One Thing Today in Tech

India’s finance ministry has decided that loan apps need to get government approval to be listed on online app stores, predominantly those operated by Google and Apple. The ministry’s officials and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman met last week to discuss rising concerns over loan apps running rampant and the illegal practices adopted by some of the outfits providing loans. Central banker Reserve Bank of India will now make a list of legal apps that are permitted on the stores.

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India’s finance ministry has decided that loan apps need to get government approval to be listed on online stores, predominantly those operated by Google and Apple. The ministry’s officials and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman met last week to discuss rising concerns over loan apps running rampant and the illegal practices adopted by some of the outfits providing loans.

Harassment by such outfits is said to have led to several suicides already, according to multiple media reports.

The finance minister expressed concern on increasing instances of illegal loan apps offering loans/micro credits, especially to vulnerable and low-income group people at exorbitantly high-interest rates and processing/hidden charges, and predatory recovery practices involving blackmailing, criminal intimidation etc, the ministry said in a statement on Sep. 9.

Minister Sitharaman also noted the possibility of money laundering, tax evasion, breach/privacy of data, and misuse of unregulated payment aggregators, shell companies, defunct NBFCs and so on for perpetrating such actions, according to the statement.

The ministry has decided that a ‘whitelist’ of legal apps will be created by the country’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, and will collaborate with the ministry of electronics and information technology to ensure that only such apps are allowed on the app stores.

Bessemer Venture Partners has raised $4.6 billion across two funds — $3.85 billion for its twelfth flagship fund, BVP XII, and $780 million for its inaugural BVP Forge fund, the VC firm said in a press release on Sep. 9.

These two new funds allow the firm to back entrepreneurs and management teams across all stages of growth, regardless of maturity or structure, according to the release.

Naffa Innovations, a Bengaluru startup better known for its sound technology and products under the brand name ToneTag, is expanding its VoiceSe solution to help even basic feature phone users make digital payments.

ToneTag is partnering with NSDL Payments Bank and NPCI to offer this service to some 400 million feature phone users in India. Users can simply call the IVR number 6366 200 200 and select their transaction in their preferred language.

People can make fund transfers, and get voice assistance for paying utility bills, balance enquiries, and FASTag activation or recharge using only their voice.

“We are looking at voice technology that goes beyond Siri and Alexa to enable digital payment solutions that aren't necessarily dependent on 100 percent digital literacy or smartphone penetration,” Vivek Singh, who co-founded Naffa Innovations with Kumar Abhishek, in 2013, said in a press release.

ToneTag has been pilot testing this service in Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, and Jharkhand, and VoiceSe has seen traction, adding 100,000 users and twice as many transactions in the first two months of the launch, according to the release.

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Apple yesterday announced the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max smartphones, featuring a pill-shaped cutout that shows useful information and can be used to bring up apps quickly. Apple calls the cutout, Dynamic Island. It can show important alerts, notifications, and activities. It maintains an active state to allow users easier access to controls with a simple tap-and-hold. Apple also released the iPhone 14 and 14 Max, which retain the older notch for the selfie camera.

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Apple yesterday announced the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max smartphones, featuring a pill-shaped cutout that shows useful information and can be used to bring up apps quickly.

Apple calls the cutout, Dynamic Island. It can show important alerts, notifications, and activities.

The new phones also have an always-on display. They run on Apple’s A16 Bionic chip and are equipped with a 48MP Main camera with a quad-pixel sensor, and Photonic Engine, an enhanced image pipeline that improves low-light photos, Apple said in a press release yesterday.

New features also include an emergency SOS via satellite and crash detection. The phones will be available with storage ranging from 128GB to 1TB and in colours of deep purple, silver, gold, and space black. Pre-orders begin tomorrow, with availability beginning September 16.

Samsung Electronics has started operations of its newest chip plant at its massive manufacturing complex in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi, in South Korea, to produce advanced memory chips and processors, Korea JongHang Daily reported yesterday.

One of the initial products from the Pyeongtaek Line 3 or P3 factory will be NAND flash chips. The range will later extend to include advanced dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips and other processors made using a 5-nanometer manufacturing process or lower, according to the chipmaker on Wednesday.

