Startup Digest: BYJU'S to cut 3500 jobs, India sees lowest tech funding in Q3, Dia Mirza invests in BabyChakra & more

India saw a third consecutive drop in tech funding in a quarter this year, with the July-September period (Q3) becoming the least-funded quarter in the last five years, according a new report by market intelligence firm Tracxn.

Q3 2023 saw a significant drop in funding, with a total of $1.5 billion raised, marking a 29 percent decrease from the previous quarter and a staggering 54 percent decline compared to Q3 2022.

Late-stage rounds witnessed a 33 percent reduction, while early-stage and seed-stage funding plummeted by 74 percent and 75 percent, respectively, compared to the same quarter last year. The third quarter witnessed five funding rounds exceeding $100 million, including companies such as Perfios, Zepto, Ola Electric, Ather Energy, and Zyber 365, with Perfios leading the way with a Series D round of $229 million.

Actor and UN Goodwill Ambassador, Dia Mirza invests in parenting community and babycare D2C brand, BabyChakra. While the investment is undisclosed, CNBC-TV18 learns, as part of her role, Dia will work with BabyChakra in incorporating sustainable and clean care principles into their product ranges. The brand will now focus even more on sustainable packaging and formulations going forward.

BabyChakra claims it will create products specifically tailored to meet the evolving needs of mothers using natural, dermatologically tested, toxin-free, and allergen-free ingredients, while adhering to the highest global safety standards.

Part of the content-to-commerce conglomerate, Good Glamm Group, BabyChakra hopes its collaboration with Dia Mirza will further enhance their commitment to offering exceptional babycare products and empowering mothers with the knowledge and support they need as she will engage with the 30 million+ mothers community of Good Community division.

Fintech firm Bright Money has raised $62 million in a fresh funding round from a clutch of investors. The funding includes $50 million in debt from Encina Lender Finance and $12 million in equity led by Alpha Wave, Hummingbird, and PeakXV.

"The funding will be deployed towards building robust teams across product development, technology, analytics, and support functions like compliance and customer service," Bright Money co-founder and Co-CEO Petko Plachkov said in the statement.

Bright Money app helps consumers get out of debt, with the power of AI and machine learning. It has about 95 percent of employees in India.

Doceree, a network of physician-only platforms for programmatic messaging, has raised $35 million in Series B funding round led by Creaegis. Existing investors, Eight Roads Ventures, and F-Prime Capital, also participated in the round.

The funds will be used to accelerate product and technology development and support expansion efforts to reshape communications to HCPs (healthcare professionals) across the globe.

Doceree claims to have grown more than 100 percent in the last one year with monthly revenue rising five folds between the Series A funding in April 2022 and now. The company has introduced category-first innovations on the demand and supply sides, including Doceree Enterprise, an HCP-focused global Demand Side Platform (DSP), and Doceree Provider that empowers HCPs to improve health outcomes of their patients.

QuriousBit, a casual puzzle gaming studio, has secured $2 million in its initial funding round led by gaming and interactive media focused VC Lumikai fund, along with participation from General Catalyst.

The firm intends to use the fresh funds to create a new benchmark in innovative puzzle games built in India for global audiences. The founders will also be investing heavily in curating a team to build a high-quality casual mobile gaming studio, a company statement said.

“We see a huge opportunity in casual puzzle games beyond match-3 and blast genres. We believe some of these genres are ripe to disrupt with innovative core gameplay mechanics and deeper narratives. Our aim is to build a world class gaming studio based out of India, entertaining global audiences,” said Ramakrishna Reddy Y L, Founder, QuriousBit.

Zeron, a cybersecurity startup, has bagged $500,000 in seed funding round form Varanium Capital and Yatra Angel Network.

The fresh capital will be used to fuel Zeron's ongoing research and development initiatives, advancing the frontiers of AI-powered cybersecurity, and expanding its global presence.

Zeron offers solutions for organizations aiming to secure their cyberspace. It uses artificial intelligence (AI) to ensure clients make well-informed decisions, effectively countering the cybersecurity challenges.

Figr, a startup leveraging AI to transform the product design process, has raised $250,000 in pre-seed funding from Antler India.

The funding will be used to develop Figr's AI-powered platform that acts as a co-pilot for design teams to streamline ideation, design research, interface design, and front-end development, the company said.

Figr also plans to use the new capital to grow its engineering team and develop product to solve different parts of the design process. Figr is looking to invest in training powerful and versatile generative design models.

Flow Sports Life badminton and football academy has raised an undisclosed amount in a seed funding round led by Inflection Point Ventures.

The funds will be utilized for team expansion, operations and marketing, technology development, and infrastructure improvements, the company said.

The firm is currently operating with 3 centers across Delhi-NCR.

E-grocer Zepto has topped the LinkedIn’s Top-20 Indian Startups List 2023—an annual ranking of the emerging companies where professionals want to work. India’s newest and only unicorn of the year so far aced its ranking this year after placing fourth on the list in 2022.

BluSmart, the electric ride-sharing startup, which has made it in the list for three years in a row, emerged second on the list this year. Another EV startup Exponent Energy (#15) is a new entrant on the list.

