{"id":5042,"date":"2024-03-20T14:11:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-20T14:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/20\/pm-modi-at-startup-mahakumbh-pocket-fm-ultrahuman-raise-funds\/"},"modified":"2024-03-20T14:11:00","modified_gmt":"2024-03-20T14:11:00","slug":"pm-modi-at-startup-mahakumbh-pocket-fm-ultrahuman-raise-funds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/20\/pm-modi-at-startup-mahakumbh-pocket-fm-ultrahuman-raise-funds\/","title":{"rendered":"PM Modi at Startup Mahakumbh; Pocket FM, Ultrahuman raise funds"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"PM<\/div>


\n<\/p>\n

India has emerged as the world\u2019s third largest startup ecosystem with over 1.25 lakh startups and 110 unicorns, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at the Startup Mahakumbh. This and more in today\u2019s ETtech Top 5.<\/p>\n

Also in this letter:
<\/span>\u25a0 Zomato nixes green uniform for pure-veg fleet
\u25a0 Who is Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft\u2019s AI chief
\u25a0 Nvidia\u2019s Jensen Huang on AI revolution<\/p>\n

\n

Startup Mahakumbh: PM urges startup founders to mentor young entrepreneurs<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Lauding the entrepreneurial spirit of Indian youth, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday asked successful founders <\/a>to give back to society by supporting young entrepreneurs and academic institutions.<\/p>\n

Several founders of new-age companies including Zomato\u2019s Deepinder Goyal, Lenskart\u2019s Peyush Bansal, Boat\u2019s Aman Gupta, and Policybazaar\u2019s Alok Bansal, were among the audience when Modi was speaking.<\/p>\n

Driving the news: <\/span>\u201cToday, successful startups have a huge responsibility. You have to remember that someone placed trust on your idea, which is why you reached here. That\u2019s why you should also support new ideas,\u201d Modi said. He also asked industry associations to conduct hackathons with young startups to solve problems faced by the industry.<\/p>\n

Employment creators:<\/span> India’s youth has chosen the path of being job creators<\/a> rather than job seekers, Modi said, highlighting the changing mindset of people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ecosystem has grown with over 1.25 lakh registered startups in the country with which over 12 lakh youngsters are linked. The startups are providing employment on a large scale and the young founders have turned out to be job creators instead of mere job seekers as was the case earlier in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than 45% of Indian startups are led by women, he said.<\/p>\n

\u2018India to lead the world in AI\u2019:<\/span> On artificial intelligence (AI), the prime minister said now is India’s time. \u201cWe are in a new era of AI technology, <\/a>and the world acknowledges that India will have an upper hand in AI. It is now our priority to ensure that we do not let go of this opportunity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Modi added that the government is taking a forward planning approach to research and emerging technology.<\/p>\n

\n

Ultrahuman raises $35 million in a mix of equity and debt<\/p>\n

\"Mohit<\/div>\n

Mohit Kumar, cofounder and CEO, Ultrahuman
<\/em>
Ultrahuman, which sells wearable devices and services that help users track metabolic health, has raised a $35 million financing round in a mix of equity and debt.<\/a> <\/p>\n

Meet the investors: <\/span>The round was co-led by existing backers Blume Ventures, Steadview Capital and Nexus Venture Partners, Ultrahuman\u2019s founder and chief executive, Mohit Kumar, told us in an interaction. <\/p>\n

Other existing investors like Alpha Wave Global and Zomato founder and chief executive Deepinder Goyal also participated in the round.<\/p>\n

Deal details:<\/span> About $25 million of the funding came in equity, while the rest was raised in debt. This brings Ultrahuman\u2019s total fundraise so far to $65 million. <\/p>\n

The company is now looking to expand production of its flagship \u2018Ultrahuman ring\u2019 from about 15,000 units to about 100,000 units by the end of FY26. This expansion will translate into a revenue run rate of $20 million per month by end-FY26, from $3 million now. The firm is eyeing an annual revenue run rate of $100 million by the end of calendar year 2024. <\/p>\n

Pocket FM raises $103 million in funding<\/span> led by Lightspeed, Stepstone Group<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Pocket<\/div>\n

