YC-backed Better Opinions bags $2.5mn in funding from Metaplanet VC, others

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July 25, 2022

Better Opinions, an event-based trading platform backed by Y Combinator, has raised $2.5 million in funding from investors that include Goldwater Capital and Metaplanet VC.

Y Combinator, Taurus VC, Original Capital, Tremis Capital, Super Capital, and other angel investors participated in the funding.

The company will use the funds to expand its product and technology team and for marketing and user growth.

“The funds will also be used to make Better Opinions a trading-cum-social platform. So far, we have seen an exciting user base that is eager to trade and invest in our platform,” said Samay Jain, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Better Opinions.

Better Opinions, a 2021-founded app, allows users to make predictions in various categories, including cricket, cryptocurrency, politics, and entertainment, with the potential to win real money if they are right.

Better Opinions states that since its launch, it has extended from continuous double auction transactions, where users can trade on “yes” or “no” poll results, or users can select from various choices to trade.

The company has expanded the platform to serve over 600,000 people and more than 14,000 events.

“Better Opinions developed and operated a real-cash prediction market, which is increasing the critical and accountable decision-making abilities and financial literacy of its user base,” said Rauno Miljand, managing partner, Metaplanet, an early-stage investing firm.

Better Opinions had raised over $1 million in funding from investors, including Soma Capital and Java Capital, in February of this year.

Additionally, it was a part of the Winter 2022 batch of Y Combinator, a global startup accelerator with Indian alumni that includes companies like Razorpay and Clear (formerly Cleartax).

Kochi: Residents seeking to rise above flood risk by lifting their houses

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July 25, 2022

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Residents of Kochi’s low-lying areas are increasingly adopting extraordinary measures to prevent storm water from entering their houses as waterlogging becomes a continuing problem. Their entire homes are being raised off the ground.

Residents in Kadavanthra, Kaloor, Pachalam, Elamakkara and other city neighborhoods have started contacting house-lifting companies with inquiries.

Raising a house is significantly less than purchasing a new city lot and building a new home. It only accounts for a third or a fourth of the price of building a new house.

To raise houses, many companies employ various methods depending on the bulk and stability of the building. To lift the building uniformly to the desired level, the dirt up to the foundation is excavated, and either manually driven jacks or hydraulic systems are used. Then a new foundation is put down on top of it.

After getting a loan from the bank, Shibin A. M., a resident of Kammattipadam, a low-lying area once covered by paddy fields, is raising his three-story, 1,800 sq ft house.

“We are raising the house by 4ft from the ground. The house was constructed in 2002 and fearing waterlogging, we constructed the house 4-5ft above the ground level when we built it. But over the years, the height of the road has increased with the authorities relaying it several times. Since 2018, the storm water has been entering the house during the rainy seasons as the road and the house are at the same level,” says Shibin.

House owners, according to those in the house lifting business, must ensure that there is no compromise on the quality of the work, or the lifted house will sink back to the ground and sustain structural damage.

“Lifting a house does not cause much environmental impact as it requires not many raw materials,” says Jose Francis, CEO of a building lifting firm in Kadavanthra.

The majority of inquiries come from locations where residences were built 20 years ago or more, according to Ashique Ebrahim, MD of another firm in Kaloor.

Scan QR code to pay with RuPay credit cards soon

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July 25, 2022

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To ease RuPay credit card transactions on the network of QR code acceptance, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is in talks with banks. The card acceptance fees that banks deduct from credit card payments to larger shops may not apply to small businesses, which may be exempted from the fees that can go up to 2%.

NPCI MD & CEO Dilip Asbe said the corporation targets a billion daily transactions across digital platforms. “We are looking it from a combination of payments — card tokenisation for contactless payments, using the national common mobility card in a super-efficient way, widening the use of toll collection cards for parking, petrol pumps and other uses,” said Asbe at an event organized by Bank of Baroda.

According to Asbe, there is enough room for UPI transactions to expand. Currently, there are less than 600 crore UPI transactions per month, with a value of more than Rs 10 lakh crores. Asbe estimates that the number of users might triple to 75 crores, and the number of merchants could double to 10 crores.

