Wealthsimple has entered into the spending space with the launch of Wealthsimple Cash, its first hybrid spending and savings account for Canadians.

Wealthsimple Cash marks the company’s first expansion into the spending space.

“With Wealthsimple Cash, users can enjoy the power of a high interest savings account for all of their day-to-day spending needs.

Wealthsimple Cash is one of three businesses that Wealthsimple has registered over the past few months.

Wealthsimple Cash does not have monthly account or low balance fees, nor account minimums. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1579629609.7052627/Wealthsimple-moves-into-spending-space-with-hybrid-spending-and-saving-account?ref=audio_experience

Since its launch in May of last year, the cannabis-infused drink company Cann has sold 150,000 cans of its THC and CBD-infused, alcohol-free intoxicants, in a sign of success that’s bucking current industry trends.

So to woo these would-be Cann fans, the company is casting about for new distribution deals and cutting its pricing — selling its drinks at a retail price of roughly $4 per Cann.

To address their manufacturing issues, the company found a co-packer called Space Station, a Sacramento, Calif.-based producer that will help boost volumes.

Investors like Massenet view the investment in companies like Cann as a bet on the increasing movement toward sobriety among younger generations.

Being obsessed with backing the best new disruptive consumer product companies, Imaginary also loves the fantastic branding and positioning of Cann.” | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1579627838.9581985/Cann,-the-cannabis-infused-drink-company,-moves-150,000-units-and-raises-$5-million-–-TechCrunch?ref=audio_experience

Circonus, a Philadelphia, PA-based provider of a machine data intelligence platform built to handle data in IT infrastructure and IoT deployments, raised $6.8m in Series A1 funding.

The round was led by Osage Venture Partners with participation from new investors Bull City Venture Partners, Ben Franklin Technology Partners, and NewSpring Capital.

The company intends to use the funds to continue expand adoption of its machine data intelligence platform across multiple industries.

Led by CEO Bob Moul and CTO and founder Theo Schlossnagle, Circonus provides an intelligence platform capable of handling billions of metric streams in real time and enable enterprises to collect, store and analyze all of their machine data.

Key features of the platform include:– Industry-leading ingestion rates– Unlimited scale and volume– Millisecond frequency– Accurate, real-time analytics– Ability to work with any technology– Unlimited retention and data accessFinSMEs21/01/2020 | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1579626013.762272/Circonus-Raises-$6.8M-in-Series-A1-Funding?ref=audio_experience

New Delhi: The government on Tuesday notified the structure of the National Startup Advisory Council .

To be chaired by commerce and industry minister, the council will suggest measures to foster a culture of innovation amongst citizens and students in particular, promote innovation in all sectors of economy across the country, support creative and innovative ideas through incubation and create an environment of absorption of innovation in industry.The council is being set up in the wake of a plethora of regulatory changes covering startups in the works to reduce time spent on tax compliance by them to less than one hour a month along with easier incorporation processes and boosting the availability of global and domestic capital.The council will also suggest measures to “promote ease of access to capital for startups, incentivize domestic capital for investments into startups, mobilize global capital for investments in Indian startups, keep control of startups with original promoters and provide access to global markets for Indian startups”, the commerce and industry ministry said in a release on Tuesday.India ranks 136 on ‘starting a business’ in the World Bank ’s ease of doing business table against an overall rank of 63.

Some of the measures in the works are also expected to tackle this.The council will facilitate public organizations to assimilate innovation with a view to improving public service delivery, promote creation, protection and commercialization of intellectual property rights, make it easier to start, operate, grow and exit businesses by reducing regulatory compliances and costs.“The individual names will be notified later,” the ministry said, adding that the non-official members will be nominated by the centre whose term would be for a period of two years.It will have members from various categories like founders of successful startups, veterans who have grown and scaled companies in India, persons capable of representing interests of investors into startups, persons capable of representing interests of incubators and accelerators and representatives of associations of stakeholders of startups and representatives of industry associations. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1579624291.1533072/Govt-notifies-National-Startup-Advisory-Council,-Commerce-Minister-to-chair?ref=audio_experience

Skylo’s total funding to date is $116 million, and it’s based across three different cities: San Mateo, California; Bangalore, India; and Tel Aviv, Israel.