Pocket FM cofounder and CEO Rohan Nayak
<\/em>
Pocket FM, a leading audio entertainment platform, has raised $103 million in Series D funding<\/a> led by Lightspeed with participation from Stepstone Group. The latest round brings Pocket FM\u2019s total funding to date to $196.5 million.<\/p>\n

The new funding will strengthen Pocket FM’s push into the US market and also support global expansion as the company plans to expand into Europe and Latin America markets markets in2024.<\/p>\n

The company said it has exceeded $150 million in annualised revenue run rate (ARR) worldwide, with revenue growing at 57% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ).<\/p>\n

Also read | <\/span>Pocket FM to invest $40 million in online reading platform<\/a><\/p>\n

Easemytrip founder\u2019s Optimo Loan secures $10 million:<\/span> Small business-focused lending startup Optimo Loan has secured $10 million in its first equity fundraise <\/a>from Blume and Omnivore, along with additional infusion from founder Prashant Pitti. <\/p>\n

\u201cOptimo lending operations commenced in November 2023, and we are scaling swiftly, yet prudently. We aim to establish an asset-light company by primarily leveraging co-lending agreements with banks and larger NBFCs,\u201d said Pitti who will be running this venture parallel to Easemytrip.<\/p>\n

Liquidnitro Games raises $5.25 million:<\/span> Liquidnitro Games has raised $5.25 million in a seed round led by Nexus Venture Partners<\/a>, with participation from angel investors who are industry veterans. \u201cThe funds will be used to build a world class studio, make significant AI & technology investments to boost production pipelines and offer live services capabilities at scale,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

Sugmya Finance bags $3 million from existing investors: <\/span>Sugmya Finance, a Delhi-based non-banking financial company (NBFC) has raised $3 million in a funding round led by its existing investors<\/a>, the company said in a statement. It has raised over $10 million since its inception.<\/p>\n

\n

Zomato rolls back green uniform for pure-veg fleet amid social media backlash<\/p>\n

\"Zomato<\/div>\n

After a major backlash on social media, food-delivery major Zomato modified the \u2018Pure Veg Mode\u2019 it launched on Tuesday for its 100% vegetarian customers and decided to remove the on-ground segregation<\/a> of the \u2018pure veg\u2019 fleet which was to wear green uniforms.<\/p>\n

Trending on X:<\/span> On Tuesday, the company came under fire online for launching this new mode<\/a> which would curate pure vegetarian restaurants and exclude any eateries offering non-vegetarian food items. Chief executive Deepinder Goyal said in a post on X that the \u2018pure veg\u2019 fleet will use green delivery boxes instead of the standard red ones.<\/p>\n

Strengthening bias: <\/span>Users on X said this move would further \u201cstrengthen caste segregation\u201d. People also raised concerns that Zomato\u2019s regular fleet may be barred by some societies and resident welfare associations for carrying non-vegetarian food.<\/p>\n

Explanations aplenty: <\/span>Hours after launching the feature, Goyal had said on X on Tuesday<\/a> that the move did not aim to cause any discrimination on the basis of food, adding the food-delivery platform will \u201croll it back in a heartbeat\u201d in case there are negative social repercussions.<\/p>\n

Verbatim: <\/span>In a lengthy post on X<\/a>, Goyal sought to allay concerns that Zomato’s regular fleet may be barred by some societies and RWAs. \u201cWe now realise that even some of our customers could get into trouble with their landlords, and that would not be a nice thing if that happened because of us,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\n

Microsoft hires Google DeepMind cofounder Mustafa Suleyman to run its consumer AI<\/p>\n

\"Mustafa<\/div>\n

Microsoft made another big move in the artificial intelligence (AI) battle for supremacy on Tuesday as it roped in Mustafa Suleyman<\/a>, cofounder of Google’s DeepMind and Inflection AI, to lead its consumer AI business. <\/p>\n

Responsibilities:<\/span> Suleyman will directly report to chief executive Satya Nadella, and will be responsible for expanding a consumer AI business, including Microsoft’s Copilot chatbot, Bing search engine and Edge internet browser.<\/p>\n