Asbe claimed that larger cash holdings resulting from the pandemic and government crediting subsidies directly into bank accounts contributed to the increase in the cash circulation to GDP, currently at 14.5%. He claimed that as a result, there had been more bank account cash withdrawals.

“For a country like India, ratio of currency in circulation to GDP should be in single digits,” Asbe said.

Bengaluru and Mumbai to host Discover RARE 2022 on July 28 and August 4

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July 23, 2022

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RARE India will hold the Discover RARE 2022 event at the Taj MG Road in Bengaluru on July 28 and at the ITC Grand Central in Lower Parel, Mumbai, on August 4.

A topic about destinations and sustainable travel options within the community will be started at the two events, which will bring together some hoteliers from the RARE Community and travel designers and tour operators from the major inbound and domestic travel companies in the two regions.

According to Shobhana Jain, Head of Sustainability, RARE India, “When RARE began in 2004, the seeds of ‘Conscious Travel’ were unknowingly sown. As this idea unravelled itself, the ethos veered toward ensuring that the hotel partners that came on board not just subscribed to this philosophy, but put in an effort to make it a continuous evolving journey. In 2019, the narrative for RARE pivoted to mindful, sustainable, responsible and regenerative travel and since then every hotel is encouraged to perform a self-audit based on the ten RARE touchstones. This also serves as the talking point at events such as Discover RARE.”

Shoba Mohan, Founder of RARE India, said, “Our pop-ups help us expand our tribe of the RARE hoteliers and travel agent supporters. The idea is to have intimate conversations and focus on the product and how tour operators can sell efficiently. One of the things RARE strives to do is building value for the hotel as well as the agencies, so that we can sell on value and shift away from the malaise of discounting.”

Higher education platform upGrad buys Harappa Education for ₹300 crores

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July 22, 2022

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upGrad, a platform for higher education, announced on Friday that it had acquired Harappa Education, an online education provider, for Rs 300 crores (about $38 million).

Present Harappa shareholders Bodhi Tree Systems, a newly formed platform between James Murdoch and Uday Shankar, and Co-Founders Pramath Raj Sinha and Shreyasi Singh closed the deal with upGrad.

Harappa Education is expected to make a revenue of Rs 75 crores this year.

“A combination of upskilling courses along with these critical skills that Harappa has to offer would set us apart. We see strong demand from our clients and with Harappa coming in, we believe we’ll be able to grow exponentially within the segment as we cross-leverage the synergies,” said Ronnie Screwvala and Mayank Kumar, Co-founders of upGrad.

Co-founded by Sinha, also the Founding Dean of the Indian School of Business (ISB), Harappa Education offers self-paced courses to address the spiralling problem of poor employability, inadequate leadership, and an ill-equipped workforce.

Harappa has an active clientele of 100 mid and large-sized organisations.

“As a combined force, Harappa and upGrad will anchor our purpose and conviction to create a truly wholesome learning ecosystem for lifelong learners in India and abroad, with our time-tested pedagogy, flagship programs, and rich partnerships to guarantee unmatched outcomes for our learners and clients,” said Sinha and Singh, Founders of Harappa.

In addition to having more than 300 university partners and a learner base of more than 3 million spread across more than 100 countries, upGrad also operates an enterprise business with a client base of 1000 companies globally.

Earlier this month, upGrad Rekrut, a wholly owned subsidiary of the leading provider of online higher education, revealed it had bought Wolves India for an undisclosed sum.

WRO and CBMM announce partnership to boost road safety

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July 22, 2022

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The World Rescue Organization (“WRO”) and CBMM, a pioneer in Niobium technologies, announced a new global partnership to strengthen road safety regulations, promote the development of improved post-crash rescue techniques, and increase road safety.

Over 3,500 people die on the roads every day, which equates to approximately 1.3 million avoidable deaths and an estimated 50 million injuries annually, according to the WHO.

The partnership between CBMM and the WRO will include:

– Sharing information about the development of new automotive materials and how they impact post-crash response and rescue techniques

– Identifying initiatives to promote improved vehicle manufacturing standards in regions which do not currently apply global best practice standards

– Monitoring automotive trends, such as the deployment of electric vehicles, and how they impact road safety and crash response.

