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The only thing that travels faster than news is fake news. And in modern times, fake news can travel instantaneously to the farthest ends of the earth. In the past year-and-a-half, the internet has been full of fake news, rumors, conspiracy theories, and misinformation, mostly surrounding one central topic – COVID-19 and its vaccination. This has led to severe consequences, and social media platforms have earned the ire of many for their failure in stopping the spread of fake news. They are slowly correcting this however, and this time YouTube has decided to remove all anti-vaccine content from its platform as part of its stand against misinformation about vaccines. Among the content to be removed includes videos that allege that vaccines cause chronic health effects or contain misinformation on the substances in vaccines, YouTube said in a blog post. This includes not only misinformation on COVID-19 vaccines but also content that claims that commonly used vaccines (like those for Hepa

Continuing to bank on its strong (even though controversial) growth numbers, social commerce platform Meesho, has announced a fresh $570Mn fundraise. The raise comes at a staggering $4.9Bn valuation, more than doubling Meesho’s value within a span of just six months. This latest series F funding round was led by Fidelity Management and Eduardo Saverin’s B Capital. Existing investors Prosus Ventures, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, and Facebook participated. Another set of new investors added include Footpath Ventures, Trifecta Capital, and Good Capital. This round comes after the six-year-old Meesho had become a unicorn in April (it was then valued at $2.1 billion after raising $300 million). Since then, Meesho claims to have tripled its order volume, while adding several new product categories such as sports and fitness, pet supplies, and automotive accessories. For now, it will double down on tech and product capabilities. The Bangalore-headquartered Meesho is known to help small businesses

If the recent acquisition spree from Byju’s did not already make it clear, the edtech industry has been growing at a rate that could not have been imagined back in 2019, thanks to the pandemic and the shift to remote learning. India is one of the biggest markets in the edtech sphere, and has given birth to the likes of Byju’s, Unacademy, and many more. Thus, it’s no surprise that after more than 2 dozen startups, India’s latest unicorn belongs to the edtech market. Today, Vedantu has announced that it has raised $100Mn, surpassing the $1Bn valuation mark. The Series E funding round was led by Singapore based ABC World Asia. Existing investors Coatue Management, Tiger Global, GGV Capital, and WestBridge also “strongly” participated in the round. Vedantu caters to school going kids, and offers live interactive courses for students from grade 6 to 12th. Moreover, it also allows students to prepare for competitive exams such as IIT-JEE, NEET, Commerce, CBSE, ICSE, and state exams such as

The growing trend of taking your business online has caused a massive shift in the industry, leading to unforeseen fortune for organizations that provide smart solutions to make this process easier. Leena AI, an employee helpdesk platform, has raised $30 million in its latest Series B financing round led by Bessemer Venture Partners and included participation from Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin’s B Capital Group and existing investor Greycroft. With this, the start-up has raised $40 million to date. This also comes soon after the Y Combinator-backed company had raised $8 million in its Series A funding round and $2 million as part of its seed round. According to the enterprise SaaS company, the proceeds from the funding round would be used towards the innovation of products to meet the global demand for the platform for new and existing customers, enter into new markets such as Europe and North America, and fulfill the start-up’s plans of growing its employee experience suite to p

The competition in the streaming landscape has reached new heights, thanks to the arrival of new players and the pandemic-fueled rise in demand. This has forced veterans like Netflix and Amazon to explore innovative ways to stay ahead in the race (like the new Prime Video Channels in India). Netflix, which still remains the biggest player in the market, has now acquired Oxenfree developer Night School Studio as it looks to make true on its promise of expanding into the gaming segment. Night School is the first game studio acquired by Netflix. The streaming powerhouse has already rolled out several mobile games in Poland, Spain, and Italy, and is continuing to expand into the sector and diversify its revenue sources as it aims to get an edge over its competitors, including Disney+ and HBO, which have risen to popularity quickly. The terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed yet. According to Sean Krankel, founder and CCO of Night School, the studio wanted to stretch its narrat

Amazon, the e-commerce powerhouse has launched a host of new products. Here is all you need to know of Amazon’s “gifts” ahead of the holiday shopping season: 1. Astro The Astro home robot is equipped with a rotating screen that’s mounted onto a base with wheels, providing a live camera feed. Integrated with Alexa, it responds to voice commands and can be used to perform specific tasks like checking on your kids and pets. Amazon has designed it to be friendly and animated, and it is capable of navigating around objects on the floor or avoiding collisions with obstacles. It also sports AI processors to enable edge computing. Priced at $999.99 for early buyers (it is available on invite-only access), it will be priced at $1,449.99 when it is made widely available. 2. Smart Thermostat The Amazon Smart Thermostat works with most 24V HVAC systems and is integrated with Alexa (which means it accepts voice commands). It is developed with Resideo and will be competing with Google’s Nest. Priced

