🌾🍞 Circular economy with spent grain

Start Your Day with YS Buzz: Your 8 AM Snapshot of Today's Top Startup News! 28 February 2024 [View in Browser]( Hello, India loves OTT platforms. The country currently has over [800 million internet]( users, with 86% of them, or 707 million people, using the service to consume audio-video content on OTT platforms. On the contrary, just 24 million or 3% of users use the Internet for online learning, according to the Internet in India 2023 joint report by data and analytics company KANTAR and the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). Moving on, the fintech sector continues to be in the limelight. The RBI granted a [payment aggregator]( licence to Amazon Pay, the fintech arm of the ecommerce company. The approval enables it to conduct business as a payment aggregator and facilitate ecommerce transactions through its app. Speaking of fintech, shares of [One97 Communications Ltd]( the owner of the Paytm brand, jumped another 5% on Tuesday to hit the highest trading permissible limit for the day. The stock climbed 4.98% to Rs 449.30—its upper circuit limit—on the BSE even after a muted opening to the trade. [ICYMI:]( From a robotic dog and a transparent laptop to a flying car, MWC Barcelona displayed some interesting tech. Lastly, we are just one day away from [TechSparks Mumbai]( In today’s newsletter, we will talk about - Circular economy with spent grain - Zoho to offer POS solutions - Taking the plunge at 49 Here’s your trivia for today: What newspaper does Peter Parker work for in the "Spider-Man" comics? --------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------- Sustainability Circular economy with spent grain Yorke first came across the concept of spent grain in 2016 while interning with food historian William Rubel, who was recreating bread from the 13th to 16th century. Spent grain is a by-product of the brewing industry and could be repurposed into flour. She started Saving Grains in 2021 that upcycles beer waste generated by breweries into flour, which, in turn, is used to make crackers, cookies, bread, rotis, and even ladoos. Repurposing: - According to Yorke, many people believe spent grain is a waste product and do not like to consume it. Also, not many breweries understand the potential of this by-product. - Yorke did not want to create another product-based business but intended to engage with people and foster a closed-loop system. - For this, she collaborated with Kutumba Community Centre in Bengaluru, where Saving Grains has set up a micro-unit that makes flour from spent grain. [Read More]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Funding Alert 1) Capillary Technologies: $140M| Series D 2) Shadowfax: $100M| Series E 3) Avail: $27M| Seed --------------------------------------------------------------- Technology Zoho to offer POS solutions SaaS unicorn Zoho Corporation has launched Zakya, a modern point-of-sale (POS) solution to streamline daily operations and centralised monitoring for small and medium retail stores. The solution enables improved inventory management, omnichannel sales, and customer experience, is ideal for businesses with extensive inventories, and can be implemented in under an hour, the company said in a statement. Key takeaways: - Zakya will also offer a POS billing application, which can enable uninterrupted billing, even in offline mode. - During peak hours, sales personnel can use the mobile Zakya POS billing app to simultaneously process transactions, thus reducing checkout queues, the statement said. - Apart from English, the app currently supports 10 Indian languages–Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi, and Gujarati. [Read More]( --------------------------------------------------------------- TechSparks TechSparks Mumbai is just 1 day away! The countdown has begun to the second edition of TechSparks Mumbai—India’s most influential startup-tech event. Join us at Grand Hyatt Mumbai to witness the who's who of the Indian startup ecosystem as they pave the way forward in the Great Indian Techade. [Get your Passes Today!]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Women entrepreneur Taking the plunge at 49 Uma Mani made her first underwater dive at the age of 49. Since then, she has been relentlessly championing the need for ocean conservation, throwing light on the plight of dying coral reefs. Coral Woman is an award-winning documentary on her life and experiences under and above water. Into the depths: - Her transition to Coral Woman is a lesson in optimism, rooted in her never-say-die-attitude that led her to take up swimming and scuba-diving in her late 40s. - Mani reminds us that the 2004 tsunami did not affect the Maldives as much as it impacted India because the coral reefs acted as a buffer and reduced the water pressure. - Now based in Dindigul, Tamil Nadu, Mani continues to raise awareness, talking to students in schools and colleges, and even corporate organisations, about ocean conservation and the effects of climate change. [Read More]( --------------------------------------------------------------- From the CapTable Could Rapido’s subscriptions pivot be a silver bullet to all its problems? When ride-hailing company Rapido announced its entry into the four-wheeler cab business in December, it surprised many. The Bengaluru-based company had spent the last few years scrapping for market share with giants Ola and Uber in India’s auto-hailing space. Now, even as it was dealing with the rapid rise of Namma Yatri in the auto-hailing battle, it would be taking on the deep-pocketed duo of Ola and Uber in a space they had controlled for the past decade. Rapido, though, believed it could disrupt the country’s cab market by doing away with the commissions that its larger rivals charged driver partners. Instead, it launched its cab business on the back of a software-as-a-service subscription model, which saw drivers pay a fixed fee to join its platform and pocket the entirety of the fares they earned rather than paying a cut to Rapido on each ride. Earlier this month, Rapido went from disrupting the taxi cab incumbents to disrupting itself in the auto-hailing business. It announced that its auto business, its biggest revenue driver, would also shift to the zero-commission subscription model as well. The move is a bold one for a company that hasn’t managed to raise funding in two years and which is striving for profitability. Deviating from the model that has got it this far at such a critical point in its journey is fraught with risk. Indeed, to some industry executives, it even feels like a knee-jerk reaction to the unchecked ascent of Namma Yatri. Rapido, though, appears to be firm in its convictions. Key takeaways: - Despite being a late-stage startup, Rapido has taken the radical decision to overhaul the business model that got it this far - Instead of the typical commission-based ride-hailing model, it has opted to switch to a zero-commission, subscription offering for both its cab and auto business - The zero-commission model, Rapido believes, will help it do three critical things—solve for driver distrust, onboard more drivers, and stay on the right side of the law - Crucially, Rapido can make this shift while keeping the impact on its financials minimal [Continue Reading]( --------------------------------------------------------------- News & Updates - [Crypto rally:]( Bitcoin hit a two-year high on Tuesday, on track for its biggest two-day rally this year, on signs large players were buying the cryptocurrency, while smaller rival ether topped $3,200 for the first time since 2022. - [Layoffs:]( Sony Interactive Entertainment on Tuesday said it will lay off about 900 employees in its PlayStation unit, or 8% of its global workforce, becoming the latest technology company to announce headcount trims. - [No space:]( A shortage of space in European data centres is worsening, industry participants said, as booming demand for AI collides with limited expansion possibilities. Data centre operators such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Oracle, and TikTok owner ByteDance are expanding as quickly as they can but challenges remain. Did you know? What newspaper does Peter Parker work for in the "Spider-Man" comics? Answer: The Daily Bugle. We would love to hear from you! To let us know what you liked and disliked about our newsletter, please mail nslfeedback@yourstory.com. If you don’t already get this newsletter in your inbox, [sign up here](. For past editions of the YourStory Buzz, you can check our [Daily Capsule page here](. [Feedback]( [Unsubscribe]( [Newsletters](