Fabio D’Aiuto, Executive Manager of Market Development, CBMM, said, “Despite the huge improvements in vehicle safety that have been achieved in recent years, we must all do more to reduce the currently unacceptably high level of fatalities from crashes. We see the partnership with the WRO as an important opportunity to contribute to this effort by using our respective skills to identify practical solutions.”

Paul Schroeder, Chair, WRO, added, “CBMM are pushing the boundaries in new materials and their applications in vehicle design, understanding these developments and the implications for rescue personnel in managing post-crash incidents will greatly benefit the persons they are called upon to rescue. We see great benefit in linking those who produce specialist materials such as CBMM, vehicle manufacturers, rescue equipment tool manufacturers and rescue personnel who can all work together in reducing road death and injuries.”

The WRO and CBMM are both members of the Global Road Safety Partnership and support the World Health Organization’s Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021–2030, which aims to reduce the number of severe and fatal road accidents by half by 2030.

STL Academy trains 1,00,000 technology & telecom experts ahead of 5G rollout

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July 22, 2022

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There is a 28% demand-supply gap in heterogeneous skill sets in the fields of artificial intelligence, cloud management, database intelligence, cybersecurity, programming, and many more due to the introduction of 5G and complicated applications anticipated to cover the whole telecom industry. Sterlite Technologies (STL), based in Pune, has helped close this gap by training more than 100,000 professionals to make India a centre for digital talent through its educational programme STL Academy.

They are successfully working to reduce the industry’s skillset gap to install 5G in a timely and seamless manner. Through this academy, STL offers intensive deployment practises, troubleshooting, and network maintenance training to Army soldiers working on Network for Spectrum (NFS) maintenance, STL’s partner operators, and the organization’s project engineers.

The Learn from Home (LFH) series from STL Academy has delivered over 40 webinars, 500+ IBM professional certifications, and 30 SimpliLearn certificates. The Academy has incorporated 8,000 IIHT Courses, 7 FOA certifications (CFOT), and a NASSCOM Alliance for National certification programmes to carry out pertinent skill-upgradation courses for STL candidates/students, faculty/staff and mobilize 100,000 youth under the NASSCOM skill project.

Deployments in other countries have shown how essential end-to-end integration is to the success of 5G and its upgrades. Taking advantage of this opportunity, STL is training the industry for a digital transformation.

When they got 1,19,000 registrations for their 5G Empower event and completed the programme for 5868 participants with certification in under 24 hours, STL Academy achieved a place in the Guinness World Records for the second time.

Anjali Byce, CHRO at STL, adds, “Witnessing a rise in demand for professionals with diverse skill sets that span the hardware and software layers of 5G networks, STL has continued to help its employees scale up their learning quotient through STL Academy, upholding the value of ‘Hunger to Learn’. Additionally, to create an inclusive next generation skill ecosystem, STL has committed to train 100K women free of cost through its 5G Empower course. The academy ensures that all employees’ skills and competencies are continuously improved by providing equal and inclusive access to various training and development opportunities.”

As a business, STL is dedicated to developing society. The mission of STL Academy also reflects this approach. All of the Academy’s activities ultimately lead to the pursuit of a more comprehensive, selfless goal: establishing a solid and trustworthy national network and developing opportunities for youth employment around the world.

Purva Asset Management receives ₹200-cr commitments from investors

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July 21, 2022

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A real estate company Puravankara Ltd subsidiary, Purva Asset Management Pvt Ltd, has received commitments from investors totalling almost Rs 200 crore, marking the first close of its first alternative investment fund (AIF-II).

Domestic UHNIs and family offices make up most of the first commitment, with a target corpus of Rs 750 crore.

“The target is to raise the entire corpus for the fund by September 2022. The fund will create a significant pool of capital via the AIF route for growth by creating a win-win scenario for investors and Puravankara,” said Ashish Puravankara, MD of Puravankara.

