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ETSA 2024: Need stronger collaboration between private investors and govt to support deeptech startups: BrainSight AI founder Laina Emmanuel

Economic TimesEconomic Times · 9m ago
ETSA 2024: Need stronger collaboration between private investors and govt to support deeptech startups: BrainSight AI founder Laina Emmanuel
Medial

BrainSight AI, a Bengaluru-based startup, has been recognized as the Top Innovator at The Economic Times Startup Awards 2024. The company has developed a technology that helps neurosurgeons map brains more accurately and interpret MRI scans efficiently. Beyond brain tumor detection, BrainSight AI is expanding its capabilities to analyze brain images in patients with conditions like Parkinson's and stroke. The startup has received support from grants and early investors, and it is now entering the commercial phase with plans to scale its deployment to more hospitals. BrainSight AI also aims to obtain a US FDA license and expand globally.

Expertia AI secures pre-Series A funding led by Rockstud Capital

EntrackrEntrackr · 3m ago
Expertia AI secures pre-Series A funding led by Rockstud Capital
Medial

Recruiter platform Expertia has raised Rs 20 crore in a pre-Series A funding round led by Rockstud Capital, with participation from Flipkart and its existing investors, Endiya Partners and Chiratae Ventures. Prior to this, the company had raised Rs 9 crore in a funding round back in 2021 from its existing investors. The proceeds from the latest round will be used to enhance product development and expand its technology team, Expertia stated in a press release. Co-founded in 2021 by Kanishk Shukla and Akshay Gugnani, Expertia AI provides an agentic platform that automates talent discovery, sourcing, screening, assessment, and interviews across more than 35 job platforms, leveraging a distribution network of over 220 million professionals. According to market research, the global HR technology market is expected to grow from $40.5 billion in 2024 to $81.8 billion by 2032. As per the Bengaluru-based company, it leverages proprietary deep learning algorithms and natural language processing (NLP) to surface the most relevant talent in real time. Its patent-pending AI technology enables recruiters to go beyond traditional resumes, adopting a skill-first approach for precise candidate-job matching. Expertia integrates applicant tracking, organic sourcing, assessments, candidate engagement, bot-assisted interviews, and hiring analytics. The platform claims that its agentic AI enables recruiters to close vacancies 80% faster than traditional solutions. It aims to establish Expertia as the recruitment solution of choice for talent acquisition and HR leaders. Since 2021, Expertia states that it has processed over 25 million applications, facilitated hiring for more than 230,000 jobs, and built a user base of over 18,000 companies. The company aspires to close the current FY25 with 3x revenue growth from FY24. It targets enterprises with 500 or more employees and has already onboarded major clients such as Reliance Retail and Jio.

Exclusive: No appraisal for Unacademy employees in 2024

EntrackrEntrackr · 11m ago
Exclusive: No appraisal for Unacademy employees in 2024
Medial

Employees of edtech unicorn Unacademy will receive no appraisal in 2024, co-founder and chief executive officer Gaurav Munjal said at the firm’s virtual town hall. Even in 2023, it had not given cash appraisal and instead provided performance-linked stock options to employees. “I think 2023 was an average year for us. But 2024, if not great, was above average. But we did not hit our growth goals. The good part is that the burn is extremely low now, and we have a huge runway. And I kept saying that we don’t have a survival risk,” said Munjal in the town hall. Entrackr has reviewed the video of the virtual town hall. As per Munjal, the company won’t be able to do any appraisals this year as it didn’t hit the projected growth numbers. “I know I said that we will do appraisals two, three weeks ago, but when we started the process, we realized that we made a mistake,” he said in the town hall. Munjal urged its workforce to look at the bigger picture. “We are the ones who are still standing while our competitors are going down one by one,” he said. Entrackr has reached out to Munjal for comment. The development comes soon after the company laid off 250 employees citing efforts to streamline operations and enhance efficiency. Last month, Entrackr also reported that the SoftBank-backed firm was in early-talks to merge with K12 Techno which runs the chain of Orchids International Schools. Unacademy raised its last equity round of $440 million at a valuation of $3.44 billion in August 2021. Since then, the firm has gone through mass layoffs, shutting down acquired verticals and exits of key employees including co-founder and CTO Hemesh Singh. Though, it has also launched several offline centers. The firm recently forayed into the language learning segment with a new app. In the beginning of FY24, the company claimed that it was close to achieving profitability at the group level. While the firm is yet to file the audited annual report for the last fiscal year (FY24), it recorded a 26% jump in its operating revenue to Rs 907 crore in FY23 while controlling losses by nearly 40% to Rs 1,004 core. Edtech companies have been going through hard times whether it is once-most valuable edtech company Byju’s or several growth stage startups. As per data compiled by TheKredible, edtech companies managed to raise only $138 million across 21 deals during the first half of 2024. In 2023, edtech startups raised $456 million while 2022 and 2021 saw $2.3 billion and $5.8 billion deployment in the space, respectively.

