Ronnie Screwvala-led upGrad Achieves Unicorn Status

Yet another Indian education tech startup has achieved a unicorn status. This time it is the Ronnie Screwvala-led upGrad, which offers higher education and upskilling courses in data science, machine learning, artificial intelligence, blockchain, finance, programming and law in collaboration with universities such as Michigan State University, the IIT Madras and IIT Delhi, and Swiss School of Business Management, Geneva.

The six-year old startup has achieved the unicorn status after raising $185 million in its latest funding round, which was led by Singapore’s Temasek. Among the participants in the round were World Bank’s International Finance Corporation and IIFL.

“We are pleased with the investor interest ever since we opened up for fundraise and had our maiden raise from Temasek, followed by IFC and IIFL in the last 60 days,” said Ronnie Screwvala, co-founder and chairperson of upGrad, in a statement.

Prior to the latest funding round, upGrad was valued at $600 million. Now, its valuations stands at $1.2 billion. Screwvala has said that upGrad will use the funding to explore merger and acquisition opportunities.

There have been many edtech startups based out of India that have seen fantastic growth in the recent quarters, including the famed Byju’s and Unacademy. Now, upGrad with its latest round joins the ranks of such soaring edtech companies from India.

 

HGS to Divest its Healthcare Services Biz

Hinduja Global Solutions Limited has announced that it will be divesting its healthcare services business. The healthcare services biz will be bought by Baring Private Equity Asia for a reported $1,200 million. Baring Private Equity Asia is one of the largest private alternative investment firms in Asia.

The HSG healthcare services delivers solutions that support payer, providers, laboratories, durable medical equipment firms and pharmaceutical companies. These services cover the entire lifecycle of a payer organization, including member acquisition, enrollment & billing, benefit set-up, claims adjudication, provider credentialing & data management, payment integrity & financial recovery, grievance & appeals, provider & member engagement, prior authorizations, case management and population health management, and the various functions in the revenue cycle of a provider organization.

“Our Healthcare Services business has steadily grown over the years. We reached a stage where we could recommend to promoter to divest stake in this business to unlock value for all HGS stakeholders. We will use the generated funds to strategically invest for the future growth of the organization. We see a long-term value and benefit to HGS in doing so. HGS will continue to focus on aggressively expanding its CES and Digital businesses in line with our goal to transform itself into a "digitally-enabled customer experience (CX) company", said Partha DeSarkar, Global CEO, HGS.

With over 20,000 employees on its payroll across India, Philippines, the US, and Jamaica, the company recorded $400 million in revenues in FY2021. In a statement, HGS said that post the completion of transaction, HGS will transfer all client contracts, employees, and assets, including infrastructure related to the Healthcare Services business.

 

 

Biden Aims to Boost Electric Car Sales, Fuel Efficiency in the US

President of the United States of America Joe Biden has recently signed an executive order calling for new automobile emissions standards and setting a new goal of having new vehicles sold in the US be electric by 2030.  In a recent press meet, The White House said that the target would include battery-electric, plug-in hybrid electric, and fuel cell electric vehicles.

Many leading automotive manufacturers have made voluntary commitments in line with the administration's goals. Most renowned automakers like Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis have said in a joint statement that even they aspire to have electric vehicles make up 40 to 50 percent of new sales by 2030. Toyota has also stated that it will do its part by increasing the manufacturing of electric vehicles.

Automakers said that such a shift would require more than just them making different types of cars. They stated that the government would have to support incentives for both car manufacturers and buyers to choose electric vehicles, money to expand electric vehicle supply chains, and enough funding to build sufficient charging points across the country.

 

Huawei Unveils Its Plan to Commit $100Mfor Startups in APAC

At the inaugural HUAWEI CLOUD Spark Founders Summit that took place simultaneously in Singapore and Hong Kong, Huawei has announced that it will be investing $100 million on the startup ecosystem in the Asia Pacific region for the next three years. This investment will go towards its Spark Program in the Asia Pacific region, which aims to build a sustainable startup ecosystem.

Huawei also announced that this program will focus on developing startup ecosystem in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The company aims to recruit a total of 1,000 startups into the Spark accelerator program and is looking to shape 100 of them into scaleups.

