problems. Micro-mobility vehicles like bicycles, skateboards, skates, mini-scooters, e-bikes, small electric vehicles with one or two seats —  is making headlines around the world, not only for the huge sums of money raised (over $5 billion) but also for the concerns regarding safety and operational viability of these businesses. Will this be the next shift in ride hailing apps in India? Let’s wait and watch.

The results of the 2019 elections have shown that brand and personal messaging on the part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi played a large role in the massive victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Going forward, social media platforms, both established ones such as Twitter and Facebook, and newer entrants such as Tik Tok and Sharechat, will play a key role in political messaging and election campaigns. In this episode we're joined by Dr Joyojeet Pal, Associate Professor at the University of Michigan to explain how individual politicians use social media to build their personal brands with voters and citizens, and how political parties' messaging reflects this. You can listen to this show and other awesome shows on the IVM Podcasts app on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/ios, or any other podcast app.

Languages are such an important part of our identities, and they resonate with us on a personal and cultural level. As we move to a more globalized society, language is a thread that links us back through space and time to where we come from. Sharanya Deepak's piece "Coming Home, One Word At A Time" reminded us of this when we read it. In it, she explores her personal relationship with Urdu after she starts taking classes to formally learn it, and Urdu's relationship with her hometown Delhi. We spoke to her about how she came to write the piece, her unique family mosaic and how she straddles different identities based on each language that she speaks, and how Urdu interprets the world in its unique way. After talking to Sharanya, we talk about a number of language-related trends that are happening around us - the rise of both a larger English-speaking class and the vernacular Internet in India, how languages carry much more in them than we generally think, and which Indian languages are dying out and what responsibility we have as a culture to preserve them. We also discuss: Sajith Pai's article on the rise of the Indo-Anglian caste in India. The rise of vernacular tech services like ShareChat and Vokal. WikiTongues and its mission to save the world's dying languages. Ganesh Devy and the People's Linguistic Survey of India. How Singlish is being threatened by the Singaporean government. Music Credits: Music from https://filmmusic.io: "Dhaka" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com) "Vadodora Chill Mix" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com) Licence: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) "Me In Your Life" Music By The Passion HiFi www.thepassionhifi.com Sorrow by Sappheiros | https://soundcloud.com/sappheirosmusic Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US Our logo is designed by @aparna_ramanujam. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/creating-life/support

On this edition of the #InsightsPodcast series, we have our youngest guest so far, Farid Ahsan, Co-founder of ShareChat, the most popular company in the Indian languages, i.e. vernacular, space. It has over 100 million monthly active users, a feat that they have managed to achieve in less than four years. On this podcast, Farid talks about his early days at IIT, what motivated him to start up, how he and his co-founders came up with the idea for ShareChat, what has helped them scale, and his learnings from the journey so far. Growing up in six different cities because his father's job involved regular transfers, Farid became adept at adjusting to new environments and making new friends. At a very early age, he became cognizant of the differences and the commonalities between people of different cultures. He also began to understood the nuances that come with diversity, which lies at the core of ShareChat today. Farid jokes about the job prospects for his stream, Material Science, not being the best, which meant he had to look at investment banking, consulting, analytics, or joining an early-stage startup as possible career options. Farid did an internship in investment banking, which helped him understand the foundations that made a company successful, but he also realised that he wanted to become an entrepreneur. More on how that came about in the podcast. Farid sums up his learnings right in the early days in three simple points: It's not the idea that makes you win. Is your product a 'good to have' or a 'must have'? It's important to understand how big the opportunity is Executing your vision is key "A company is much more than a set of features or products, it is a way of building and solving problems," he says. He talks about how his team was able to implement some of these learnings. For instance, they shut down their initial venture, 'Opinio', a debate platform which they quickly realised was a 'good to have' product for a niche customer segment. Talking about how they stumbled on the idea for ShareChat, Farid shares the story of how his co-founder Ankush Sachdeva figured out an anomaly on Sachin Tendulkar's Facebook fan page, where a staggering 80,000 people shared their phone numbers so that they could get added to a WhatsApp group. Farid, Ankush and Bhanu Singh quickly wrote code to create 600 WhatsApp groups and decided to observe user behavior: why were they on WhatsApp, what their problems were, why did they share content on WhatsApp, what was the bragworthy proposition behind sharing content on WhatsApp…and more. This led them to the core idea that people wanted to find content, were not great at searching for what they wanted, their vocabulary was limited, and this audience was excited about the prospect of interacting with new people. "Group kisi ka bhi ho, dhamaka humara hi hoga, (IT doesn't matter whose group it is, we'll be the ones making waves)", he says, citing the common user mindset. For the new-age audience who communicate in their own language, the mobile phone with an internet connection has become the gateway to a new world outside their immediate social circle in the past few years. What the trio realised was that, all that this set of people wanted was a platform that helped them with discovery online - and this was what ShareChat was going to be. Given their success, the strategy has obviously paid off. But between then and now, the road has hardly been an easy one. Farid talks about these and other challenges further in the podcast: Hiring - who are the kind of people they bring on board and why The financial freedom that the ShareChat team has ShareChat's culture of innovation and experimentation (while keeping things efficient) Optimising the founders' bandwidth and helping each other grow He closes with his take on success and how it is achieved. Listen to the podcast for these and other insights.