Foundation work for the next factory, P4, also began, according to the daily.

ZippMat, a construction supply chain startup, has raised $10 million in seed funding comprising equity and debt in a round led by Matrix Partners India, according to a press release today. Existing investor Zephyr Peacock joined the equity portion and loans came from HDFC bank and TradeCred.

ZippMat, founded in 2021 by Abhijeet Kudva and Nandeesh Hasbi, is a Bengaluru-based supply chain as a service venture that aims to simplify material procurement for engineering and construction companies by using its curated supplier and logistics network with technology-led services.

Daalchini, a Noida venture, has raised $4 million in funding to expand its smart vending machines business, TechCrunch reported yesterday.

Daalchini offers a range of food and beverage options from some 160 brands through its smart vending machines. Founded in 2017 by Prerna Kalra and Vidya Bhushan, Daalchini – the name means cinnamon in various Indian languages – runs a network of about 850 stores in 23 cities in 11 states in India. It plans to expand to 50 cities and 5,000 smart retail points in the next 12–18 months.

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India and China have cleared separate needle-free Covid vaccines, one a spray in the nose and the other inhaled through the mouth, Associated Press reported yesterday. Regulators in India have authorized Bharat Biotech’s nasal version as an option for people who haven’t yet been vaccinated. Apple’s September iPhone event is later today and its priciest smartphone yet is expected.

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India and China have cleared separate needle-free Covid vaccines, one a spray in the nose and the other inhaled through the mouth, Associated Press reported yesterday.

Regulators in India authorized Bharat Biotech’s nasal version on Tuesday as an option for people who haven’t yet been vaccinated.

“This step will further strengthen our collective fight against the pandemic,” India’s health minister Mansukh Mandaviya said on Twitter.

Bharat Biotech hasn’t yet released the results of its studies or details on when the vaccine will be available on the market, according to AP.

Meanwhile, in China, CanSino Biologics announced on Sunday last that Chinese regulators have approved an inhalable version of the company’s vaccine – to be used as a booster dose. The company pointed to preliminary results of studies suggesting the inhaled version improved immune protection after one puff, but it’s not clear if it also increases effectiveness, according to AP.

Apple’s annual September iPhone event – which the company has tagged with the phrase ‘far out’ – is expected later today. Four new iPhones, three new Apple Watches, and a new AirPods Pro model are expected, according to various media reports.

Apple is likely to raise the price of the high-end iPhone Pro that Apple trackers are expecting to arrive with a major camera upgrade and an ‘always on’ display.

The company’s latest software, iOS 16, is also expected soon. On the services front, Apple is jumping into the buy-now-pay-later market, with its Apple Pay Later product. Apple is also doubling its ad business team, according to the Financial Times.

China aims to accelerate the autonomous cars ecosystem in the country. The port city of Shanghai, one of China’s biggest industrial and commercial centres, estimates that autonomous cars and related technologies can produce 500 billion yuan ($72 billion) in economic value by 2025, South China Morning Post reported yesterday.

A new plan, released by the General Office of Shanghai Municipal People’s Government, on Monday, calls for establishing an ecosystem that is self-reliant concerning R&D and core technologies related to autonomous vehicles, according to SCMP.

Reliance Industries has entered into definitive agreements for acquiring a 79.4 percent stake of SenseHawk, through primary infusion and secondary purchase, for a total consideration of $32 million, the Indian conglomerate told the stock exchanges in Mumbai in a filing yesterday.

SenseHawk, founded in 2018, is an early-stage California-based developer of software-based management tools for the solar energy generation industry.

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Google has started a “user choice billing” pilot of alternative payment systems in its Play store, in some markets, including India, as pressure mounts on the search giant over the fees it takes for in-app sales by developers. India’s Competition Commission has approved PayU’s proposed acquisition of payments gateway BillDesk, paving the way for the Prosus-controlled fintech operator to become one of the country’s biggest payments processors.

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Instagram is being slapped with a fine of €405 million after European Union privacy regulators decided on a long-running complaint related to how the social media platform handles children’s data, TechCrunch reported on September 5, citing Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, the company’s lead data supervisor in the EU.

