One Thing Today in Tech

IBM has announced a suite of environmental intelligence software that uses AI to help organisations prepare for and respond to weather and climate risks, the company said in a press release. Apple’s next hardware event is set for October 18, 2021, according to invites it sent out on Tuesday. In our tech conversation, we ask Fred Rafilson—chief I/O psychologist at Talview—what Indian startups can do to hire the best and retain them. 

IBM has announced a suite of environmental intelligence software that uses AI to help organisations prepare for and respond to weather and climate risks, the company said in a press release on Tuesday. The software can help companies streamline and automate the management of environmental risks and operationalise the underlying processes—including carbon accounting and reduction—to meet environmental goals.

The software suite uses existing weather data from IBM, advanced geospatial analytics already in use by companies around the world, and new innovations from IBM Research. According to the company, the offering is the first to bring together artificial intelligence, weather data, climate risk analytics, and carbon accounting capabilities in this way.

Apple’s next hardware event is set for October 18, 2021, according to invites it sent out on Tuesday, The Verge reports. Apple is widely expected to launch new MacBook laptops, a redesigned, higher-end Mac Mini, and the third-generation AirPod earphones.

The new MacBooks would be the latest step in Apple’s transition away from Intel processors, replacing them with an Arm-based chip called the M1X that Apple designs itself, according to The Verge. The event will stream live on Apple’s website at 10 a.m. PT or 10:30 p.m. Indian standard time.

Eightfold AI, a talent intelligence platform provider, has struck a partnership with Tata Consultancy Services, the companies said in a press release. Through this alliance, TCS will offer services for the Eightfold Talent Intelligence Platform and develop innovative joint solutions to help customers improve talent management outcomes, retain top performers, upskill and reskill the workforce, recruit top talent more efficiently, and reach diversity goals.

Open, an SME-focused neo-banking platform provider has raised Rs 735 crore ($100 million) in a Series C round. The funding was led by Temasek and saw participation from Google and SBI Investment, one of Japan’s leading venture capital firms. Existing investors Tiger Global and 3one4 Capital also participated in the round.

Open plans to use the funding to further strengthen and accelerate its new product lines. These include Zwitch, its embedded finance platform and BankingStack, the cloud-native SME banking platform for financial institutions which is currently deployed at over 15 banks in India. Over the next year, Open aims to expand its base to 5 million SMEs and markets in South East Asia, Europe and the US.

(3:32) Companies around the world spend billions of dollars on hiring the right people and retaining them. Increasingly, psychologists are playing a role across these processes to help enterprises better understand what motivates people as Gen Z enters the workforce. I spoke with Fred Rafilson, chief I/O Psychologist at Talview, on what companies can do with recruitment and retention of the best talent in a mobile-first world, and the emerging trends in this area.

OneWeb, a satellite communications company backed by India’s Bharti Airtel, has partnered with NewSpace India—the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation—to use ISRO’s PSLV rockets and the heavier GSLV-MkIII launch vehicles to place its satellites in space in 2022. VC firm 100x.VC is calling on women founders to pitch for funding. In our tech conversation, we speak to Tapan Barman, CEO of Mihup Communications on the company’s latest virtual interactive analyst. 

OneWeb, a satellite communications company backed by Bharti Airtel, has partnered NewSpace India—the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation—to use ISRO’s PSLV rockets and the heavier GSLV-MkIII launch vehicles to place its satellites in space in 2022, the Financial Express reports.

A non-binding letter of intent between OneWeb and NewSpace India was unveiled at the launch of the Indian Space Association in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, according to the report. OneWeb is building a constellation of nearly 650 satellites and has already put 322 satellites into orbit.

Services will begin this year in the Arctic region including Alaska, Canada, and the UK. By late 2022, OneWeb will offer its high-speed, low latency connectivity services in India and the rest of the world, according to FE.

100x.VC, a Mumbai venture capital firm and accelerator for early-stage startups, is calling on women founders looking for backers to pitch to the firm’s partners on October 18th at 5 pm. Interested women entrepreneurs can register themselves with the firm for the event, according to a post on LinkedIn by Shashank Randev, one of the partners at the firm.

Shashank’s post has a link to a Google form as well, which interested candidates can use to register themselves.

GramCover, an insurance startup, has raised $7 million co-led by Siana Capital and Inflexor Ventures in a Series A round. The fundraise also saw the participation from Stride Ventures along with existing backers Omidyar Network India, Flourish Ventures and Emphasis Ventures.

The five-year-old startup specialises as a tech-enabled marketplace for insurance focused on rural India. It facilitates policy purchases for crops, motor, livestock, and health. The company has sold insurance covers worth Rs 1.10 billion in premiums.

The fresh capital will be used to strengthen its technology and products and scale up the business and support functions, the startup said in a press release. Unitus Capital was the financial advisor to the company on the transaction.

Lunchclub, a video-based professional networking platform provider, is looking to expand into India, Economic Times reported. The company uses AI and machine learning algorithms to match people based on their professional interests. Users can accept weekly one-on-one video meetings with new connections via a mobile app and the website. Lunchclub aims to add 100,000 users by December, according to ET.

(3:30) Conversational AI is making inroads into several sectors, from cars to call centres. I spoke to Tapan Barman, co-founder and CEO of Mihup Communications—a Kolkata startup that offers its voice AI technology to companies including Tata Motors, ICICI and Swiggy—about the company’s latest version of a virtual interactive analyst.

Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest software services company, kicked off the fiscal second quarter earnings season on Friday. It reported revenues of $6.33 billion for the three months ended September 30. Revenues grew 15.5 percent over the same period one year ago, in constant currency, the company said in a press release after the close of Mumbai trading on Friday. Profits rose 14 percent to $1.3 billion. And in our tech conversation, we speak with Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur Jahangir Mohammed, founder and CEO of Twin Health (2:30).

Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest software services company, kicked off fiscal second-quarter earnings season on Friday, reporting revenues of $6.33 billion for the three months ended September 30. Revenues grew 15.5 percent over the same period one year ago, in constant currency, the company said in a press release after the close of Mumbai trading on Friday. Profits rose 14 percent to $1.3 billion.

During the quarter, the company won large orders from customers including Swiss Re, ZF, Transport for London, Cordis, Carrefour Belgium and MTN South Africa. The company ended the quarter with nearly 529,000 employees.

Apple is appealing the September ruling in the lawsuit that was brought against it by Epic Games, in which a California judge ruled that the iPhone maker can’t prevent developers from including payment systems outside the App Store, The Verge reports. That ruling was part of a verdict that Apple had called a ‘resounding victory’ for itself. The ruling was set to become effective in December, but with the appeal, it will likely get pushed back, according to The Verge.

Tiger Global, a New York-based hedge fund, venture capital and private equity company, is in advanced talks to lead a $100 million funding round at Slice, a Bangalore fintech startup, TechCrunch reports. Other investors could include Insight Partners, Ribbit Capital and Greenoaks, according to the report.Slice has previously raised around $30 million and was valued at under $200 million in a round earlier this year, according to TechCrunch. The company, which is looking to expand India’s credit card market, counts Blume Ventures, Gunosy Capital and Better Capital among its investors.

Ola Electric, the electric vehicle unit of ride-hailing company Ola, has raised $200 million in an investment that values the business at more than $5 billion, according to a Press Trust of India report that appeared in Economic Times. The new investment comes days after the company raised $200 million at a post-money valuation of $3 billion. The latest funding round saw the participation of existing investors and some US-based bluechip tech funds, according to ET.

Jahangir Mohammed is your quintessential serial tech entrepreneur, with a finely honed knack for identifying problems that offered large market potential if they could be solved with the right technology-led solutions. Twenty-five years after he left India for the US, he sold his second company, Jasper Technologies, a Silicon Valley-based internet-of-things company, to Cisco for $1.4 billion.

It was then, that his “life’s work” started, he told me in a zoom call over the weekend. His latest venture is Twin Health, a medical services business that combines the latest in AI and medical sciences to treat and even reverse diseases like diabetes in many cases. As the name suggests, part of the solution is around developing a digital twin of each patient’s metabolism.

According to a report by India’s ministry of education—called Initiatives by the School Education Sector in 2020-21—large sections of school-going children in seven large states don’t have access to digital devices, the Indian Express reports. These states are Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttarakhand. Google Ads team has announced that advertisers, publishers, and YouTube creators can no longer monetise content that denies the existence of climate change. In our tech conversation, BrainSightAI’s founders explain how AI can help treat schizophrenia

CoinSwitch Kuber, a crypto exchange startup in India, has surged in privately-held value to $1.91 billion after it raised $260 million in series C funding from marquee US VC firm Andreessen Horowitz. The funding mark’s the first investment in an Indian startup for a16z, as the VC firm is popularly known. Telangana is testing an e-voting app. The Mom Project raises $80 million. In our tech conversation, we speak to the founders of 2am VC on their India investments

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder and CEO, was roundly criticised by US lawmakers on Tuesday at a hearing for employee-turned-whistleblower Frances Haugen. Haugen had gathered evidence from the company's own research on how the social networking giant was harming young people. Notably, US senator Richard Blumenthal said, "Big Tech now faces the Big Tobacco jaw-dropping moment of truth", according to multiple reports on the hearing. In our tech conversation, we talk to Ravi Annavajjahala, CEO at AI chip company Deep Vision, on expansion in India

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp all had major outages for many hours on Monday. On Tuesday, they issued statements that services were coming back online gradually. The first lawsuit blaming a death on a ransomware attack has been filed in the US. Byju's is raising more money. In our tech conversation, we talk to the founders of GalaxEye, about their plans for a low earth orbit constellation of satellites 

Jeff Bezos is investing in an Indonesian ecommerce startup, Ula, via his family office Bezos Expeditions, TechCrunch reports. Oyo Hotels and Homes filed its draft prospectus with India's capital markets regulator on Friday aiming to raise Rs 8,430 crore ($1.2 billion) through an initial public offer of shares. Google has abandoned its plan to offer a banking service, Plex, less than a year after launching it, Wall Street Journal reports. And in our tech conversation today, Arun Natarajan at Venture Intelligence puts the massive money flow into India's internet unicorns in perspective.

Ola Electric, the EV unit of ride-hailing business Ola, has raised over $200 million led by Falcon Edge, Softbank and others, at a valuation of $3 billion, the company said in a press release. Founder Bhavish Aggarwal also tweeted that the money will help Ola Electric accelerate its development of electric motorcycles and four-wheelers. In our tech conversation, Dev Roy—chief innovation and learning officer at Byju’s—unpacks a new innovation lab

At its Search On Livestream event, Google showcased some of the features that will roll out in the coming months. One of them is the capability to search visually, allowing for more context-based results that would be more useful. Amazon has launched a home assistant robot called Astro. CredAvenue raised $90 million in series A funding round led by Sequoia Capital. In our tech conversation, we talk to Kris Nair, founder of Kawa Space