Startup Digest: Zepto bags $31.2 Mn, Unilever Ventures invests ₹20 Cr in WishCare, EaseMyTrip’s Q2 profit up by 67.19% & more

Hearing Solutions, which operates audiology chain Hearzap, has raised Rs 50 crore funding round led by 360 One Asset Management’s healthcare and lifesciences-focused private equity fund.

As per the firm, the funds raised for a minority stake, will be utilised to expand operations nationwide over next three years. Veda Corporate Advisors was the exclusive financial advisor to the company.

The company offers an innovative digital suite of applications for remote diagnosis and virtual shopping experience of hearing care devices. It claims to have 90 audiology clinics-cum-hearing experience stores across seven states and a team of 100 audiologists.

Beauty brand WishCare has bagged Rs 20 crore in its first institutional round led by Unilever Ventures. The startup intends to use the fresh capital towards amplifying research and development, focusing on formulating high-efficacy products and making foray into the domestic market as well as globally.

The D2C personal care brand claims to have over 10 lakh customers in over 15 distinctive marketplaces.

WishCare said that its current ARR stands at Rs 85 crore, having grown 4x in the last 12 months, while maintaining a double digit EBITDA.

BranchX, an AI-powered Indic neobank, has secured $900,000 in a bridge funding round led by undisclosed investors.

The firm said it will deploy the fresh capital in accelerating expansion plans, supporting product enhancement, and advancing the development of Xenie, a Gen AI voice assistant solution that encompasses retail connect, loyalty programs, and rewards system.

BranchX claims to have amassed over 30,000 wallet users, a network of 3,000 agents and conducted transactions exceeding $20 million in the first half of the current financial year.

Mobile gaming studio BlackLight Games has raised an undisclosed amount of funding in its first institutional financing round led by Udyat Ventures. The round also saw participation from Kratos Studios, Polygon Ventures and Dexter Ventures.

The firm will use the fresh funds to expand into new markets, hire talent and invest in artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve player experiences through personalisation.

BlackLight Games focuses on building social multiplayer games for mobile devices. The startup claims to have clocked over 200 million downloads across three titles including its flagship game Ludo SuperStar, and others such as Carrom Superstar, and Callbreak Superstar.

Travel-tech platform EaseMyTrip’s net profit shot up 67.19 percent over the last year to Rs 471.78 crore in Q2. The company’s revenue from operations came in at Rs 1,416.94 crore, registering a growth of 30.59 percent from Rs 1,084.99 crore a year ago.

The total expenses of the company were at Rs 799.18 crore, up bout 10 percent from Rs 732.66 crore. Advertising and promotional expenses for the quarter stood at Rs 138.55 crore as against Rs 297.16 crore a year ago.

The company’s revenue from the air passage segment increased about 10 percent but that from hotel packages and other services jumped eight times and 49 times, albeit on a low base.

PayGlocal, a cross-border focused payments platform provider, has received in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India for Payment Aggregator (PA) license.

The authorization process, which, once completed, will enable PayGlocal to onboard merchants onto its platform for online payment processing.

“Driven by our growing GDP, global commerce from India will continue to grow and we remain focused on providing the right payment solutions to enable this growth. RBI’s support in providing this In-principle license will help us create more innovative solutions as we continue to work towards getting full authorization,” said Prachi Dharani Co-founder and CEO of PayGlocal.

T-Hub, a startup incubator, has announced the launch of Cohort 12 of LAB32 in collaboration with Hexagon, a digital reality solutions provider.

The partnership is aimed at accelerating the growth and innovation of startups focusing on Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Digital Reality.

T-Hub’s flagship program, LAB32, will execute the Market Readiness Program for MVP stage startups, addressing specific problem statements identified by Hexagon, a statement said.

Amazon is investing millions in training an ambitious large language model (LLMs), hoping it could rival top models from OpenAI and Alphabet Reuters reported.

The model, codenamed as “Olympus”, has 2 trillion parameters, the people said, which could make it one of the largest models being trained. OpenAI's GPT-4 model, one of the best models available, is reported to have one trillion parameters.

The team is spearheaded by Rohit Prasad, former head of Alexa, who now reports directly to CEO Andy Jassy. As head scientist of artificial general intelligence (AGI) at Amazon, Prasad brought in researchers who had been working on Alexa AI and the Amazon science team to work on training models, uniting AI efforts across the company with dedicated resources.

China's ByteDance, the parent of short video app TikTok, is offering to buy back shares from its employees outside the United States for $160 apiece, according to Reuters.

The price per restricted stock unit is in line with an offer it made to current and former U.S. employees in October, according to a Reuters report which said the company was looking to buy at least $300 million worth of stock at $160 per share.

A ByteDance spokesperson confirmed the share buyback plan for employees outside the U.S., saying it aimed to provide liquidity options for staff through such programs. The company has offered buyback programs twice a year to eligible current and former staff since 2017.

The top US consumer financial watchdog has proposed to regulate tech giants' digital payments and smartphone wallet services, saying they rival traditional payment methods in scale and scope but lack consumer safeguards.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB) proposal would subject companies like Alphabet, Apple, PayPal and Block's CashApp to bank-like supervision, with CFPB examiners inspecting their privacy protections, executives' conduct and compliance with laws barring unfair and deceptive practices.

If finalized, the proposal would cover about 17 companies that together send more than 13 billion payments annually, according to a CFPB official. The agency declined to name the other platforms that would be covered beyond GooglePay, ApplePay, PayPal and CashApp.

Britain's antitrust regulator will gain legal powers to tailor rules for big tech companies, such as Meta, Alphabet and Amazon, to ensure they treat businesses and consumers fairly, according to the King's Speech setting out the government's priorities.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) set up a dedicated Digital Markets Unit more than two years ago, armed with the expertise to examine rapidly evolving markets like social media.

The proposed "Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers" law, whose powers were originally intended to come into force in 2022, will give the unit the "teeth" to underpin its remit.

Nintendo said it will develop a live-action film of long running franchise "The Legend of Zelda" in the Kyoto-based firm's latest push beyond its core gaming business.

Nintendo scored a runaway success with its animated "Super Mario Bros" movie this year, which has underscored the box-office appeal of video game adaptations and helped drive demand for its aging Switch console.

Nintendo reported it sold 6.84 million Switch units in the first half of the financial year, supported by incremental hardware updates and titles featuring its popular roster of characters.