The penalty is for a breach of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Full details of the decision will be published next week, according to TechCrunch.

India’s antitrust watchdog has approved PayU’s proposed acquisition of payments gateway BillDesk, according to a tweet by the country’s Competition Commission on September 5.

The decision on the deal, the second largest internet M&A transaction in India, comes more than a year after the two companies announced their plan, TechCrunch reported on September 5.

The deal will help PayU, controlled by the Dutch-listed tech investor Prosus, get a clear lead in the payments processing segment in India, according to TechCrunch.

The Competition Commission of India evaluated the scope of the deal extensively, including consultations with competitors and other businesses in the industry that had expressed concerns about a potential monopoly in the country, according to TechCrunch.

CCI asked the two companies to submit a fresh application in April this year, addressing several concerns. In the newer filing, PayU assured the watchdog that the “proposed transaction will not cause any appreciable adverse effect on competition,” according to TechCrunch.

Google has started a “user choice billing” pilot of alternative payment systems in its Play store, in some markets, including India, The Register reported on September 5, citing a support document from Google.

The move comes in response to growing pressure on app store operators – mainly Google and Apple – to give developers independent options. Last year, the government of South Korea became the first to ban the commissions – which are as high as 30 percent – that Apple and Google charge on their app stores.

Google’s pilot will see the search giant offer developers the option to offer users payment systems other than its own. The trial covers digital content and services, such as in-app purchases and subscriptions.

According to Google’s support document, the programme will run in the European Economic Area countries, Australia, India, Indonesia, and Japan.

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For the first time, there are more iPhones in use in the US than Android-based smartphones. Apple has overtaken Android devices to account for more than half of smartphones used in the US. And Amazon is lagging rival Flipkart in India on several important metrics, according to investment firm Sanford C. Bernstein.

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For the first time, there are more iPhones in use in the US than Android-based smartphones. Apple has overtaken Android devices to account for more than half of smartphones used in the US, Financial Times reported on September 2, citing data on the installed user base of iPhones from market researcher Counterpoint.

The increased market share gives Apple an edge over Google as it pushes into sectors including finance and healthcare, according to the Times.

“Over the past four years the flow has consistently been Android to iOS,” Jeff Fieldhack, Counterpoint’s research director, told Financial Times. “This is a big milestone that we could see replicated in other affluent countries across the globe,” Fieldhack added.

Amazon is lagging rival Flipkart in India on several important metrics and struggling to make inroads in smaller Indian cities and towns, according to a report by investment firm Sanford C. Bernstein, TechCrunch reported on September 2.

Amazon’s 2021 gross merchandise value in the country, where it has invested over $6.5 billion, stood between $18 billion and $20 billion, compared with Flipkart’s $23 billion, the analysts said in a report on August 30 that was obtained by TechCrunch.

India’s ecommerce market is expected to double in size to more than $130 billion by 2025.

Amazon has more than 85 percent of its customers from Tier 2/3 cities/towns, shopping India’s largest selection across electronics, grocery, fashion and beauty, everyday essentials, and more, the e-commerce giant told TechCrunch in a statement. A large number of small businesses and local stores rely on it to go online, Amazon said.

Around 50 percent of Amazon’s one million sellers come from Tier 2/3 cities/towns, and more than 100,000 exporters sell to its customers worldwide. And the company is committed to digitising 10 million MSMEs, generating 2 million jobs and enabling $20 billion in cumulative exports by 2025, Amazon said, according to TechCrunch.

After calling off its Artemis I launch attempt on September 3 when engineers could not overcome a hydrogen leak, the US space agency NASA has decided to not try again, for now, it said in a blog post. This was the second time NASA scrubbed the launch.

The leak was detected in an interface between the liquid hydrogen fuel feed line and the Space Launch System rocket, developed by Boeing. Mission managers met and decided they will forego additional launch attempts in early September.

Artemis is Nasa’s attempt to return humans to Moon and then establish a sustainable presence there to prepare for missions to Mars.

