PregBuddy, Reliance Jio, AffordPlan raise funds; Ola to go the Electric Vehicle way

Daily Issue | 17th April PregBuddy announces undisclosed seed funding from Indian Angel Network Bengaluru-based healthcare startup PregBuddy raised an undisclosed amount in a seed funding round from IAN. The funding round also saw the participation of Rajan Anandan, an IAN Member and MD at Google India; Madhusudhan Kannan, Chief Business Officer of Uber India and Emerging Markets; Jayant Kadambi, Co-Founder and Chairman of YuMe and Puneet Gupt, COO (News Business) of Times Internet Limited. [Read more]( Reliance Jio raises $500M from a consortium of Japanese banks to fund expansion Reliance Jio has raised close to $500 million (Rs 3,250 crore) in funding from a consortium of Japanese banks. The loan will be utilised to fund Jio’s ongoing capital expenditure, Reliance Industries said. The announcement comes shortly after the Reliance Jio board approved raising around Rs 20,000 crore in debt in tranches. Reliance Industries has already invested close to Rs 2 lakh crore in its telecom unit since the rollout of Jio's services in September 2016. [Read more]( Ola goes the Electric Vehicle way, intends to put 10,000 EVs on road in 12 months A year after Ola, in partnership with Mahindra & Mahindra, launched a programme to build an electric mass mobility ecosystem in Nagpur, the firm is aiming to expand this across the country. The Bengaluru-based ride-hailing platform announced Mission: Electric, committing to place over 10,000 e-rickshaws and electric auto-rickshaws on the road in the next 12 months. [Read more]( Logistics startup Pando raises $2M seed funding led by Nexus Venture Partners Pando, the company that digitises logistics for Fortune 500 companies, has raised $2 million seed funding led by Nexus Venture Partners. The round also saw participation from Kashyap Deorah - Founder Hypertrack, Girish Mathrubootham - Founder and CEO Freshdesk, Nishant Rao - Sirion Labs and P Balaji -Vodafone. [Read more]( Healthcare-focused fintech startup AffordPlan raises $10 M in Series B funding Delhi-based AffordPlan raised $10 million Series B funding led by Lok Capital along with Omidyar Network, Prime Venture Partners and Kalaari Capital. With the new funds, the platform plans to expand its presence across India and diversify its portfolio of financial services products. [Read more]( Building on its tech, Myntra acquires Bengaluru startup Witworks Online fashion commerce market leader Myntra announced the acquisition of Witworks, a tech startup that manufactures smart wearable devices and related software. According to a press release, Myntra has inducted the team into its Innovation Labs as part of the acquisition. This is aimed at strengthening Myntra’s technology team and augmenting its product development capabilities. [Read more]( Why blockchain could be the answer to challenges in India’s traditional financial system According to Kamal Anandani, Co-founder – Union, one technology that has the ability to address the core challenges and herald a new paradigm in financial transactions, especially in the Indian scenario, is blockchain. In blockchain, because of the use of cryptography, entire business models can be automated through the use of smart contacts. This eliminates a lot of overheads that occur in a traditional banking transaction. More importantly, because the data can is secured and verifiable, and with every participant in the transaction possessing a copy of past transactions, the risk of fraud is minimised greatly [Read more]( Here’s how Alibaba-backed BigBasket will reach $1 billion in GMV in 2020 With a deep-pocketed strategic investor in its basket, BigBasket has stepped up investments and is focusing solely on scaling up. Goal one is to reach Rs 300 crore GMV a month in September; goal two is to reach Rs 500 crore GMV a month in March 2019, and goal three to become a $1 billion-GMV company in March 2020. BigBasket has identified a few key initiatives to get there — from vending machines and subscription service to becoming the most preferred partner to farmers. The Alibaba funding, which will help drive this growth, could not have come at a better time. [Read more]( You are receiving these emails as you have subscribed to our newsletter. [Click here]( to unsubscribe.