News roundup: Top 5 startup stories of the week

In terms of what made headlines in the world of startups this week, here’s a look at top 5 stories of the week

Anti-China sentiments has not only impacted the Indian startups but also called for boycott Chinese products and even apps by various fractions. Amidst the tension rising at the Line of Actual Control, it is interesting to note that the government has set up an official MyGov account on TikTok. While the account creation dates back to April 12, as of today MyGov has hit more than 1 million followers and garnered over 7.5 million likes on the platform.

And it is not just MyGov, there are several other government accounts like Press Information Bureau, Telegana Fights Corona, IRCTC & many more that are riding on TikTok’s widespread reach across the country.

According to Venture Intelligence, Chinese investors have so far invested $263 million in Indian startups in the first half of 2020 across 15 deals, which is less than a quarter of the $1.23 billion they raised in 2019 through 47 deals. The funding has been impacted by the COVID-19 crisis as well as the change in the foreign direct investment (FDI) policy for Chinese capital into the country announced in April.

According to a February 2020 report by think tank Gateway House, 18 of India’s 30 unicorns are Chinese-funded. The unicorns that have attracted Chinese funding over the years include Ola (Tencent, Sailing Capital), Flipkart (Tencent, TR Capital), Paytm (Alibaba), BYJU’S (Tencent), Delhivery (Fosun Group), among others.

On the other hand to support startups, the tech giant Google has opened applications for the new batch of Google For Startups Accelerator and is on a hunt for startups who are working on solutions that are oriented towards the new normal, with a special focus on health-tech, fintech, edu-tech, agri-tech, retail and saas startups.

Apart from this, Google For Startups also announced the launch of a ‘Playbook for startups to face the COVID-19 Challenge’ which includes contributions from startups, mentors and VC firms. Globally, Google announced a $175 million economic opportunity package to support black business owners, startup founders, job seekers and developers. The tech giant also launched #GoogleforStartups Accelerator for Black Founders, a 3-month program Seed to Series A startups.

After Google, the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group Corp announced that it will invest $2 million or more in 14 US startups led by black founders and other under-represented groups, as part of its effort to fund more a more diverse array of entrepreneurs.

The investments will be a part of the Emerge Accelerator Programme which partners with Softbank Investment Advisers & WeWork, and focuses on underrepresented founders. The first class of the Emerge program, pitched their companies to the investors in an online video presentations on June 18.

Koniku, Moment AI, Ojha Express are some of the startups representing the minority in the programme.

No news bulletin is complete without COVID-19, this time it’s a refreshing one.

Swiss hygiene company Livinguard, with operations in India, Germany, USA, Singapore, Japan and South Africa, has come up with a revolutionary and first of its kind face mask, that can directly inactivate bacteria and viruses, including 99.9 percent of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

The globally patented technology was invented by Sanjeev Swamy, an entrepreneur of Indian origin, who also heads the company. Available in three versions the price of the mask starts from Rs 1,490 and goes up to Rs 1,990

Before wrapping up, here’s a shout-out to Indian startups who made a mark starting with consumer leading startup Zestmoney and milk-tech startup Stellapps who found a spot on World Economic Forum’s list of Technology Pioneers 2020. Some of the companies that have been earlier a part of this list are Google, Airbnb, Twitter and Spotify.

Let’s not forget the Global Data intelligence firm CB Insights 2020 List of 50 Future Unicorns that featured three Indian startups which include- fin-tech startup CRED, ed-tech startup Vedantu and B2B ecommerce marketplace Moglix.

This week we also saw startups like Hoi Foods (Cloud kitchen platform) raise $2 million in pre-Series A round led by 1Crowd fund, Edvizo (ed-tech) raise $150,000 in seed round from Inflection Point Ventures and wellness startup SARVA raise an undisclosed amount from cricketer Shikhar Dhawan.