“Startups and SMEs are the innovators, disruptors, and pioneers of our times. 34 years ago, Huawei was a startup with just 5,000 dollars of registered capital. Recently, we have been thinking: How can we leverage our experience and resources to help more startups address their challenges? Doing so would allow them to seize the opportunities posed by digital transformation, achieve business success, and develop more innovative products and solutions for the world,” said Huawei Senior Vice President and Board Member Catherine Chen.

Last year, Huawei launched the Spark Program in Asia Pacific to work with local governments, well-known VC firms, leading incubators, and top universities to build support platforms for startups. Currently, 40 startups are participating in this program.

 

Neobanking Startup Jupiter Raises $44M in Series B

Neobanking startup Jupiter is now valued at $300 million after it raised $44 million in its Series B round. The round was led by Brazil-based Nubank, Sequoia Capital India, Matrix Partners India, and Global Founders Capital. Mirae Assets Venture also joined the round. Existing investors Tanglin VC, 314 Capital, Beenext, Greyhound, and Addition Ventures participated in the round.

Jupiter was founded in 2019 and was established as a neobank for the consumers in India. Earlier, Jupiter had raised $25 million in seed funding and Series A rounds. With the latest funding round, Jupiter has more than doubled its valuation.

The latest funding will be used by the 100% digital bank to recruit talent and scale up its business.

“Nubank and Jupiter share the mission of making banking the best experience possible for our customers, putting an end to all the bureaucracy and the pain in the current system. The Indian and Brazilian markets have many similarities and through this investment, we aim to support Jupiter in their growth path. We see a lot of potential and are excited about joining them so early on their journey,” said David Vélez, founder and chief executive of Nubank, in a statement.

Jupiter was founded by the industry-veteran Jitendra Gupta who wants to solve India’s inflexible traditional banking system.

 

CIBC Innovation Banking to Provide Karbon with Credit Facility to Support its Growth Plans

CIBC Innovation Banking, in a recent press meet, has announced that it has provided a $5 million credit facility to Nevada-based Karbon Inc. ("Karbon"), which predominantly offers industry-leading practice management software for various accounting firms. The company plans to use this facility to support its hiring plans and to further improve and invest in its diverse product set.

Founded in 2014, Karbon's cloud-based solution enables accounting practices to manage internal workflows and communications more efficiently. It currently has employees across the USA with extensive experience in the accounting and software development industries and offices in New Zealand, the UK, and Sydney, Australia.

Desktop legacy solutions have historically dominated the workflow software market, and the immediate shift to 'work from home' provided an opportunity for Karbon, which saw its active users double in 2020. Accounting practices with cloud-based workflow versus legacy desktop solutions immediately realized the value of having the flexibility to work from anywhere efficiently. With the support of the CIBC Innovation Banking team, Karbon will continue building its product set and become the premium cloud-based workflow solution for accountants.

 

 

The software supply chain security provider, Dustico, has been acquired by Checkmarx, the global leader in developer-centric application security testing (AST) solutions. Through this acquisition, Checkmarx will combine its AST capabilities with Dustico’s behavioral analysis technology to give customers a unified view into the risk, reputation, and behavior of open source packages, resulting in a more comprehensive approach to preventing supply chain attacks.

“We’re thrilled to welcome Dustico and its team to Checkmarx as the Israeli tech ecosystem continues to push the boundaries of cybersecurity innovation and talent,” said Emmanuel Benzaquen, CEO, Checkmarx. “Blending Dustico’s differentiated approach to open source analysis with Checkmarx’s best-of-breed security testing capabilities will bring disruptive value to our customers as they manage the challenges with securing software supply chains.”

The financial terms of the acquisition were not made public. But with Dustico, Checkmarx will be building on its mission to secure open source by enabling customers to perform vulnerability, behavioral, and reputational analysis from a single solution.

“This is a very exciting time for Dustico and our community,” said Tzachi Zornstain, Co-Founder and CEO, Dustico. “We founded Dustico to help organizations cope with the explosion in supply chain and dependency attacks and fortify their trust in open source software, and we’re thrilled to join Checkmarx to further execute on this vision and bring our capabilities to a global set of customers.”