We’re in the middle of the world’s biggest election, and the battle to reach India’s 900 million voters is on every screen. Political parties are spending big money on digital strategy and social media marketing. Ads, trending hashtags, memes and influencers are all being used. But is all the investment worth it? Is it reaching the voters it should, and swaying political choices? And what about the dangers of fake news, misuse of data and hate speech? In this edition of WorklifeIndia, we speak to a popular actor turned politician, the public policy head of India’s own vernacular social network, and a digital marketer providing services to political parties and candidates. We ask whether digital campaigning is really a game changer, and what the election of the future looks like. Presenter: Devina Gupta Contributors: Gul Panag, actor, politician and entrepreneur; Berges Malu, public policy head, ShareChat; Kapil Gupta, digital marketer and CEO, OMLogic Image: Friends look at a digital tablet (Credit: Getty Images)

What is the landscape of social media in India? How are political parties using social media to cement narratives and organise voters? What are different types of media? And what is different from broadcast media? In this episode, we talk to Venkat Ananth, Senior Assistant Editor at the Economic Times to unpack these questions. Venkat is based out of Bengaluru and writes in-depth stories on technology and policy. He puts into context the increasing use of social media by political parties, and what it means for the upcoming elections, and for our polity as a whole. You can listen to this show and other awesome shows on the new and improved IVM Podcast App on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/ios

On this rebroadcast episode of Shunya One, we are joined by Ankush Sachdeva, CEO/Co-founder at ShareChat (https://www.sharechat.com), a content-sharing social networking platform essentially for regional languages and emerging markets. Tweet to Ankush @AnkushSach, Shiladitya @shiladitya and Amit @doshiamitfor your questions or reactions to this episode! To join the Shunya One slack channel, request for an invite here: http://ivmpodcasts.com/shunyaone You can listen to this show and other awesome shows on the new and improved IVM Podcast App on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/ios You can check out our website at http://www.ivmpodcasts.com/

On this episode of Shunya One, we are joined by Ankush Sachdeva, CEO/Co-founder at ShareChat (https://www.sharechat.com), a content-sharing social networking platform essentially for regional languages and emerging markets. To join the Shunya One slack channel, request for an invite here: http://ivmpodcasts.com/shunyaone You can listen to this show and other awesome shows on the IVM Podcast App on Android: https://goo.gl/tGYdU1 or iOS: https://goo.gl/sZSTU5 You can check out our website at http://www.ivmpodcasts.com/

In this episode of the news and analysis cast (Newscast13), we have four news stories related to books and publishing in India. a. Water leakage damages new books in National Library in Kolkata (The Hindu, July 14th, 2016) b. Amazon Kindle Oasis Launch (The Mobile Indian, July 11, 2016) c. Graphic novels in India (The Asian Age, July 7, 2016) d. $1.25 million investment in Sharechat and what it could mean for authors. Links and shownotes are available at www.mykitaab.in/newscast13