2021 continues to be a tough year for tech giants as countries across the globe are slowly but steadily putting them under the scanner and even restricting them from blatantly flouting laws. Google is one such powerhouse, and the latest report by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), the nation’s antitrust regulator, has placed the company in more hot waters. The ACCC concluded that new laws needed to be set up to counter and curb Google’s dominance in the adtech sector and that its dominance harmed publishers, advertisers, and consumers. This report is part of a much larger five year inquiry into the actions and practices of online platforms. Google and Australia have had a rocky relationship in recent times, and the latest development comes months after the company had contested Australia’s new content licensing law . The dominance of Google in adtech is evident through the statistics presented in the report – more than 90% of Australia’s A$2.8 billion open displ

Indian business-to-business (B2B) start-up Bijnis headquartered in New Delhi, has raised $30 million in a Series B financing round led by Westbridge Capital. The round also included participation from existing investors InfoEdge, Matrix Partners India, Sequoia Capital India, and Waterbridge Ventures. According to the startup, the proceeds from the round would be utilized towards the growth of its 5000-strong customer base (which comprises retailers and manufacturers), product development for factory management, expanding the technology team, and the creation of more efficient tools to help manufacturers manage their operations and supply chains better. The six-year-old Bijnis, founded by Siddharth Vij, Siddharth Rastogi, Shubham Agarwal, and Chaitanya Rathi, connects small, medium, and large manufacturers in the fashion, footwear, and lifestyle sectors with retailers and helps them build their own distribution channels. It builds digital factory profiles and digitizes factories in orde

As the pandemic led to a hesitancy from using cash among the masses and depleted disposable incomes, people began exploring suitable alternatives. One such alternative is the Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) segment, which has shot into prominence, as India’s fintech sector continues to grow at a ginormous pace. Amazon-backed Capital Float , one of the most popular BNPL startups in India, is getting in on the ride and has announced a fresh $50 million fundraise via some marquee investors. The round was led by private equity firm Lightrock India and included participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital India, Ribbit Capital, and Creation Investments, as well as angel investors such as David Vélez, founder of Nubank, Kunal Shah, founder of Cred, and Amrish Rau, CEO of Pine Labs. The proceeds from this round will be utilized towards the scaling up of its BNPL platform and expanding its partner ecosystem. The seven-year-old startup has already partnered with names such as Amazon, MakeMyTr

LinkedIn is somewhat of a black horse in the social media sphere, and has always stood out due to its ‘different’ offering. The platform is used by professionals around the world to build their network, find jobs, and interact with others in the business world, bringing a different spin to the social media sphere. However, due to its focus at a specific niche, LinkedIn has had trouble coming up with new features that can help entice users to join its services while making sure that it still retains the ‘professional social media’ vibe that it has been designed to have. Now, it looks like it might finally have something new. The platform is working on ticketed events, as it looks to enhance its offering by adding more audio and video related features. The information was made public by a  TC  report , which claimed that it had gotten its hand on some code that pointed to LinkedIn selling tickets. Moreover, it also found a dashboard for organizing these events, allowing users to monitor

Space has remained the final frontier for humanity to conquer, but as the years go by, mankind is coming closer to conquering it. This is spearheaded by the efforts of NASA, Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, and many others. And while they have had their differences , their work has led to several achievements. What remains to be seen is what the teamwork of four major players in the space game will unveil, and the latest prototype agreements awarded by the US Space Force’s Space Systems Command (SSC) might show us just that. That’s right, agreements worth $87.5 million have been awarded to SpaceX, Rocket Lab, Blue Origin, and United Launch Alliance (ULA) for their participation in various technology development projects aimed to advance testing of rocket engines and improvements to the upper stages of the vehicles. This comes after the Space Force had issued requests for prototype proposals for the same. The prototype projects for orbital

With the advent of more powerful GPUs and CPUs, as well as a new generation of consoles, 2020 was a bumper year for gaming, where the huge demand led to a massive shortage in the semiconductor market. All of this has given rise to some massive gaming led conglomerates, one of which is WinZO. The company has been working to revolutionize the gaming scene, and has now announced the third iteration of its Game Developer Fund, with the largest ever corpus of $20MM. With this, the company is looking to invest across all forms of interactive entertainment:  games,  economies around gaming, content creation, live-ops, and security. Moreover, it aims to collaborate with the companies working in these areas through Capital investment, infrastructural support and monetization support. WinZo is one of the biggest gaming platforms in India, and has an interesting business model. The company partners with third party developers to host games on their Android & iOS app, where users can enjoy per

