Bits and Bytes: Know about startup, business news in Pune
Incubation and investment platform Atal Incubation Centre-Pinnacle Entrepreneurship Forum (AIC-Pinnacle) announced its plans to incubate 40 new startups from tier-2 and tier-3 cities that are willing to address the ground-level societal issues of ‘Bharat’
Swedish ambassador for sustainable business visits Pune
Swedish ambassador for sustainable business (also known as the CSR ambassador) Cecilia Ekholm, was on a visit to Pune, Mumbai, and Delhi to further strengthen synergies between Sweden and India towards a sustainable future. In Pune, the focus was on meeting Swedish manufacturing companies to understand the challenges faced by them and to discuss their green journey towards sustainable business. Ekholm also met the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) commissioner Shekhar Singh.
Ekholm said, “India is a key partner and therefore I came here as my first bilateral visit since the pandemic. I have had the opportunity to meet decision-makers, businesses, civil society, and students to discuss different sustainability issues such as solutions to climate change, business and human rights, gender equality and labour rights.”
Consul general Anna Lekvall explained, “Ambassador Ekholm’s visit to India is part of the larger context of common Indian-Swedish collaboration for a sustainable future. The partnership aims to increase the impact of bilateral cooperation in innovation, science and technology and covers several areas, including smart cities, transportation and eMobility, energy, clean technologies, new materials, space, circular and biobased economy, and health and life sciences.”
LoanTap launches instant personal loan app ‘LTCash’
LoanTap announced the launch of a new instant personal loan app product called ‘LTCash’ that offers up to Rs. 50,000 in cash without any manual intervention in the loan application and underwriting process and in most cases without the necessity of any paperwork submission. LTCash adheres to fair lending procedures in accordance with Reserve Bank of India norms and is one of the NBFCs to use RBI-approved account aggregators to facilitate a safe and seamless process for a credit eligibility check of the customer.
Satyam Kumar said, “Using an RBI-licensed NBFC account aggregator in the LT-Cash app to improve the whole process is a big step towards lending efficiency and enhancing the in-app experience for the borrowers. It offers a complete online loan procedure in less than 10 minutes to provide a smooth experience for customers. Unique algorithms analyse each customer’s profile faster and tailor the best offers to them in three simple steps. The benefits of this app include quick cash up to 50,000, rates of interest is 24% annually, tenure is 6 months, payments are made in less 24 hours and no document upload is required, 100% digital procedure with minimum income of 30,000.”
LTCash provides loan services through LoanTap’s in-house RBI-registered NBFC LoanTap Credit Products Private Limited. Currently, this app is operational in Pune, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi NCR, Chandigarh, Raipur, Bhopal, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Jaipur, Coimbatore, Indore, Nagpur, Nashik, Lucknow, Bhubaneshwar, Rajkot, Surat, Patna, Mysore, and Vishakhapatnam.
WayCool Foods and UHS-B collaborate to digitize crop productivity practices
Food and agri-tech platform WayCool Foods entered a collaborative partnership with the University of Horticultural Sciences, Bagalkot (UHS-B) to create awareness and support farmers to implement Package of Practices (POPs). The MoU will bring together a rich repository of 125+ crop-specific PoPs under one platform - Outgrow App, making it easier for farmers to access the information at their fingertips.
The partnership also aims to nurture the future talent pool in the agriculture sector by offering internship opportunities. As part of the MoU, students will also be offered training and certification programmes for Outgrow crop advisors and Outgrow network partners.
Sendhil Kumar, head of outgrow and farmer engagement, Waycool said, “Through this collaboration, we want to bring in our technology edge and make the information accessible to farmers at the touch of a button. Our AI-based engagement platform has the existing tech infrastructure and we want to further enhance it with the addition of this PoP digitisation.”
The MoU also establishes the scope for installing Outgrow’s AI-based weather stations at the grape orchard of UHS-B under the National Agricultural Higher Education Program where collaborative research and training programmes will be conducted.
The Yellow Dwelling launches store at Jangli Maharaj Road
The Yellow Dwelling has launched a new store located at Deccan 99 mall on Jangli Maharaj Road. The store is about 1,000 square feet and offers customisation of products for homes. The Yellow Dwelling specialises in hand-crafted cotton and natural fibre home decor in modern designs, fresh, neat, and cheerful colours, paramount weaves, and finishes.
The Yellow Dwelling has stores across Delhi, Hyderabad, and a few in Garden City. Nandakumar, co-founder of The Yellow Dwelling, said, “We are excited to bring our third franchise store to Pune. The store is in the heart of Pune on JM road and easily accessible from all parts of the city. Pune as a city is home to many niche brands that proudly showcase a wide range of handcrafted products. With a large modern urban youth population, we are certain our store will find a space in the homes of the people of Pune.”
AIC-Pinnacle plans to incubate 40 new ‘Bharat’ startups
Incubation and investment platform Atal Incubation Centre-Pinnacle Entrepreneurship Forum (AIC-Pinnacle) announced its plans to incubate 40 new startups from tier-2 and tier-3 cities that are willing to address the ground-level societal issues of ‘Bharat’—where 70 per cent of India resides. The incubator is also eying to facilitate ₹5 crore to start-ups over the next three years across automotive, EV, agritech, IT/IoT/AI, clean energy, health tech, social innovation, and other emerging areas.
AIC-Pinnacle entrepreneurship forum grooms, guides, mentors, connects and supports young, potential, innovative start-ups. Sudhir Mehta, founder, AIC-Pinnacle entrepreneurship forum, highlighted, “The youth from tier-2 and tier-3 cities possess huge potential, talent, and futuristic vision. They deeply understand the ground-level societal problems of ‘Bharat’ and have the ability to come up with innovative-scalable business ideas and solutions that contribute largely to the idea of nation-building. We look forward to onboarding 40 new potential start-ups, whom we will be supporting under various government-supported schemes such as Atal Incubation Mission – AIC, MeitY, TIDE 2.0, MSME Innovative, SISFS, etc to establish a solution-driven economy together.”