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One 97 Communications, one of India’s biggest digital payments companies, which operates under the brand name Paytm, has appointed GS Sundararajan, former group director of Shriram group as an independent director on its board, the company told the stock exchanges on Aug.27. Byju’s, after 17-month delay is set to report FY21 financials on Sep. 6. And some details may have emerged about Apple’s long-rumoured mixed reality headset.

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One 97 Communications, one of India’s biggest digital payments companies, which operates under the brand name Paytm, has appointed GS Sundararajan, former group director of Shriram group as an independent director on its board, the company told the stock exchanges on Aug.27.

The company also announced the retirement of independent director Mark Schwartz, upon completion of his tenure. Previously, Schwartz had served as chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia Pacific.

Paytm is “confident that with continued revenue growth, an increasing mix of higher margin businesses such as loan distribution, and better operating leverage, it is firmly on track to achieve operating EBITDA profitability by the quarter ending September 2023,” the company said in its filing.

Byju’s, India’s biggest ed-tech company and its most valued startup, has informed its debt investors that it is likely to finalise its audited financial results for FY21, approved by auditor Deloitte, by September 6, Economic Times reports, citing people briefed on the matter.

India’s Ministry of Corporate Affairs has asked Byju’s parent Think & Learn to explain the 17-month delay in filing its audited accounts, Bloomberg reported on Aug. 25.

Byju’s investors include Sequoia Capital, Bond, Tiger Global, BlacRrock, Silver Lake, Naspers, and Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative. It is privately valued at $22 billion, according to the Bloomberg report, which cites market researcher CB Insights.

Flipkart will invest more than Rs. 3,600 crores in the next three years to set up three new giant automated fulfilment centres, Economic Times reports. This includes one in Manesar which is under construction and two new ones, which would come up in South and West Bengal respectively, Flipkart Group’s senior vice president and head of supply chain Hemant Badri, told ET.

Some details may have emerged about Apple’s rumoured virtual reality headsets, in trademark filings spotted by Bloomberg, The Verge reports, citing a Bloomberg report that is behind a paywall. The filings suggest Apple might incorporate “Reality” in the name and branding of its long-rumoured mixed reality headset.

Three separate filings show trademarks for “Reality One,” “Reality Pro,” and “Reality Processor,” matching the realityOS name that shows up in Apple’s code and a trademark application that potentially refers to the headset’s operating system, according to The Verge.

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Tinder-owner Match Group has filed an antitrust case against Apple with the competition regulator in India, accusing the iPhone maker of "monopolistic conduct" that forces developers to pay high commissions for in-app purchases. And OmniX Bio, an initiative from VC firm Omnivore to fund early-stage agri-science startups has picked its second venture in Loopworm.

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Tinder-owner Match Group has filed an antitrust case against Apple with the competition regulator in India, accusing the iPhone maker of "monopolistic conduct" that forces developers to pay high commissions for in-app purchases, Reuters reported yesterday, citing a legal filing it has seen.

Tinder’s complaint with India’s Competition Commission comes at a time when Apple is stepping up both its efforts to expand market share and local production of its iPhones and other products as it tries to reduce dependence on China.

Match argues Apple's conduct restricts innovation and development of app developers that offer digital services by enforcing the use of its proprietary in-app purchase system and "excessive" 30 percent commission, according to Reuters.

A similar dispute in the Netherlands resulted in a 50 million euro fine for Apple and an agreement to allow different payment methods in Dutch dating apps. South Korea has also banned the 30 percent commission charged by Apple and Google.

The Delhi government plans to introduce a time-of-day tariff system for charging electric vehicles (EVs) to incentivize users to charge their vehicles during off-peak hours, Mint reported yesterday.

Consultations are currently in an initial stage, and the system may be introduced in a year, Jasmine Shah, vice-chairperson of the Dialogue and Development Commission of Delhi, told Mint in an interview. The idea behind this move is that as the number of EVs increases, grid stability needs to be maintained.

Loopworm, an insect biotech startup in Bengaluru, has raised $3.4 million in seed funding from Omnivore and WaterBridge Ventures, with participation from Titan Capital and angel investors including Nadir Godrej, Sanjiv Rangrass, and Akshay Singhal.