Another Inflection AI cofounder, Kar\u00e9n Simonyan, a leading researcher who also came from DeepMind, will also join Microsoft, as will much of their team.<\/p>\n

Microsoft\u2019s AI efforts: <\/span>Nadella, in a blog post welcoming Suleyman, said that as part of this transition, Mikhail Parakhin and his entire team, including Copilot, Bing, and Edge; and Misha Bilenko and the GenAI team will move to report to Mustafa.<\/p>\n

Microsoft, leading the AI frenzy, is betting on Copilot, built using technology from ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, to bring in revenue. It can write emails, summarise documents and make presentations. <\/p>\n

Who is Suleyman? <\/span>One of the most important voices in the AI industry, Suleyman cofounded DeepMind<\/a>, an AI lab, in 2010 with others like Shane Legg and Demis Hassabis, now the CEO. This was later acquired by Google in 2014, which it merged with Google Brain to form an entity called Google DeepMind.<\/p>\n

Suleyman left Google in 2022 to start Inflection AI, a startup looking to build a personal AI assistant. The company raised $1.3 billion in June last year, from Microsoft and Nvidia in a mix of cash and cloud credit at a valuation of $4 billion last June.<\/p>\n

Also read |<\/span> Apple is in talks to let Google\u2019s Gemini power iPhone generative AI features<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

India\u2019s IT will be the \u2018front office\u2019 of global AI revolution: Nvidia’s Jensen Huang<\/p>\n

\"Nvidia<\/div>\n

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang
<\/em>
India\u2019s technology professionals are emerging to be the \u2018front-office\u2019 of the world’s artificial intelligence (AI) revolution <\/a>by reskilling themselves with AI-native skills, Jensen Huang, chief executive, Nvidia, said.<\/p>\n

India opportunity:<\/span> In response to ET\u2019s question at a press briefing in San Jose, California, Huang said that his conversations with Prime Minister Narendra Modi highlighted India\u2019s \u201cneed to become a part of AI value-addition rather than just exporting India\u2019s data to train super-sized large language models\u201d.<\/p>\n

Also read |<\/span> ETtech Explainer: All you wanted to know about Nvidia\u2019s Blackwell AI chip<\/a><\/p>\n

Asked if Nvidia is part of the Indian government\u2019s commitment to import 10,000 GPUs, Huang, said, \u201cWe\u2019re very interested in it, if somebody would like to buy some GPUs, I\u2019m open for business. Tell everybody, spread the word, Nvidia\u2019s open for business.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Union Cabinet earlier this month approved a Rs 10,372 crore India Artificial Intelligence Mission <\/a>for the next five years, aimed at creating computing infrastructure in public-private partnerships.<\/p>\n

Nvidia\u2019s Blackwell Chip:<\/span> Nvidia on Monday announced its most powerful Blackwell chip capable of processing trillion-parameter AI models up to 30 times faster and at one-fourth use of power. Huang revealed that Blackwell GPUs are built to train the world\u2019s largest AI models with trillion parameters in size. Nvidia\u2019s manufacturing partner, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., will use its 4NP technique to produce the product, the company said.<\/p>\n

Read this explainer to understand the processing capabilities of the new AI chipset and what it means for training LLMs<\/a><\/p>\n

Today’s ETtech Top 5 newsletter was curated by Megha Mishra in Mumbai.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

India has emerged as the world\u2019s third largest startup ecosystem with over 1.25 lakh startups and 110 unicorns, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at the Startup Mahakumbh. This and more in today\u2019s ETtech Top 5. Also in this letter:\u25a0 Zomato nixes green uniform for pure-veg fleet\u25a0 Who is Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft\u2019s AI chief\u25a0 Nvidia\u2019s Jensen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/img.etimg.com\/photo\/msid-108653751\/PM%20Modi%20Startup%20Mahakumbh.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[607],"tags":[3736,1098,6167,4116,1099,1686,7594,2910,6168,3129,8480,4605,2293,4113,8479,4206],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5042"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5042"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5044,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5042\/revisions\/5044"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}