Listed below are some of the major news of the startup sector, take a look to stay updated:
Swiss healthcare giant Roche eyeing Indian startups to help bring evidence-based medicine
Swiss multinational healthcare firm Roche is looking for startups in India that will help the company bring evidence-based medicine in India through its proprietary technology, according to the company’s newly appointed India head.
Notably, Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is an approach to medical practice intended to optimize decision-making by laying great emphasis on the use of evidence from well-designed and well-conducted research.
Lara Bezerra, Managing Director, Roche (India), said in a media statement that as part of its long-term strategy the company can bring the applications of Flatiron to India. Flatiron is a New York-based health-tech company that it acquired for $1.9-billion, in 2018. It is known for being a market leader in oncology-specific electronic health record (EHR) software, as well as the curation and development of real-world evidence for cancer research.
Amazon offers $2 billion break-up fee in Flipkart Walmart deal talks
US e-commerce giant Amazon has been showing serious intent to acquire home-grown Flipkart has upped the ante and offered breakup fee of around $2 billion.
Amazon through the deal wants to fulfill two purposes. First, it will stop Walmart from entering India, where it has second dominant position after Flipkart. Second, it will have a good hold in growing Indian e-commerce market after losing the market in China to Alibaba.
Flipkart is already in advanced discussions with retail giant Walmart for selling a majority stake, and that deal – which could value it at $21 billion – is more likely to go through.This deal, if finalized, would make Walmart a stiff competition to Amazon.com Inc.Sources that have chosen to remain anonymous have claimed that the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retail giant intends to buy about a third of Flipkart Online Services Pvt, in part by purchasing stakes from Tiger Global Management and SoftBank Group Corp.
IDG Ventures India led a funding of $ 1.87 million in financial advisory startup Kristal. AI
Kristal.AI, an AI-powered digital asset management platform has raised $1.87 Mn in a Seed funding round led by IDG Ventures India. Angel investors including Shailesh Rao (Senior Advisor -TPG, McKinsey) and Amit Gupta (Founding Partner, Newquest Capital) also participated in this funding round.
Kristal.AI currently focuses on investors (clients) in the Singapore, Hong Kong and India (Bengaluru and Mumbai) markets.
The firm deal with sophisticated funds and family offices as well as mass affluent clients, who do not receive the service they should from private banks, as shared by the company in an official statement.
Medical device startup BioSense raises $ 1 Million from Menterra Venture
Menterra Venture Advisors, an impact investment fund that invests in early-stage social startups has announced a new round of investment in Biosense Technologies along with its investment partner Artha Venture Challenge, impact investment initiative of the Singh Family Foundation. Menterra and Artha have provided more than US$1m of direct equity funding and unlocked soft debt funding of more than US$2m through its network. The Mumbai-based startup provides quality, affordable and connected point-of-care diagnostics solutions for chronic diseases in India.
Today’s Take Away:
Easy is not the way out to success. It never was. We all want to taste the fruits of success but hope that the path is not too hard. Well, that is not how it works. We need to get our acts together and work hard so that we can see our dreams come true.
Because, as Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, says,
“I think if it’s easy, someone else has probably done it.”
