Imperial College London has launched its first Innovation fund to invest in early-stage, high-growth, knowledge-intensive companies spun out of the world top ten university.

Parkwalk will be managing the Imperial College Innovation Fund on behalf of Imperial College London.

The fund will invest at early-stage and provide follow-on funding, and will invest alongside other venture capital funds, investment management companies, and investor groups.

Imperial has a long history of producing ground-breaking scientific research and technologies, as well as a flourishing entrepreneurial ecosystem.

So far, Imperial has introduced facilities and programs including the Enterprise Lab, the White City Incubator, the Translation & Innovation Hub, the Imperial Venture Mentoring Service, and the Imperial College Advanced Hackspace to help support new ideas. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1583749809.7028697/Imperial-Launches-Early-Stage-Innovation-Fund?ref=audio_experience

Fintech startup Karbon Card, which is based out of Bengaluru and Shanghai, has raised a seed funding of $2 million led by angels in India and China.

The fintech startup was founded at the end of 2019, and issues Karbon Card, a corporate card to startups.

Karbon Card core teamHe added that Karbon Card is a startup founded with a vision to empower all Indian startups to achieve more through a Karbon Card.

Amit Jangir, Co-founder at Karbon Card stated, “The journey to building Karbon Card has been dotted by many ups and downs, as is the case with most startups.

I myself am not just an investor but also an avid user of Karbon Card.” | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1583748005.2779937/[Funding-alert]-Fintech-startup-Karbon-Card-raises-$2M-from-Kunal-Shah,-Jitendra-Gupta,-others?ref=audio_experience

Many cities are becoming test beds for national and local governments for experimenting with robots in social spaces.

In India, electric vehicles are slowly gaining traction.

Social robots in many guises – from police officers to restaurant waiters – are appearing in urban public and commercial spaces.

However, in terms of public transportation, our only revolution has been with the availability of metro trains in T1 cities.

With frothing urban lakes and unmanageable trash, smart cities will be defined by self-driving trash pick-up trucks that have no human operator. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1583746204.9192104/The-Future-Of-SMART-Cities-In-The-Indian-Context?ref=audio_experience

Many cities are becoming test beds for national and local governments for experimenting with robots in social spaces.

In India, electric vehicles are slowly gaining traction.

Social robots in many guises – from police officers to restaurant waiters – are appearing in urban public and commercial spaces.

However, in terms of public transportation, our only revolution has been with the availability of metro trains in T1 cities.

With frothing urban lakes and unmanageable trash, smart cities will be defined by self-driving trash pick-up trucks that have no human operator. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1583746204.9192104/The-Future-Of-SMART-Cities-In-The-Indian-Context?ref=audio_experience

But the whole episode has taught them a lesson — to have more than one partner banks for facilitating UPI transactions.

As YES Bank was the partner for 20 of the 32 third-party players on the UPI network, this impacted several apps negatively, including PhonePe and BharatPe.

ICICI Bank said that its application programming interface (API) for UPI payments was already tested for high-volume transactions.

Currently, users are still using YES Bank’s UPI handles.

Besides ICICI Bank, NPCI also played a key role in supporting PhonePe and BharatPe during the first 24 hours, including giving a no-objection certificate (NOC) to migrate UPI handles of YES Bank users to ICICI Bank till the moratorium is in place. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1583744404.9608796/Stung-By-YES-Bank,-PhonePe,-BharatPe-Scout-Other-Banks-For-UPI?ref=audio_experience

Here we bring a list of organic products and gifting options offered by startups for easy perusal.

How Holi Gifting Has ChangedThe online market for gifting is increasing every year.

“Vegetal Lustrous Natural Holi Colours”, “Pidilite Rangeela Holi Ke Rang”, “Vedant Non-Toxic Holi Herbal Gulal” are some of the best-sellers on Amazon and Flipkart this year.

Peppa Pig water pichkari, Fiddlerz Holi water gun are some of the bestsellers currently on the platform.

“According to me, the market for Holi gifting is not as huge as compared to other festivals, such as Diwali. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1583742606.3154767/India’s-Gifting-Platforms,-Organic-Startups-On-The-Holi-Mania-And-The-Impact-Of-Coronavirus?ref=audio_experience

Last week, NCLAT had urged the CCI to reopen the case looking into whether the ecommerce major had misused its dominant position in the market to create an anti-competitive atmosphere.

The CCI had ruled that no single player in the market had held a dominant position given the maturity of the Indian market at that stage.

However, unsatisfied with the response, NCLAT has sought reassessment of the dominant position abuse by Flipkart.

NCLAT has directed CCI’s probe arm Director General (DG) to investigate the allegations made by All India Online Vendors Association (AIOVA).

Soon, reports also surfaced that CCI failed to find any evidence proving that Amazon and Flipkart had exclusive deals with smartphone manufacturers. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1583740908.3258176/Vendors'-Body-Files-Caveat-As-CCI-Urged-To-Reopen-Probe-Into-Flipkart?ref=audio_experience

"Unlike Amazon Go stores, shoppers will insert a credit card into a gated turnstile to enter, rather than scan an app.

Kumar said Amazon "potentially" could sell the service to big box rivals but would not speculate.He declined to comment on the service's business model or pricing, saying, "a lot of those are bespoke deals."

Amazon will send receipts to that address each subsequent time the credit card is used at a Just Walk Out location, no matter the retailer.

Kumar said Amazon saves the email address and ties that to the credit card information, solely for the purpose of charging the customer.Kumar would not discuss whether or how Amazon would integrate this into retailers' loyalty programs but said, "These are the retailers' customers.

""We prohibit the use of Just Walk Out technology data for anything other than supporting Just Walk Out retailers," he said. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1583739004.9345255/Amazon-launches-business-selling-automated-checkout-to-retailers?ref=audio_experience

The US Public Health Service has identified 22 human diseases that are linked to improper solid waste management.

Recykal is India's first SAAS and cloud-based full service waste and recycle enabling platform.

Apart from being a business idea, transforming the waste management space can lead to a social, environmental and economic impact,” he reasons.Deshpande believes Recykal can bring a change in the way India recycles and thinks about waste management.

“The current waste value chain consisting of waste generators, waste aggregators, waste processors and recyclers work in their own silos that remain disconnected.

The startup’s existing offerings for the waste management industry, include, a marketplace that enables transactions between waste generators, waste aggregators, recyclers with transparency and traceability. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1583737206.418363/Recykal:-Making-money-from-India’s-huge-waste-problem?ref=audio_experience

KOLKATA: Northern Arc Investments , the alternative investment arm of Northern Arc Capital , has mobilised $23 million from overseas investors as part of first tranche of a $100 million debt fund targeted to invest in microfinance, small business finance, vehicle finance and agri-business finance.The firm announced that PG Impact Investments , a global impact investment firm backed by global private markets investment manager Partners Group, the Netherland's Anthos Fund & Asset Management and the US-based Calvert Impact Capital have invested in it to mark its first close.

"We are aiming to invest well over Rs 1,000 crore of long term capital to financial institutions over the near term, especially those focusing on the under-served and under-penetrated segments in India," said Ravi Vukkadala, CEO at Northern Arc Investments.The fund targets an overall corpus of $100 million including a green shoe of $50 million.

This is the firm’s first fund targeting international investors It looks to invest in debt instruments of targeted companies in the next five years.

Over the next 12-18 months, the fund targets to make 15-20 investments with average deal sizes ranging from $3-5 million. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1583735405.0669858/Northern-Arc-Investments-gets-$23-million-from-overseas-investors?ref=audio_experience