Loopworm, founded in 2019 by IIT Roorkee graduates Ankit Alok Bagaria and Abhi Gawri, is optimizing insect farming for smallholders while producing value-added nutrients and ingredients for B2B customers, the company said in a press release. Loopworm is Omnivore’s second investment under its OmniX Bio initiative, which backs early-stage agri-food life science startups.

With Loopworm, Ankit and Abhi aim to tackle food waste and increase the incomes of smallholder farmers. Using multi-species insect biotechnology, Loopworm is upcycling food waste into protein-rich nutrients and value-added ingredients with applications in aquaculture, pet food, and nutraceuticals.

OmniX Bio’s first investment was in BioPrime, which is developing biological crop inputs that improve yields without causing unintended environmental consequences, Inc42 reported in December last year.

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Apple will make and release its latest smartphone, the iPhone 14, in India two months after it comes out in China, narrowing the gap between its main production facility and the small but growing one in India. Meta is rolling out its metaverse accounts and profiles. And Fidelity International has picked up a 5 percent stake in Zomato, the global investment firm told stock exchanges in Mumbai.

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Apple will make and release its latest smartphone, the iPhone 14, in India two months after it comes out in China, narrowing the gap between its main production facility and the small but growing one in India, Bloomberg reported on Aug. 23.

In the past, the India release would be at least a quarter later, but in recent times, Apple has incrementally stepped up its efforts to make all its phones in India as geopolitical tensions between the US and China remain, and supply chain hurdles rose after the Covid pandemic.

Analysts who track Apple closely, such as Ming-Chi Kuo, had predicted a simultaneous China-India release, but Apple, and its main iPhone contract manufacturer, Foxconn Technology Group, have concluded that that won’t be feasible this year, after a study, according to Bloomberg.

Still, an ambitious target could be to release the new iPhone—slated for a US release on Sep. 7, according to Bloomberg—in time for India’s countrywide festival of lights, Diwali, which falls on Oct. 24.

Facebook, now known as Meta, yesterday, began to roll out its metaverse accounts and profiles. Users of the company’s Oculus VR devices will now no longer be required to log in with a Facebook account, the company said in a post yesterday.

New users of Meta VR devices can create an account using an email address, Facebook, or Instagram account. When they first put on their headsets, they’ll get a code to pair with the Oculus mobile app. From there, they can continue with Facebook or Instagram or use the email address to create a Meta account.

Zomato shares rose yesterday, closing at Rs. 64.65 in Mumbai, after news that global investment firm Fidelity International had bought a stake in it.

Funds under the management of Fidelity’s FMR LLC and its direct and indirect subsidiaries and FIL Ltd and its direct and indirect subsidiaries acquired more than 40 crore shares or a 5.06 percent stake in Zomato on August 18 from the open market, the investment firm said in a filing with the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Genpact, a global professional services provider, and Climate Vault, a non-profit organisation founded at the University of Chicago, yesterday, announced they are combining Genpact’s technology and digital transformation expertise with Climate Vault’s quantifiable, integrated approach to carbon reduction and removal.

Climate Vault will embed Genpact’s digital technologies and process expertise to boost its carbon reduction and removal solution, according to a press release. Companies will gain wider access to carbon reduction from regulated carbon compliance markets with accurate, real-time pricing, with more access to independently verified carbon removal programmes, according to the release.

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Sequoia Capital, yesterday, named the next batch of its accelerator programme Surge, in India and Southeast Asia, picking entrepreneurs who are finding opportunities in tackling a range of problems from climate change and agritech to Web3. Many of the founders are women, and several have rich prior experience in their sectors – from finance to aerospace. Some have started straight out of college as well.

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Sequoia Capital, yesterday, named 37 entrepreneurs from 15 startups for the seventh batch of its accelerator programme Surge, in India and Southeast Asia.

These founders include those who are tackling climate change with the first AI-powered decarbonisation platform in the Asia Pacific; helping people with no design experience create 3D animation anywhere in the world; allowing startups to build machine learning projects in minutes and days versus months; facilitating one-click checkouts in SEA; building Indonesia’s first fintech company for teenagers; building a full-stack agritech venture, also in Indonesia; and helping developers tap Web3, the venture capital firm said in a post on its website.