Founded in 2017, Skylo’s goal is to leverage already existing satellites in space and bring connectivity to other spaces.

“Skylo envisions a world where connectivity for machines, sensors and devices is as ubiquitous as the sky,” said Skylo co-founder and CEO Parthsarathi “Parth” Trivedi, in a press release announcing the funding.

Another use case includes using Skylo on railway systems to get more exact maintenance alerts or flag an abnormal vibration in the track to prevent accidents.

It costs tens of billions of dollars to produce — a price-tag that Skylo can skip because it’s using already existent satellites in space. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1579622467.745047/Skylo-Launches-Out-Of-Stealth-And-Into-The-Sky-With-$116M-In-Funding-From-SoftBank,-DCM?ref=audio_experience

Subscribe to the Crunchbase DailyIts music video is set in the clean room of a semiconductor manufacturing facility.

Headquartered in San Francisco, today the used equipment marketplace platform launches out of stealth with $2.4 million in seed funding from NFX.

Moov was founded in January 2018 and has since repurposed over one million pounds of surplus manufacturing equipment that would have otherwise remained idle or gone to a landfill.

A liquid secondary market lets buyers purchase used equipment and spin up their operations quicker than buying new, the company said.

Semiconductor manufacturing equipment is a relatively small niche, but the company has a lot of room to grow. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1579618961.7258182/Moov,-A-Marketplace-For-Used-Manufacturing-Equipment,-Emerges-From-Stealth-With-$2.4M-From-NFX?ref=audio_experience

Since its spin-off from Omidyar Network, the investment firm founded eBay’s Pierre Omidyar, Flourish Ventures has so far invested in around 13 startups working in utility and fintech sectors.

Flourish Ventures also manages a $300 Mn fund which invests in fintech startups, out of which the company has already invested around $60 Mn in startups globally.

In 2019, Flourish Ventures, invested in two fintech startups in India — neobank Yelo and lending startup Shubhloans.

The Indian OpportunitiesIn 2019, Flourish Ventures also made follow-on investments in its portfolio companies — ZestMoney, Indifi, Kaleidofin, and Toffee.

Besides fintech space, Flourish Ventures is also going to focus on the gig economy, Ehrbeck said. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1579617129.1827736/Flourish-Ventures-To-Continue-Investment-Spree-In-India’s-Fintech-Space?ref=audio_experience

If the safety facilities aren’t at the desired level, the consequent concerns can harm productivity.

Workplace BullyingThe human elements of managing a team will hold a significant impact on the overall productivity levels of your business.

The introduction of regular drinks and light exercise breaks can work wonders.

Noise PollutionDepending on the nature of the work, employees need the chance to concentrate.

When working in office spaces, learning to soundproof a room can work wonders. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1579615225.3627872/8-Workplace-Productivity-Killers-(And-How-To-Fix-Them)?ref=audio_experience

Snyk, the company that wants to help developers secure their code as part of the development process, announced a $150 million investment today.

The company indicated the investment brings its valuation to over $1 billion (although it did not share the exact figure).

The company offers an open source tool that helps developers find open source vulnerabilities when they commit their code to GitHub, Bitbucket, GitLab or any CI/CD tool.

A $7 million Series A and $22 million Series B followed in 2018 with a $70 million Series C last fall.

It’s worth noting that Salesforce thought enough of the company that it also invested in this round through its Salesforce Ventures investment arm. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1579613415.8089173/Snyk-snags-$150M-investment-as-its-valuation-surpasses-$1B-–-TechCrunch?ref=audio_experience

In order to boost foreign direct investment (FDI) in India, the central government has decided to cut some slack to the foreign investors including sovereign wealth fund, pension funds and insurance funds by introducing new policies.

According to a report in Reuters, the central government is pressing for some regulations which will make the foreign investors immune from possible policy changes.

For this, the government will likely be setting up two new bodies — Investment Ombudsman and Investment Tribunal.

The document also highlighted that the new policy is a part of India’s “$5 Tn economy by 2024” initiative.

Currently, the Indian economy is valued at $2.7 Tn and simplified investment policies might attract more foreign investment in the region. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1579611619.6004403/Indian-Govt-Rethinks-FDI-Policies-Amidst-Economic-Slump?ref=audio_experience