Ditto Insurance, occupying the third spot, has led the fintech charge on the list, with Fi (#7), Jar (#11) and StockGro (#14).

Healthcare diagnostics Mylabs has announced the introduction of its patent-pending Point-of-Care Device named MyNeoShield for New-born Screening (NBS) - a critical public health program involving the testing of newborn infants for specific genetic, metabolic, and congenital disorders shortly after birth.

NBS can detect most preventable or treatable inherited metabolic disorders and genetic conditions, offering a rational and cost-effective approach to preventing these issues, a statement said.

This Point-of-Care Device for Newborn Screening is set to be available commercially from November. The company plans to take the device to global markets with its partners.

Higher education institutions (HEIs) across India have collaborated to establish the nation's inaugural Higher Education Institutions-led 'Agri-Consortium.' by IIM Kashipur. This initiative is aimed at fostering collaboration and innovation in the agricultural sector.

In a parallel development, the RKVY RAFTAAR Scheme, supported by the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Government of India through FIED at IIM Kashipur, allocated funding amounting to Rs 1.6 crore to support ten startup companies.

These startups operate across various sectors, including drone technology, agri supply chain, food processing, hydroponics, waste-to-wealth, and agri-biotechnology industries.

Revamp Moto, a modular electric two-wheeler manufacturer, has announced the launch of commencement of production of the first 120 bikes called the RM Buddie 25 at the company’s facility in Nasik, Maharashtra.

“Deliveries will commence in November 2023, and we believe that this vehicle, along with the Revamp Ecosystem, will empower micro-entrepreneurs by simplifying and enhancing their business operations on the go,” said Pritesh Mahajan, Co-founder and CEO of Revamp Moto.

The RM Buddie 25 boasts an impressive range of over 70 kilometers on a single charge and can carry a maximum load of 120 kilograms, including the driver.

apna.co, a jobs and professional networking platform, has partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) re/Start program to support the industry demand for IT and cloud talent in India.

The program aims to equip individuals with competencies around Linux, Python, networking, security, database, automation, and core AWS Cloud skills, through scenario-based exercises and instructor-led sessions, a statement said.

apna.co will help these individuals build professional skills and connect them with tech and cloud related opportunities available on their platform, it added.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission's lawsuit accusing Amazon of abusing its retail market power to stifle competition faces hurdles in court, testing the scope of U.S. antitrust law and posing roadblocks for the agency, legal experts told Reuters.

The U.S. consumer agency, which enforces federal antitrust law, and 17 states filed their lawsuit against Amazon in Seattle federal court, asking a U.S. judge to consider an injunction and other penalties to combat alleged unlawful conduct.

The lawsuit said Amazon has unfairly given preference to its own products and that the company's policies punish merchants that want to sell products for lower prices on other platforms.

U.S. financial firms are pushing for greater clarity on proposed new rules curbing U.S. investments in some China technology sectors which they say are too vague and put the onus of compliance on investors.

Aiming to protect national security and prevent U.S. capital from aiding China's military, President Joe Biden issued an executive order last month restricting new U.S. investments in sensitive Chinese technologies.

The Treasury Department subsequently kicked off a rule-making process to implement the order, and financial firms have been rushing to meet a September 28 to provide input. The rules are expected to be implemented sometime next year.

E-commerce giant Shopify is investing in wholesale platform Faire, in a global deal that would see the startup adopt Shopify technology for its clients.

Faire, founded in 2017 and valued at $12.59 billion, would become the recommended wholesale marketplace for Shopify merchants. The companies declined to disclose the value of the deal or how big a stake Shopify was taking.

Shopify's director of product Aneeqa Khan said the partnership would make it easy for Shopify merchants to find wholesale buyers, and enable retailers to source from Faire's network of brands.

China's cyberspace regulator released names of the first batch of mobile app stores that have completed filing business details to regulators, signalling it has begun to enforce new rules that expand its oversight of mobile apps.

A total of 26 app stores operated by companies including Tencent, Huawei, Ant Group, Baidu, Xiaomi and Samsung have submitted filings to the authority, according to the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC).

Apple's App Store is not among the app stores on the list.

Indonesia has banned e-commerce transactions on social media platforms, the trade minister said, in a blow to short video app TikTok, which is doubling down on Southeast Asia's biggest economy to boost its e-commerce business.

The government said the move, which takes effect immediately, is aimed at protecting offline merchants and marketplaces, adding that predatory pricing on social media platforms is threatening small and medium-sized enterprises.

The move comes just three months after TikTok pledged to invest billion of dollars in Southeast Asia, mainly in Indonesia, over the next few years in a major push to build its e-commerce platform TikTok Shop.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is set to update investors on his plan to build the immersive metaverse that he has pitched as the future of computing at the company's first in-person conference since the start of the pandemic.

Announcements at Meta Connect, Meta's biggest event of the year, will indicate how Zuckerberg plans to navigate the shift this year of investor fervor to artificial intelligence from augmented and virtual reality technologies.

Stakes for the event are high as investors last year slammed the parent company of Facebook and Instagram for spending extensively on the metaverse, prompting Zuckerberg to lay off tens of thousands of staff to continue funding his vision.