OYO raises $100m; CRED reviewed; Razorpay enters lending

Daily Capsule | 8th Decemeber Hello Art has a strange way of connecting people. You can instantly become friends with people who like the same books, or music, movies, shows and even comics. It is hopeful, whimsical, deep, emotional, and even funny. Take comics, for instance. Today is the birth anniversary of E.C. Segar - the creator of one of the most famous comic characters in the world, Popeye. Who doesn't remember the brave sailor who gets his energy from spinach and fights off evil? Art is also important when it comes to recording the history and culture of a place, a community and a country. In one of the most heavily bombed and war-stricken countries, Laos, a new generation of artists are coming up. After decades of isolation and desolation, the country is finally opening up and these fresh and young artists are a hopeful sight to see. What is your favourite form of art? Cheers, Team YourStory --------------------------------------------------------------- Stories you shouldn't miss [OYO has raised $100 million from Indonesian ride-hailing giant Grab. The new unicorn had also confirmed it would receive an additional commitment of $200 million](. This $103.4 million from Grab is a part of that commitment. OYO will use these funds from this round of financing, approximately $600 million, into strengthening its position in China, which is still in the early stages of growth, while the rest will go into maintaining its leadership position in India and expansion into new markets. Payment solutions company [Razorpay today announced that it was entering the SME lending space with Razorpay Capital]( a lending platform designed to support SMEs with instant and easy access to lenders. A beta version of the platform was launched in September this year, and has already disbursed $30 million in loans and hopes to finish with an exit run rate of $100 million by March, according to Co-founder and CEO Harshil Mathur. CRED, the newest venture by Kunal Shah, is the place to be for credit-worthy individuals. The platform allows credit card users to pay your credit card bills, get ‘cred coins’ for doing so, and redeem these coins for rewards from some of a wide collection of brands. The CRED app, which is currently in the beta stage, is available only to individuals with a credit score of over 750. [For this week’s App Friday, we explored this new platform by Kunal Shah and managed to score quite a few rewards.]( [Online classifieds marketplace Quikr has raised a debt funding of Rs 55 crore (approximately $7.76 million) led by InnoVen Capital](. The platform helps users buy, rent, sell anything across India. The company has raised close to $400 million in equity funding and has made over 13 acquisitions. The funds will be used to scale transaction businesses across Quikr verticals. Founded by Pranay and Jiby Thomas in 2008, Quikr competes with Argentina-based OLX. Former Facebook executive [Kirthiga Reddy just became the first female venture partner at SoftBank and will work as part of SoftBank Investment Advisors]( the team that manages the massive Vision Fund. She will now be based out of Silicon Valley and will be “working closely with Deep Nishar on frontier technologies. Prior to this, Reddy was with Facebook for eight years and is also the Chairperson of Stanford Business School Management Board. Noida-based [IVH Senior Care provides home healthcare service and social assistance to the elderly with a care manager attached to each person](. To help the elderly both physically and emotionally, Manreet Kahlon and Swadeep Srivastav started IVH Senior Care in 2016. From basic medical needs to home healthcare service and providing social assistance with a care manager attached to each patient, it is catering to a growing number of senior citizens living alone in India. --------------------------------------------------------------- [Read all about the four startups part of the 3rd edition of Qualcomm Design in India Challenge and the interesting work they do.]( Technologies and its innovative cashless payment technology designed especially for the emerging markets. PiOctave Solutions and its video-enabled smart devices and robust applications that enable any connected device to send and receive video and data information. Sensworx Systems and its NetWater platform that is set to disrupt existing water management systems. Testright Nanosystems and its flagship pocket-sized spectrophotometer which reveals the composition of food products with a simple point and shoot action. The Amazon AI Conclave 2018 is all set to take place on December 13-14, 2018 at ITC Gardenia, Bengaluru. This year, the event will witness insightful sessions and panels to discuss the cutting-edge work done in AI by companies. Don't miss out on an interesting panel on 13th December by Dale Vaz, Head Of Engineering & Data Science, Swiggy; Subramanian M S, Head of Analytics, [bigbasket.com]( Vikram Chandra, Founder, editorji and Anubhab Goel, Chief Digital Officer, HDFC Life. [Know more](. By leveraging the best-in-class AI/ML algorithms in combination with real-time traffic and delivery-related data, bigbasket has been able to maintain superlative efficiency even with their fleet size and routes expanding nearly three times in three years. In addition to route optimisation, bigbasket leverages AI for a variety of use-cases, all of which tie back to enhanced customer experience – from product recommendations, workforce management to developing pricing strategy. [Read all about how AI solutions have bigbasket helped scale and deliver value rapidly.]( -- [Click Here]( to unsubscribe from this newsletter.