FutureTech

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget for the fiscal year 2022-23 on Tuesday. Here are some highlights from the world of technology and technology startups: According to Sitharaman, the government will establish a Digital University to provide online education in multiple languages. A web portal for skill development has been announced. Startups in the agricultural and rural sectors will benefit from a fund raised through NABARD. A battery swapping policy and interoperability standards will be implemented in order to set up charging stations at scale. Sitharaman stated that…

Loadshare, a Bengaluru-based logistics and supply chain startup, has raised $40 million in a Series C funding round led by US-based investment firm Tiger Global. The round was co-led by Filter Capital, 57 Stars, and previous investors CDC Group and Matrix Partners India. The company was founded in 2017 by Raghuram Talluri, Pramod Nair, and Rakib Ahmed. According to the statement, LoadShare’s mission is to solve its customers’ toughest logistics challenges by leveraging the power of small and medium logistics entrepreneurs. According to LoadShare, it provides a variety of services…

Scaler, a tech upskilling startup, has raised $55 millionin a Series B round led by new investor Lightrock India and two existing investors, Sequoia Capital India and Tiger Global, for a total valuation of $710 million. With this new round of funding, Scaler Academy’s total capital raised now stands at $76.5 million. In January 2020, Sequoia India and Tiger Global led a Series A round for the Bengaluru-based startup. According to a press release, the new funds will be used to fund international expansion plans, the launch of new products…

Ryan Breslow, a co-founder of Bolt Financial Inc., has announced his resignation as CEO, just two weeks after the company was valued at $11 billion. Breslow, who is 27 years old, will take over as executive chairman. Maju Kuruvilla, a 44-year-old Bolt executive who previously worked at Amazon.com Inc. as a vice president, will be promoted to CEO. The move was first reported by TechCrunch on Monday. Bolt develops payment software for online retailers such as Forever 21. It’s been around for seven years, but in the last few months,…

Athelas Inc., a remote patient monitoring technology company, has raised $132 million in new funding, bringing its total valuation to $1.5 billion. Athelas, which was founded in 2016, saw rapid growth last year, fueled in part by a shift to remote care during the Covid-19 pandemic. Tanay Tandon, co-founder and CEO of Athelas, said the company now has 20,000 patients, which is ten times the number it had at the start of 2021. “The pandemic really showed folks that health care in the home has to be a thing and…

FarEye, a global SaaS platform that transforms last-mile logistics, today announced a buyback for Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) holders valued at US$1.22 million. This is FarEye’s second liquidation programme, following a $739,000 liquidation of eligible ESOP options in December 2020. According to the company’s statement, the SaaS startup will use its cash reserves to buy back the vested ESOPs. FarEye launched a revised ESOP programme in 2021 with the goal of making it more employee-friendly and democratising ESOP grants to a large portion of its 700+ employees worldwide. FarEye…

Live video infrastructure startup 100ms is in talks to raise $15-18 million in a new round of funding from new and existing investors. The Bengaluru-based startup raised a $4.5 million seed fund led by Accel with participation from Strive three months ago. vc. “100ms is finalising a $15-18 million round in which Falcon Edge’s Alpha Wave, Matrix and Accel will be the lead investors,” said one of the sources on condition of anonymity. “The round may also see participation from a couple of new investors and some angels.” 100ms offers…

Cashfree Payments, a digital payments and fintech services startup, reached a $200 million valuation after raising funds from the State Bank of India in June last year. During the 2020-2021 period, the company claims to have seen a 150 percent increase in its user base. While the company is controlled by its US-based holding company Cashfree Inc, its Indian operations are managed by Cashfree Payments India, and we looked at its annual numbers to see how it grew during the pandemic year. Cashfree Payments saw a 2.3X increase in revenue…

Social Swag, a Mumbai-based new-age content platform founded by Akshay Kumar, Rana Daggubati, Collective Artists, and Mahesh Bhupathi, announced today that it has raised $3.5 million in a pre-Series A round led by IMEF and Unicorn India Ventures. Vinay Agarwal, Ritesh Deshmukh, Raghu Subramanian, Edward Menezes, The Shekama Family Trust, and The Blume Founders Fund were among the other HNIs who took part in the round. Social Swag, which debuted in 2020, allows users to learn directly from top influencers, celebrities, and seasoned professionals. The startup claims to have grown…