Latest Startup News This Week :March 2020
 |
STARTUP NEWS INDIA |
1.Unacademy acquires Kreatryx strengthening GATE, ESE category
 |
Unacademy |
Edtech startup Unacademy acquired Kreatryx in a cash & stock deal, Post-acquisition, Kreatryx will continue to run as a separate brand under Unacademy Brands. Kreatryx founder and CEO Ankit Goyal will join the team and run the brand independently as he joins WifiStudy’s Dinesh Godara’s team. The acquisition would allow Unacademy to get an edge over the competition in the GATE and ESE segment in the test prep market.Kreatryx offers video, test series and postal tracking platform for GATE and ESE exams, claims 50K+ registered aspirants, with over 100K hours watched and 4 Mn+ questions attempted.
2.Ola
offers 500 cabs to Karnataka Govt for Covid-19 related work
 |
OLA Cars |
Ola has offered 500 cabs to the government of Karnataka for Covid-19 related work.According to the company, the deputy chief minister has conveyed Ola’s offer to officials in districts. The cabs can be beneficial for healthcare staffers, transportation of medicines and other essential healthcare services, including emergencies.
3.Club Factory
on-boarding Indian e-commerce vendors to import essential goods from home
country
 |
Club Factory |
Club Factory on-boarding e-commerce vendors to import essential goods such as masks, hand sanitisers & other protective medical gear from China.Project Ginger, as Club Factory calls it, Club Factory in communications to sellers said it will facilitate the purchase, custom clearance, warehousing and shipment to end consumers.Club Factory will source materials from China and let them list these products on its India storefront, sellers will also be allowed to sell these products both offline & online and there is no restriction to sell exclusively on the Club Factory.
4.Unicorn
India Ventures announced first close of its Fund-II at Rs.10 Cr
 |
Unicorn India Ventures |
Aiming to capitalize on early-stage startups, Unicorn India Ventures announced first close of its Fund-II at Rs 90 cr, it has already received first tranche and is targeting to raise a total of Rs 400 cr in next 12 months. The firm will be looking to deploy the latest fund in around 20 startups by infusing about $1 million at their pre-Series A stage and upwards. It has already made its first bet from the latest fund, backing neo-diagnostics startup Sascan.Unicorn India Ventures is an early-stage technology-focused Indian registered venture fund that is known to invest in seed and early stages with initial and follow-on investments in the range of Rs 50 lakhs to Rs 10 crore.
5. Zoom updates iOS app to remove code that sent device data to Facebook
 |
Zoom |
Video conferencing app Zoom updated its iOS app to remove code that sent user data to Facebook, Motherboard reports.Zoom said the data collected did not include personal user information, but rather information about users’ devices. Users should update the iOS app to the latest version for the change to take effect, the company said.“We sincerely apologize for the concern this has caused, and remain firmly committed to the protection of our users’ privacy,” Yuan said in the blog post. “We are reviewing our process and protocols for implementing these features in the future to ensure this does not happen again.”
6. Urban
Company too offers interest-free loans to 22K partners & more
 | |
Urban Company |
7. Ola
CEO Bhavish Aggarwal gives-up one-year salary for drivers’ fund
 |
OLA Cars |
Ola has announced a Drive the Driver Fund to offer relief to the driver community, Where Bhavish Aggarwal, cofounder and CEO will forgo a year’s salary, Ola group & employees have also contributed INR 20 Cr to the fund. The crowdfunding initiative launched by Ola Foundation has been set up to provide relief to the drivers which are not able to operate under the country’s lockdown.The proceeds of the fund will help support the welfare and upliftment of drivers and their families who have been affected by the restrictions due to the Covid- 19 pandemic.
8. Swiggy
planning grocery deliveries in 150 cities in India
 |
Swiggy |
Swiggy is planning to start the grocery delivery business from 150 top cities if it faces no disruptions in the supply chain, according to a TOI report.Sundar said that Swiggy has also put these issues in front of police commissioners, political leaders, and bureaucrats of respective cities to get their business back on track.Swiggy is looking to leverage its fleet of 2.5 Lakh delivery-partners to deliver essential products like groceries to most of the cities it operates in till the lockdown ends on April 14.
9. BigBasket
starts operations again, will focus on delayed orders
 |
Bigbasket |
BigBasket is now operational in all its cities (except Kochi & Kerala), but due to delayed orders, will first focus on fulfilling existing orders before accepting new orders.Delivery executives from various companies have faced harassment by police across the country due to lack of proper communication. Besides, the lockdown has completely disturbed the supply chain in the country.After a lot of back and forth, the state governments came forward to clarify that ecommerce companies that are helping those stuck at home with essential supplies. must be allowed to operate.
10. Google
Offers $800 Million to Virus Relief, Including Ad Credits
 |
Google wll invest $200 mn to support NGOs and financial institutions around the world to help provide SMBs with access to capital in these crucial times.Google.org is also providing $15 Mn is cash grants to nonprofits to help bridge these gaps for SMBs, will offer $340 Mn as Google Ads credits to SMBs too.It’ll provide $250 Mn in advertisement grants to the WHO and over 100 government agencies, it is also providing $20 Mn in advertisement grants to community financial institutions and NGOs.To help academic institutions & researchers, Google is offering $20 Mn in Google Cloud credits which help them to leverage the computing capabilities and infrastructure of the tech giant.
0 Comments