X to withhold certain accounts, posts in India following govt orders

EntrackrEntrackr · 1y ago
X to withhold certain accounts, posts in India following govt orders
Medial

X, formerly known as Twitter, disclosed on Thursday that it will withhold certain accounts and posts in India following executive orders from the Indian government. “The Indian government has issued executive orders requiring X to act on specific accounts and posts, subject to potential penalties including significant fines and imprisonment,” Global Government Affairs, an affiliate of X, said in a post on the social networking site. The company added that it will block these accounts and posts in India, but it disagrees with the actions and maintains that “freedom of expression should extend to these posts.” Moreover, affected users have been informed about the actions taken by the company. “Due to legal restrictions, we are unable to publish the executive orders, but we believe that making them public is essential for transparency. This lack of disclosure can lead to a lack of accountability and arbitrary decision-making,” it said. It further said that a writ appeal challenging the Indian government’s blocking order is pending. It may be recalled that the Karnataka High Court had dismissed X’s plea challenging the Indian government’s orders to block accounts and posts. It is likely the first time X and the Indian government are at loggerheads since Elon Musk took over the micro-blogging platform. Last year, Musk had hinted at a more cooperative arrangement with local governments, especially in India. “The rules in India for what can appear on social media are quite strict and we can’t go beyond the laws of the country… If we have a choice of either our people go to prison or we comply with the laws, we will comply with the laws…,” Musk told BBC during an interview when asked about the country banning a documentary on the 2002 Gujarat riots. Before Musk came in, Twitter and the Indian government went head-to-head multiple times over the blocking of content. In some cases, Twitter did not comply with the government directives to blocking accounts and posts. The public spat reached its peak during the farmer protests a few years ago. Police raided the offices of Twitter India in Delhi and Gurgaon after the social networking platform labelled “manipulated media” to one of tweets by a BJP leader. Jack Dorsey claimed that India had threatened to shut down the platform if the company did not comply with the government requests. “It manifested in ways such as: ‘We will shut Twitter down in India’, which is a very large market for us; ‘We will raid the homes of your employees’, which they did; and this is India, a democratic country,” Dorsey said in an interview. That said, X’s latest disclosure on government requests to block certain posts and accounts comes at a time when farmer protests have resumed in certain parts of the country. The government has not responded to X’s revelations yet.

CRED nears Rs 2,500 Cr revenue in FY24; cuts operating losses by 41%

EntrackrEntrackr · 9m ago
CRED nears Rs 2,500 Cr revenue in FY24; cuts operating losses by 41%
Medial

Reward-based payments platform CRED continues its growing financial journey on the results side for the fiscal year ending March 2024. The fintech unicorn reported 66% growth in its scale during the last fiscal year, while also managing to reduce operating losses by 41%, bringing them close to Rs 600 crore. According to the company’s press release, CRED’s total revenue spiked by 66% year-on-year to Rs 2,473 crore in FY24. Notably, the Kunal Shah-led firm’s scale surged 5.8X over the past two fiscal years, with revenue rising from Rs 422 crore in FY22. Members used CRED for a wide range of payments beyond credit card bills, with strong adoption of P2P UPI payments, as per the release. The expanded adoption of CRED Pay across online merchants, boosted transaction volumes by 254% during the year. As a result, the total payment value (TPV) surged by 55% to Rs 6.87 lakh crore, while monthly transacting users (MTU) increased by 34%. In FY24, CRED’s customer acquisition costs dropped by 40%, while its marketing expenses declined by 36% during the same period. The launch of the CRED garage also gained traction for the company with over 4.2 million vehicles parked on in FY24 for challan and pollution certificate checks, FASTag recharges, and insurance renewals. CRED saw a 58% increase in monetized members, with contribution margins growing over 20X. The company claims to have been consistently contribution margin-positive for nine consecutive quarters. In the last fiscal year, its operating losses shrank by 41%, dropping to Rs 609 crore in FY24 from Rs 1,024 crore in FY23. Caveat: CRED’s net losses might exceed its operating losses, a detail that will become clearer when it files its numbers with the RoC. For instance, it reported a net loss of Rs 1,347 crore in FY23, while its press release referred to Rs 1,024 crore as the operating loss in the same period. “Meaningful growth comes from a sharp focus on high-quality users and creating exceptional experiences for them. This commitment to putting members first and rewarding trustworthy behaviour has driven growth, engagement, and trust across our ecosystem—benefiting members, merchants, and financial institutions alike.”, Kunal Shah, founder, CRED added in the press release. CRED has raised a total of $1 billion (Rs 7,775.20 crore) in funding across nine rounds. According to startup data intelligence platform TheKredible, PeakXV is the largest external stakeholder with 10.4% followed by Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global, and others. Founder and CEO Shah commands a direct 22.8% stake, along with his QED Innovation Labs. While a 66% topline growth is nothing to sniff at, one suspects CRED expected to, or is expected to, do better. The RBI move to regulate P2P lending in the last two months will only make this very significant revenue stream tougher to grow for the fintech, even as the lag between revenues and product and feature launches remains an issue of concern. It would be safe to say that CRED’s Shopping or travel segments are not significant contributors yet, although with a sizable captive user base now, the drop in promotion costs can be expected to continue. Customer acquisition costs are also taking a bit of a pause as the firm figures out the next cohort of users without compromising on its original premise of going for the cream of the crop, in terms of credit scores. Like many others, the limited or lack of revenue making opportunities on UPI payments remains an achilles heel, despite a very strong performance there. CRED remains one of the few firms which enjoy the credibility to be able to launch services that integrate multiple databases and information sources well, like CRED Garage. However, after loans, the firm badly needs a secondary revenue stream that is as promising to keep its users interested. Who knows, depending on its experience with auto insurance, perhaps a health insurance policy with CRED level features is around the corner? And we aren’t talking CRED coins here.

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