A third of the startups in this batch have at least one woman among their founders. The startups are, Attentive, Beam, Boxs, BuyerAssist, ClearFeed, Gan, Hatica, Metaschool, Pixcap, Pratech Brands, Semaai, TrueFoundry, Unravel Carbon, Whiz and one venture in stealth mode.

US Senator Joe Manchin, an influential lawmaker in America, is pushing the country’s auto companies to kill their dependence on Chinese-made lithium-ion batteries, as the world moves towards electric vehicles, Bloomberg reported on Aug. 19.

Manchin, who was originally opposed to a $7500 tax credit on EVs, changed his mind to support it and gave a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum to the industry that finally pushed through an agreement on greater local sourcing of components, according to Bloomberg.

The agreement – seen as a win for US President Joe Biden’s climate agenda – allows US carmakers to continue offering $7,500 in tax credits for the purchase of new “clean cars” with some conditions, according to Bloomberg: the cars will need to be built with minerals that are extracted or processed in a country with which the US has a free trade agreement, and have a battery that includes a large percentage of components that were manufactured or assembled in North America.

India’s minister for science Jitendra Singh, yesterday, announced 75 grants to encourage collaboration between biotech startups, industry, academia and research institutions, according to a government press statement.

The grants, named ‘Amrit’ (nectar in Hindi) will be administered by the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council, part of the government’s Department of Biotechnology.

Each grant will offer Rs. 10-15 crore for inter-disciplinary, multi-institutional work to support high-risk, ambitious research ideas, and milestones-driven collaborative research in all domain-specific areas of the biotech sector, according to the statement.

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Shareholders of One97 Communications, which operates the fintech platform Paytm, voted almost unanimously for founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s reappointment as managing director and CEO for another five years, at the company’s annual general meeting last week. Nandan Nilekani’s VC firm Fundamentum has raised $227 million for its second fund. And some Tesla drivers tested the ‘self-driving’ feature on their own children.

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Shareholders of One97 Communications, which operates the fintech platform Paytm, voted almost unanimously for founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s reappointment as managing director and CEO for another five years, at the company’s annual general meeting last week.

In a filing with the stock exchanges in Mumbai, Paytm reported that 99.67 percent of the shareholders voted in favour of the resolution. The matter of his pay faced only a little bit more resistance, but 94.48 percent of the shareholders still voted in favour.

In the run-up to the AGM, which was held on Aug. 19, some proxy advisory firms opposed Sharma’s reappointment and his pay. Institutional Investor Advisory Services India, one such firm, estimated Sharma’s compensation at Rs. 796 crores for the current fiscal year, including stock options, according to a report in the Economic Times.

Sharma has promised to get the loss-making company to break even by the end of the current fiscal year, but many remain sceptical.

Nandan Nilekani and Sanjeev Aggarwal have raised $227 million for the second fund at their VC firm Fundamentum Partnership, TechCrunch reported on Aug. 19.

The fund plans to use the money to invest in four to five startups each year. Fundamentum, which typically backs startups in the Series B stage and beyond, will look to lead or co-lead $25 million to $40 million rounds, Aggarwal told TechCrunch in an interview.

Nilekani is the co-founder of IT services giant Infosys and one of the central figures behind several of India’s digital initiatives, including Aadhaar, UPI and ONDC. Aggarwal founded the BPO services provider Daksh which was acquired by IBM.

The duo launched Fundamentum in 2019 to back consumer and software-focused startups, according to TechCrunch.

YouTube has removed two videos from its platform which showed Tesla drivers conducting amateur vehicle safety tests using their own children in place of mannequins on the road or the driveway, CNBC reported on Aug. 19.

The tests were to determine if a slow-moving Tesla equipped with the company’s latest driver assistance systems would automatically avoid colliding with pedestrians — in this case, children — walking or standing still on the road, according to CNBC.

CNBC points out that none of the driver assistance systems offered by Tesla today makes the car fully autonomous and that Tesla makes this clear as well in its manual. Tesla is being investigated in the US for multiple accidents, including some which involved fatalities, where the driver-assistance systems were said to be in use.

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