The Category II AIF Purva Real Estate Fund, which recently got the mandatory Sebi approval, will be managed by Purva Asset Management. The first fund scheme is known as “Purva Residential Excellence Fund-1.”

The fund would invest in residential and planned developments in Bangalore, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, and MMR under the Purva Land and Provident brands. Additionally, with a four-year development period, it will invest in six to eight mid-sized developments of Provident Housing.

The fund’s sponsor is Puravankara, and the two parties will combine on investments in ventures and property acquisitions.

The fund’s objective internal rate of return (IRR) is set at 25%, and its sponsor guarantees an IRR of 12%.

“There are protection clauses for the fund and its investors, including a price protection clause. The revenue sharing kicks in as soon as a project is launched and at the end of 66 months, which is the fund life, any residual investments will be bought back by Puravankara at a pre-identified internal rate of return, or IRR of 12%,” said Shailesh Viswanathan, director, Purva Asset management.

In 2020, IFC and IFC Emerging Asia Fund partnered with Puravankara to invest $76 million in the latter’s affordable housing projects in India. The Bangalore-headquartered firm has 16 million sq. ft. of planned launches across the residential segment, with an investment of Rs. 4000 crores over the next few years to develop these assets.

Creative Galileo bags $7.5mn from Kalaari at $40-million valuation

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July 21, 2022

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Edtech platform for kids Creative Galileo has raised $7.5 million, about Rs 60 crore, in a funding round from a clutch of investors, including Kalaari Capital, the company said on Thursday. The Series A funding round also included participation from Affirma Capital, East Ventures, Employee Investment Fund, and angel investors.

After a $2.5 million pre-series A round in July of last year, Creative Galileo’s total funding now stands at $10 million.

Prerna A Jhunjhunwala, the founder of Creating Galileo, announced that the company had raised new capital valued at $40 million, which is more than three times greater than its valuation of $12.5 million in July of last year.

The company, founded in July 2020 and claims to have more than 7 million downloads, will use the newly infused funds to scale up, accelerate hiring across teams in various locations, introduce regional languages, and enhance platform research and development.

“Subscriber acquisition cost for more edtech companies is at a very high rate but for us it continues to be Rs 1.5 because of which our growth has been very organic. We have enough capital in the bank now to focus on regionalization of our product and launch in regional languages and also to launch in the international market,” Jhunjhunwala said.

She said that the edtech firm would launch new products to make the learning journey for children more personalized.

Creative Galileo is a character-based early learning platform for kids aged 3-10. The company plans to double its team from 30 to over 60 in a year.

“We are planning to launch in South East Asia. Our next go to market is Indonesia and Vietnam. We are mostly present in India but we have 10% of our viewership coming from foreign markets as well like US, middle east and Singapore. We have started building up a partnership in Korea with EBS Korea,” Jhunjhunwala said.

The company uses famous local superhero cartoon characters and has signed EBS Korea to get access to their content.

“We are also signing up some more Korean and Japanese characters because they have widespread usage in South East Asia,” Jhunjhunwala said.

In India, the company plans to start providing content in Marathi, Tamil and Telugu within six months from Hindi.

“In the last six months, Creative Galileo has achieved strong growth with low marketing spends. Creative Galileo has also consistently ranked among the top 20 educational apps on India’s play store – the only early learning app to achieve this distinction. This is a testament to the founders’ relentless focus and strong execution,” Kalaari Capital managing director Vani Kola said.

SBI plans to raise up to ₹11,000-cr in FY23

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July 20, 2022

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India’s largest lender State Bank of India (SBI), said its board has approved raising up to ₹11,000 crores in bonds during the current financial year.

“The central board of the bank at its meeting held today accorded approval for raising capital by way of issuance of Basel III-compliant debt instrument in dollar/rupee and/or any other convertible currency, during FY23…” it said in a regulatory filing.

The plan calls for raising up to ₹7,000 crores in extra tier 1 (AT-1) capital, with the remaining ₹4,000 crores coming from new tier 2 capital, pending approval from the Indian government.

SBI had a total capital adequacy ratio of 13.83% at the end of March, with tier 2 at 2.41% and AT-1 at 1.48%.

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