Byju’s Eyes US Expansion with $500 million Epic Acquisition

Indian edtech startup Byju’s has announced the acquisition of the US-based reading platform Epic. The latter is a popular digital reading platform for kids under-12. The cost the acquisition is $500 million. This acquisition is being seen as a move by Byju’s to expand in the US.

This move by Byju’s is part of its plans of developing in North America where it plans to invest $1 billion. Acquisition of Epic is a good move by Byju’s. Epic’s global user base has 2 million teachers and 50 million kids. The reading platform is designed incredibly. It allows kids to personalize reading themselves.

Epic has so far raised $51 million in funding to date and has 150 employees on its payroll. The company’s CEO Suren Markosian and co-founder Kevin Donahue will remain in their roles at Epic post the acquisition.

Prior to this acquisition, Byju’s has made some other big investments recently, including a $300 million acquisition of White Hat Jr and Aakash Educational Services for almost a billion dollars. The Epic acquisition will further expand its products portfolio and bring fresh expertise onboard to expand in North America.

 

LIC launches new benefit-based health insurance plan, Arogya Rakshak

The Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India recently has launched a new health insurance plan—Arogya Rakshak, a non-linked, non-participating, regular premium, individual health insurance plan. This plan primarily aims at providing timely support to the insurance holders in case of medical emergencies and helping their families to remain financially independent in challenging times.

This plan is different from the conventional health insurance plan in terms of the method of payment. While the latter reimburses the actual cost that has been incurred on treatment, Arogya Rakshak provides fixed benefit health insurance cover. This plan pays a lump sum benefit irrespective of actual medical expenses. Besides, this plan is not comprehensive as it works only against certain specified health risks.

One can purchase the plan for them as well as for their family members. It is available for Principal Insured/spouse/parents aged 18 to 65 years and children of age 91 days to 20 years. The cover period for principal insured, spouse, and parents will be available up to 80 years, while in the case of children, it is available only till the age of 25 years. This policy increases the overall health cover with time automatically through the Auto Step-up benefit.

 

United States Tops the Global Petroleum and Natural Gas Production in 2020

Recent statistics and reports have stated that more petroleum and natural gas were produced in the United States than in any other country during 2020. The US petroleum and natural gas output in 2020 totaled 66.9 quadrillion British thermal units (quads), whereas Russia produced 45.5 quads and Saudi Arabia produced 26.5 quads of petroleum and natural gas in 2020.

Petroleum and natural gas production fell in all three countries in 2020 due to pandemic and there was a consequent crude oil price declines, particularly in the first quarter of 2020. Saudi Arabia and Russia reduced their crude oil production as part of an OPEC+ agreement. Still, in the United States, reduced production resulted in the drop in oil price and tight oil investments, and, to a lesser extent, unplanned outages.

Petroleum production includes various liquid fuels, including crude oil and lease condensate, natural gas plant liquids (NGPL), and bitumen. The US petroleum production decreased from 31.8 quads in 2019 to 30.4 quads in 2020. But, NGPL production in 2020 grew by 0.4 quads, boosted by an increase in domestic ethane consumption and ethane exports. This resulted in the production of more crude oil and natural gas in the US.

 

Telangana State and Microsoft are in the final leg of discussion for setting up a new data center

Tech giant Microsoft is all set to open a data center in Telangana state, India. The talks for the same are in the final leg, and the company is expected to invest almost Rs 15,000 crore. Microsoft has also chosen the land where this new data center would be constructed. The new effort is a part of the company’s attempt to develop such facilities in India under the name of BAM Digital reality. It is a well-known fact that the Telangana State is receiving investments from major corporations and growing unprecedently in the IT space.

Microsoft is looking forward to setting up a data center in Telangana, and the announcement for the same is expected shortly from the company. It must also be noted that back in 2019, Reliance Jio and Microsoft had struck a long-term deal to establish several cloud data centers in India. As part of the deal, the tech giant was supposed to bring in its cloud computing services to Jio’s network and target the SMEs keen on moving their business practices to cloud technology infrastructure. Apart from Microsoft, other major tech names like Amazon Web Services and Google are working tirelessly to strengthen their presence in the Indian data segment.

 

Ahold Delhaize USA begins operations at its new distribution center in Mauldin, S.C.

Ahold Delhaize USA (ADUSA), a retail giant, has begun its operations at its new distribution center in Mauldin, S.C. ADUSA Supply Chain, the retailer's distribution arm, has stated that the first shipments at the Mauldin DC went out to 56 Food Lion supermarkets. Dairy, fresh, and frozen products were the first items to begin shipping from the facility. Once the company sets up the fully operational unit, the DC will fulfill grocery, fresh, frozen, health, and beauty care shipments for around 200 grocery retail stores.

Ahold Delhaize USA has purchased the Mauldin DC from C&S in May. The transaction halted from the retailer's June 2020 acquisition of 62 Bi-Lo and Harveys stores from Southeastern Grocers. Also, ADUSA is planning to open its Supply Chain market in DC in Manchester, Conn., which will supply Ahold Delhaize USA's Stop & Shop.

The company has stated that it's actively hiring in Mauldin and 17 other network locations. To date, more than 250 associates have been hired and onboarded at the Mauldin campus, which will employ more than 800 in the local community. The company said it is seeking full-time employees for driver, selector, forklift operator, sanitation, and facilities maintenance roles.

 

 

Just Dial’s transformation will help Reliance Retail to scale unprecedently

Recently, Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL) had made an announcement that it acquired controlling stakes in Just Dial (JD). According to reports from industry analysts, the retail giant is expected to make full use of JD’s B2B search engine specialization to gain access to various large merchants who can join the company’s ecommerce platform JioMart. The new move is also expected to allow RRVL to make use of JD’s venture into ticket booking for train, bus, and flight. Along with that, users can also pay bills, book hotels, and get cab services, among others.

Mukesh Ambani, managing director and chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), had previously laid out a target to onboard more than 10 million merchants for his company’s ecommerce initiative. The target is expected to be achieved by the next three years, and this announcement came in RIL’s annual AGM, which was held last month. RRVL had bought 66.95 percent of stakes in JD, and the entire deal amounted to Rs 5,720 crore. So far, JD has continued to work in the marketplace model, and it has offered various services like logistics, chat, catalog management, and payment solutions. Along with that, JD also provided working capital loans and insurance to SMEs.

 

Procore ERP Connector Platform to Provide Real-Time Insight for Construction Projects

Procore Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of construction management software, recently announced the availability of its global ERP Connector platform, which comes with four new Procore-built accounting integrations. With the help of this new ERP Connector Platform, companies can get precise and real-time insight into their construction projects and financial works through centralized and precise data that connects all of their stakeholders.

Organizations can easily connect to their enterprise resource planning system of their choice to Procore Financial Management, a project cost management solution. With the latest Procore ERP Connector platform, the customers can connect to any accounting system and gain accurate and real-time access to their project financial data across the project lifecycle.

Both customers, as well as the third-party app developers, can use the Procore ERP Connector platform, as the app primarily builds integration that leverages the same functionality that Procore-built accounting integrations deliver, so their field and office teams can collaborate in real-time. The APIs provided by Procore Technologies are solid, reliable, and extensive, and the API supports the financial sectors, as they can easily store the crucial data safe and protected.