| August 13, 2022 |  | | Hello Reader,
This week , one funding deal lifted the spirits of the startup ecosystem. After a paltry $111 million raised last week, Indian startups grabbed nearly $300 million, boosted by upGrad closing a round worth $210 million.
Meanwhile, Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) reported a multi-fold increase in consolidated net profit for the quarter ended June 30. The insurance company recorded Rs 602.78 crore profit in April-June, compared with Rs 24.36 crore during the same period last year.
In other news, an Indian man won a 22-year-old legal battle in a consumer court case against the Railways. The plaintiff, Tungnath Chaturvedi, had been charged Rs 20 extra for two train tickets in 1999 in Mathura. After the clerk did not offer a refund despite his complaint, he decided to file a case against the railway authorities, as well as the booking clerk.
Now, “more than 100 hearings later”, the consumer court ruled in Chaturvedi’s favour last week. It ordered the Railways to not only refund the Rs 20, at an interest of 12% per year from 1999 to 2022, but also pay him a fine of Rs 15,000 rupees.
Oh, and here’s a video of an intoxicated bear high on “mad honey” to start your extended weekend.
Time to get beared up!
In today’s newsletter, we will talk about Here’s your trivia for today: Who was the first person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize? | | | | Blockchain | | Kabaddi on blockchain |  | | What if instead of cheering a game of kabaddi from the sidelines, you could influence your favourite team’s gameplay?
Enter Sportzchain, a blockchain startup that aims to “empower” fans of kabaddi so that they engage actively with the team of their choice and participate in team decisions using tokens (crypto assets).
Hu tu tu: -
The fan engagement platform is built on Polygon, an infrastructure provider. -
The polls take place on the Ethereum and Polygon blockchain platforms. The votes are stored on a blockchain, thus eliminating voting bias and the possibility of rigging. -
The Sportzchain platform currently has 1,200 sign-ups from users for its alpha application and is hoping for 10K sign-ups in September. | | Read More | | | | | | | | | | | $17.5M | | SquadStack
Series B | | | | | | | Startups | | Using ML to track emotions |  | | Ever been asked a question in a meeting that you couldn’t answer because you weren’t paying attention? Well, one startup has made it its mission to help companies track users’ engagement levels.
Lightbulb.ai uses machine learning (ML) models to detect the emotions of participants in video conferences or when they are consuming content. These are shared in real-time with admins (or the meeting host) to evaluate the engagement and interest of participants.
Pay attention: -
The Mumbai-headquartered startup’s technology looks at human faces and maps emotions—such as joy, anger, sadness—and engagement levels. -
Its base unit of analysis is a face frame, which it captures by taking screenshots and analysing faces in those screenshots. -
The startup says its accuracy ranges from 70% to 85% across different emotions depending on factors such as resolution and clarity of the image, and lighting conditions. | | Read More | | | | | | Private equity | | True North’s next startup bets |  | | Indian private equity funds, which typically don't back startups, are on an active hunt to find the next big bet, investing in businesses that have proved their market value.
Mumbai-based True North is one of these PE firms.
Founded in 1999, True North mostly invests in mid-sized, India-focussed businesses across four sectors: healthcare, financial services, consumer, and technology. It has invested around $3 billion across six funds so far.
Writing cheques: -
True North’s first venture in the startup space, in terms of investment, was PolicyBazaar in 2017, where it invested around $50 million in total funding. -
It has so far made 61 investments across 56 companies, including Keya Foods, Fincare, ACT Fibrenet, Biocon Biologics, and Manipal Hospitals. -
The firm is now putting together a seventh investment fund, 25% of which it has allocated to investing in tech-driven, late-stage and pre-IPO startups. | | Read More | | | | | | News & Updates | | | -
A new trend: Not taking your job too seriously has a new name: quiet quitting. The phrase is generating millions of views on TikTok as some young professionals reject the idea of going above and beyond in their careers, labelling their lesser enthusiasm a form of “quitting.” -
Guilty and fined: Google has agreed to pay $60m in penalties flowing from a long-running court fight with the Australian competition watchdog over the misleading of users on the collection of personal location data. -
Charged up: US automakers and dealers are scrambling to figure out if they can still offer $7,500 tax credits to would-be buyers of electric vehicles (EVs), as Congress prepares for final votes on a bill that includes a top-to-bottom overhaul of Washington's clean vehicle policies. | | | | Upcoming YourStory Event | | |  | | Join us for a virtual event on Aug 26, 2022 for the launch of YourStory’s Health360 Summit, a series of events that aims to delve deep into the roots of India’s healthcare ecosystem- investigating its vulnerabilities to safeguard its future. | | Register Now | | | | | Here's what else we have for you | | | | Meet Bytelearn: The AI math teaching assistant for teachers and students | | In association with 9UNICORNS | | Centred around micro-learning and blended-learning, ByteLearn, the game changing technology-driven ed-tech platform handholds the student while solving a math problem, identifies the learning gaps, and then provides personalised lessons to accelerate. | | Read More | | | | WhatsApp- A game changer for ride-hailing | | In association with CM.com | | CM.com’s WhatsApp chatbot can interact with end users in the language of their choice, said Deepika Christina, Customer Experience Lead, CM.com, India Hub. Watch Deepika and Maria Issac, Founder, OOR Cabs share their unique insights about working with WhatsApp during the discussion ‘WhatsApp - a game changer for ride hailing’. | | Watch Now | | | | How Tan90 is increasing farmer ROI with affordable cold storage solutions | | In association with SOCIAL alphα | | Tan90 has simplified the transportation of temperature-controlled products with its cold storage solutions, thereby increasing farmer income. Through the Krishi Mangal programme, the organisation reached out to approximately 5,000 farmers, and increased their income by more than 16 percent. | | Read More | | | | Qualcomm Semiconductor Mentorship Program (QSMP) | | In association with Qualcomm | | The best program for semi-conductor startups in India, the Qualcomm Semiconductor Mentorship Program (QSMP), aims at empowering semi-conductor startups from design to scaling, with the opportunity of collaborating with the ecosystem. Apply for it today! Also, you can register for the experts' session for more details. | | Register Now | | | | Did you know? | | | | Who was the first person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize? | | Answer: In 1901, the first Nobel Prize was awarded to Frédéric Passy (France) and Henry Dunant (Switzerland). | | | | We would love to hear from you! To let us know what you liked and disliked about our newsletter, please mail editorial@yourstory.com .
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