The increased traction is mainly driven by marketing and customer engagement needs of startups and small and medium-sized enterprises, says a media report.

Thanks to Telegram Channels, startups and small businesses are using the app for marketing and customer engagement.

Thanks to the APIs, offered by Telegram, startups can also create bots to engage with customers and analyse other data.

While Telegram has great selling points across the globe, it has also been under the scanner like its competitor WhatsApp.

In India, Telegram was under scanner for allegedly facilitating the circulation of child abuse videos and communication by terrorists. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1574055005.3771126/Telegram-Grows-Rapidly-In-India,-But-Is-It-Really-Secure??ref=audio_experience

Starting a blog sounds easy…All you need is a laptop, somewhere to host your blog and an opinion, right?

If you really want to invest your time and effort into a successful blog and potentially make a career for yourself online, then read on for 4 things you should know before starting a blog.

Those who make a decent income from their blog have honed their craft and have probably been blogging for a number of years.

If you’re starting a blog with the hope of earning an extra income, then maybe blogging isn’t the answer right now.

However, if you’re blogging for pleasure and income opportunities come your way then that’s great too. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1574053205.8773158/The-Startup-Magazine-Got-what-it-takes-to-be-a-blogger?-4-things-you-should-know-before-starting-a-blog?ref=audio_experience

Never miss a great news story!

Get instant notifications from Economic TimesAllowNot nowYou can switch off notifications anytime using browser settings. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1574051506.2842982/WeWork-may-lay-off-thousands?ref=audio_experience

NEW DELHI: Healthians , a provider of diagnostic tests at home, has raised Rs 85 crore ($12 million) in Series B round of equity funding.

DG Incubation and DG Daiwa Ventures of Japan led the round, with participation from Kotak Private Equity and Trifecta from India, and Mistletoe and Tokio Marine from Singapore.

Sahni also said the company would step up hiring of phlebotomists – people who draw blood – and a few other senior people to head its new offerings.The Gurgaon-based company currently has about 650 employees.Healthians raised around $4 million as part of its Series A round in August 2016.

It raised $500,000 in seed capital in July 2015, where YouWeCan, the foundation backed by Indian cricketer Yuvraj Singh also participated.

It has 450 phlebotomists on its rolls so far and plans to increase that to 1,000 in the next 6-8 months. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1574049817.1609051/Healthians-raises-Rs-85-crore-in-Series-B?ref=audio_experience

Silicon Valley-based Norwest Venture Partners — an investor in Uber , Spotify and Swiggy — raised $2 billion last week, its largest corpus so far.

Edited excerpts:Why are venture firms raising larger growth-stage corpus?

When we do growth equity cheques, we typically invest anywhere between $50 million and $100 million.

Most of our investments are at Series A,B,C stages, and we also sometimes participate after that to keep our pro-rata rights.

We're seeing it being done here in the US by other firms and by other investment funds in India too. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1574047907.5188637/Valuations-set-for-a-correction-in-2020,-says-Norwest’s-Haque?ref=audio_experience

Memfault’s founders are engineers from Fitbit, Oculus and Pebble, and its lead investor, Uncork Capital, is run by Jeff Clavier, whose investments include Fitbit, Sendgrid, Eventbrite, and Mint among others.

Early customers using the platform include hardware companies Logitech and Proxy.

“At Memfault, we treat hardware companies like they are software companies and have built diagnostic tools specifically for developers,” said François Baldassari, CEO of Memfault.

“Our years of experience at major hardware companies gave us insight into the widespread problem of firmware bugs for these businesses.

Memfault is backed by Uncork Capital, S28 Capital and Y Combinator. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1574047650.2618582/Venture-Capital-Access-Online?ref=audio_experience

Estimates state that by 2020, over 13 million people in India may be working out of co-working spaces.

Though co-working spaces are causing a massive disruption in the workspace industry, there are potential adverse effects.

Despite the comfort and clarity at co-working spaces, there are numerous factors that may have a direct impact on businesses.

Between safety rules, standards, access conditions and prevention rules, there are enough reasons that co-working spaces can give one cause for concern.

With time, bigger corporates are also setting up their offices in co-working spaces. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1574047003.1484418/Co-working-spaces-need-due-diligence-on-transient-members?ref=audio_experience

Mumbai-based B2B healthtech marketplace Medikabazaar has raised INR 112 Cr ($15 Mn) in a funding round led by HealthQuad, Ackermans & van Haaren, Rebright Partners and Toppan Printing company.

In early October, Udaan raised a mega $585 Mn round, led by Tencent, Altimeter and Footpath Ventures.

Some of the players in healthtech segment includes 1mg, MedPlus, NetMeds, Meddo, PlusPin and ProPhysio.

Meddo raised $3 Mn in Pre-Series A in a round led by SRI Capital.

PlusPin raised $733,68 K from Indian Angel Network (IAN) and ProPhysio raised an undisclosed amount. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1574046006.1881003/B2B-Medical-Marketplace-MedikaBazaar-Bags-$15-Mn-Funding-To-Expand-Supply-Chain?ref=audio_experience

Founded out of Cambridge, U.K., in 2017, Wayve’s core premise is that the big breakthrough in self-driving cars will come from better AI brains rather than more sensors or “hand-coded” rules.

The company said that it trains its autonomous driving system using simulated environments and then transfers that knowledge into the real world, where it emulates how humans adapt to conditions in real time.

“Our algorithms are learning to become super-human drivers,” Wayve cofounder and CTO Alex Kendall told VentureBeat.

They also effectively let cars see around corners, something that lidar or computer vision can’t yet achieve.

With Wayve’s autonomous driving system, the cars’ eyes are basically a row of 2.3-megapixel RGB cameras with high-dynamic range, which allows them to “obtain good signal at night time and bright sunlight,” Kendall said. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1574044320.3719568/Wayve-raises-$20-million-to-give-autonomous-cars-better-AI-brains?ref=audio_experience

It is to address this need that startups like Treebo Hotels began their operations in 2015.

Unfortunately, the layoffs were also a part of the cash burn that saw the brand in the eye of a storm.

The brands - Oyo, Treebo, and Fab Hotels, as new-age hotels, brought in a promise to transform the budget hotel experience using technology to bring in standardisation.

The market and future plansAccording to RedSeer Research, the mid-segment hotel market is believed to be $4 billion, and is growing at an average of 17 percent, annually.

The big question is - Can Treebo compete with the likes of Oyo which is cash rich? | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1574042410.901779/How-Treebo-Hotels-is-gunning-for-profitability-by-2021-with-steps-to-reduce-cash-burn?ref=audio_experience