Startup Digest: IAN Alpha Fund marks first close at ₹355 crore, Spotify to cut 1,500 jobs and more

IAN Alpha Fund has marked the first close at ₹355 crore. This is the second VC fund in IAN Group’s series of funds. The fund has a target corpus of ₹1,000 crores.

The fund will invest ₹5,000 crores in 500 startups to create 5 lakh jobs. Registered with Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) under Alternative Investment Fund (AIF) Category II, it would focus on clean tech, health tech and bio, fintech, cybersecurity, and robotics. The IAN Group has invested over ₹900 crore in over 250 startups so far, which are currently valued at over $ 9billion, a statement said.

“We intend to not only focus on India’s metros to harness, but also have a keen eye on tier 2 and 3 cities, where untapped potential and creativity abound and where we have already had some great successes. Female founders will also be an area of focus,” said Padmaja Ruparel, IAN co-founder and senior managing partner of the IAN Alpha Fund.

Construction marketplace unicorn Infra.Market has divested 10% of its stake in RDC Concrete to public investors led by Ashish Kacholia.

This divestment in RDC Concrete further paves the way for RDC's IPO plans in the near future offering investors an opportunity to be part of the company's promising future in the construction material sector, the company said in a statement.

Infra.Market had acquired RDC Concrete, a ready-mix concrete company, for $90 million in 2021 when it had 49 RMC plants, which has now grown to 100 plants across 48 cities, the firm said. RDC Concrete expects to have around 180 RMC plants by the end of FY25.

Bitsila, a seller marketplace on ONDC, has raised an undisclosed capital pre-seed funding round from Antler and Phanindra Sama, co-founder of Redbus.

The firm’s full stack omnichannel and hyperlocal commerce platform helps large enterprises and small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to join the ONDC network. With an integration with 20+ platforms and POS providers, Bitsila enables sellers across various segments with fast onboarding to seamlessly transact and grow their business on the ONDC network.

“A 30-minute onboarding of any seller on Shopify to ONDC is under development and could be the QR Code moment for ONDC. We aim to empower 500+ large enterprises as network participants in the next 18 months, enabling a million merchants on their digital commerce journey through ONDC,” said Dasharatham Bitla, Founder and CEO, Bitsila.

Yantra, a management and technology services provider has announced its plans to invest ₹100 crore in India’s Gen AI market. The company is planning to hire 500 employees in the next two years.

According to the firm, this investment aims to fuel the development of artificial intelligence in the country. Additionally, it will also help train Gen AI consultants and tailor solutions for clients across various industries while also paving the way for entry into new sectors.

“Our significant investment in India’s GenAI space aligns seamlessly with our vision for growth, reinforcing our position as industry leaders committed to pushing boundaries and setting new benchmarks. To support this initiative, we aim to attract, recruit, and train top talent in the Indian job market by providing a platform for young, innovative minds,” said Vikram Bhandari, Founder, and CEO, Yantra.

Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) has announced a new initiative called ‘Build for Bharat’ in collaboration with Google Cloud India, Antler, Paytm, Protean and Startup India.

Through this initiative, the open network aims to tackle diverse challenges in digital commerce, promoting industry innovation to develop practical solutions in this space, it said. “So the whole idea of Hackathon is to trigger and stimulate this innovation and the passion in this multitude of small and big smart guys that we have from schools, colleges, and startups, coming together to make small components which can all be nicely stitched together using this ONDC protocol to give a seamless service to the end consumer, which would not be possible in today's world of platforms,” T Koshy, MD and CEO at ONDC told CNBC-TV18.

The ‘Build for Bharat’ initiative intends to tap into India’s technological and entrepreneurial potential with an expected participation of over 2,00,000 participants representing startups, companies and colleges. “

Adding to this, Paytm founder and chief executive officer Vijay Shekhar Sharma told CNBC-TV18 that the fintech will onboard 10 million of its merchants to ONDC by the end of 2025. “Commerce is natural extension for our payments merchants and I'm seeing a very big trend of small or large retailer, manufacturer, service provider trying to reach on internet to access new customers. So ONDC is phenomenal platform and I think the expansion of ONDC will be contingent on number of merchants that we sign up,” Sharma added.

Avaana Climate & Sustainability Fund, an early-stage VC in collaboration with Startup India has launched ‘Grand Challenge for ClimateTech Innovation’ aimed at identifying and supporting entrepreneurs building solutions in transitioning to net zero.

As per a statement, the entrepreneurs are invited to apply for the challenge with their ideas in seven key themes: Energy Transition and Mobility, Sustainable Food and Agriculture Systems, Industrial Decarbonisation and Built, Circular Economy, Climate Finance, Carbon Capture, Removal and Storage, and lastly Climate Data & Reporting.

“The Grand Challenge for ClimateTech Innovation represents our dedication to supporting visionary startups driving impactful climate solutions”, said Anjali Bansal, Founding Partner, Avaana Capital. “It is aligned with building from India, for India and for the world.”

The National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) has signed a partnership with Blinkit, Apna, and Quess Corp to generate employment and promote skill development. The partnerships also aim at creating a readily available workforce for diverse industries, each contributing to different sectors of the economy.

While Apna and Quess Corp will be integrating their jobs platforms with Skill India Digital through SSO, the MoU with Blinkit will co-create curriculum, and skill the workforce for the emerging quick-commerce Industry and its warehouse job roles.

The partnership with Blinkit will also focus on the recruitment of candidates, capable of making immediate contributions to the identified job role in the quick commerce segment.

Japanese electronic parts maker TDK will manufacture lithium ion (li-ion) battery cells for Apple iPhones in India, MoS Rajeev Chandrasekhar said.

Apple has been touting India as its next big growth driver as it looks to move some production away from China.

It began assembling iPhones in the country in 2017 through Wistron and later Foxconn and has a total of 14 suppliers in India.

Music streaming giant Spotify said it will layoff around 1,500 employees, or 17% of its workforce, to bring down costs, after letting 600 of its staff go in January, and 200 more in June.

After a round of job cuts at the start of the year by tech companies, some have begun reducing their workforce again, with announcements coming from Amazon to Microsoft-owned LinkedIn.

In a letter to employees, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said the company hired more in 2020 and 2021 due to the lower cost of capital and while its output has increased, much of it was linked to having more resources.

A group representing 83 Spanish media outlets has filed a $600 million lawsuit against Facebook owner Meta Platforms, citing unfair competition in the advertising market.

The lawsuit was filed by the AMI newspaper publishing association in a commercial court on Friday, the association said.

The newspapers said Meta's "massive" and "systematic" use of personal data from the users of its Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp platforms allows it to get an unfair advantage to design and offer personalized ads that constitute unfair competition.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said his company would do its best to supply its artificial intelligence processors to Japan amid extremely high market demand.

Japan is rushing to rebuild its once world-leading semiconductor infrastructure and catch up on the development of AI technology. The graphics processing units (GPUs) made by US-based Nvidia dominate the market for AI.

"Demand is very high, but I promised the Prime Minister we will do our very, very best to prioritise Japan's requirements for GPUs," Huang said.

Thailand's central bank and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority have launched a link for cross-border QR payments, they said in a joint statement.

"Through this linkage, travellers from Thailand and Hong Kong will be able to make retail payments by using their mobile payment applications," they said.

Walmart said it is not advertising on social media platform X, one of the latest brands to say it has dropped the Elon Musk-owned site.

"We aren't advertising on X as we've found other platforms to better reach our customers," a Walmart spokesperson said.

The platform has struggled to retain advertisers since Musk acquired the company in October 2022, and faced a fresh exodus in recent weeks over rising concern about antisemitic content.