Chirag Gupta, 23, co-founder of Deyor, a budget hotel and campsite aggregator, works from cafes and restaurants mostly. Gupta uses the services of Qdesq, an online aggregator of workspace, and finds it much cheaper than renting out a specific facility. “We work in the marketplace model and book s…
Start Up India
Zarget raises $1.5 million in seed funding
Zarget, a Chennai-based SaaS startup, has raised $1.5 million (about Rs 10 crore) in seed funding. Global venture capital firms Accel Partners and Matrix Partners and CEO of Freshdesk Girish Mathrubootham participated in the round along with some other investors. “Consider the slow advances…
JM financial acquires 9.84% in p2p lending startup Fairassets
Close on the heels of Reserve Bank of India’s move to bring the nascent peer-to-peer (P2P) lending under regulation, financial services firm JM Financial has acquired 9.84% stake in P2P lending start-up Fairassets Technologies through one of its subsidiaries. All five existing investors of …
Oxigen wallet founder Pramod Saxena launches startup accelerator with IIT-Roorke
Pramod Saxena, the founder of Oxigen Wallet has launched Aarambh Ventures, a startup accelerator in partnership with IIT-Roorkee, specifically focusing on fin-tech and clean-tech startups. Aarambh Ventures will also partner with several early-stage funds including Unitus Seed Fund, Ivy-Cap Ventur…
Tight government regulation, lack of innovation limiting Crowdfunding startups
Crowdfunding is globally a $16-billion industry and as per estimates, in 2016 with a total investment volume of $34 billion, it is likely to overtake the amount of equity funding from venture capitalists to startups which is $30 billion. Even as equity crowdfunding is one of the fastest growing m…
Greedy games set to launch video-based ad integration
Greedy Games, a two-year-old startup that enables advertising through embedding of brands, is taking on new partnerships globally and preparing to launch video-based ad integration. The ad-tech startup is partnering with award-winning Czech Republic developer Mad Finger Games and Malaysian digita…
RBI to regulate the peer-to-peer (P2P) lending business
The RBI’s move to regulate the peer-to-peer (P2P) lending business has evoked good response with most participants saying that it could provide greater confidence to lenders and borrowers, as also to venture capitalists. The space has some 35 startups now and more than 20 of them were found…
Dell foundation earmarks $50 million for Indian startups
The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation (MSDF), one the world’s biggest philanthropic organisations, and an active impact investor in India, has earmarked an additional $50 million (about Rs 333 crore) towards investments in the country over the next three years. The amount, which will be pri…
Nasscom, Facebook ink MoU to engage with India’s entrepreneurs
The trade body of Indian IT firms NASSCOM has signed an MoU with Facebook to build a product design initiative to engage the country’s young entrepreneurs into becoming problem solvers and solution builders. Signed in Silicon Valley this week, the NASSCOM-Facebook initiative is likely to pr…
Govt drops cap gains tax on startup shares held for 2 yrs
In a fresh boost to startups, the government on May 5 inserted an amendment to the Finance Bill to provide for capital gains tax exemption if shares of an unlisted company were held for more than two years. Currently, there is no capital gains tax on share transactions in listed companies if thos…