India based golf performance and practice app UpGame has raised an undisclosed amount from Premier League stars  James Milner  and  Adam Lallana   through their firm  White Rose Sports Management . This comes on the heels of a 30X growth in monthly revenues for UpGame since the start of the year. UpGame is a sports performance app dedicated towards the art of golf, a game that has usually evaded the masses in India but it slowly making its way to the mainstream. It allows users to analyze their game and become a better player through a wide slew of  features. This includes a map-based interface and unique metrics, that are shareable between player and coach via the app itself, have led to a 790% increase in data collection from users. While the app started with golf in mind (or as the first game), it is now being used by top professional and amateur players, federations and NCAA college teams. Thus, in essence, UpGame seeks to become more than a golf dedicated platform and hopes to mar

iOS 15 is released to general public. It has many new features and iPhone 13 is coming with this latest iOS version out of the box. Ringtone and text tone are the feature which many of us want to customise according our preferences. iOS 15 comes with many good ringtones but if you want to […] The post How to set any song as ringtone on iPhone – iOS15 appeared first on Tech2Touch . https://ift.tt/2snJPF6 Click the link below to Subscribe via email .. https://ift.tt/2FOLq9L

Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey has been one of the biggest advocates of Bitcoin, and might be the biggest name supporting the cryptocurrency after Elon Musk. Being the CEO of a company like Twitter comes with some perks, including the opportunity to open up an idea to millions of people around the globe. Now, Twitter has announced that it would allow people to ‘tip’ content creators on its platform using Bitcoin, marking a revolutionary step in the currency’s adoption as a viable mode of transaction. Twitter had announced the Tip Jar feature earlier this year, allowing creators to earn money from their followers directly. Back then, this feature only accepted fiat currencies, and relied on traditional payment services such as Square’s Cash app and PayPal’s Venmo. However, now, Twitter is rolling out Tip Jar to all Apple users around the globe, adding that Android phones would receive the feature in the coming weeks. Moreover, from now on, people will be able to tip creators in Bitcoin, usi

Cryptocurrencies have been making their way into the mainstream slowly and steadily, and today, we see more and more organizations opening up to this new technology-be it El Salvador or Twitter. In fact,  Elon Musk had deemed that it would be the currency of the future. Despite this, cryptocurrency continues to have its skeptics, and Asian giant China is one of them. The country has opposed cryptocurrency, especially Bitcoin, for quite some time, and on Friday the People’s Bank of China declared all transactions related to cryptocurrency, including services provided by offshore exchanges to domestic residents, to be illegal and vowed to crack down on the crypto market. According to China’s central bank, all services which offered trading, order matching, token issuance, and derivatives for virtual currencies were strictly prohibited, and transactions related to cryptocurrency must be banned. Bitcoin’s price dropped by around 5% after the announcement was made and was last trading at ar

Amazon Prime Video and Netflix are some of the oldest players in the streaming game in the Indian market, and while Netflix has been able to maintain its dominance in this foreign land as well, Prime Video has fallen off in face of new competition. The newly launched Disney’s Hotstar and Times Internet’s MX Player have higher reach than Amazon Prime Video, which caps out at 55 million monthly users in the country. Now, to compete better with all these streaming platforms, Amazon is launching a bundling option that will allow users to access subscribe to eight streaming services, dubbed ‘Prime Video Channels’. The package will include Discovery+, Mubi, Hoichoi, DocuBay, ErosNow, Lionsgate Play, manoramaMax, and ShortsTV, all from a single interface. Prime Video Channels will allow users to access content from all of these streaming companies at one place. This means that now, users who want to watch Discovery+ can just buy the subscription at Prime Video Channels and watch it directly o

The pandemic has brought forth a tech revolution, at the center of which is the app economy. People have been using apps more than ever before, and if the report by App Annie is any indication, things do not look to be changing anytime soon. The report forecasts that consumers across the globe will spend $34 billion on games and apps in the third quarter of the year, which is a 20% year-over-year increase in expenditure. App Annie’s data is complimented by Sensor Tower’s report, which shows that the top 500 apps in the world average 91.7 million monthly active users, a growth of 8.4% year-over-year during the second quarter and an increase from 84.6 million in Q2 2020. The report claims in-game expenditure and mobile subscriptions would be spearheading the boom in the app economy in the third quarter, which is not really surprising. Gaming apps have been the biggest source of revenue in the app market for quite some time now. App Annie says that 66% of expenditure across the app stores

2021 has already shaped up to be golden year for India’s top startups. While literally dozens of new unicorns took shape, some of India’s 1st-gen unicorns are looking to set for public market debuts. Zomato is the most spectacular example, having registered a spectacular, history creating listing earlier this year. And it seems now Oyo, despite several pandemic-induced business downturns, is in line for an IPO. If reports are to be believed, the hospitality upstart will be filing its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) next week and is planning to raise between $1-1.2 billion in its initial public offering (IPO), according to a report by TechCrunch . Oyo’s plan to list on the stock exchanges in the world’s second-largest internet market has been in the news for quite some time, and filing a DRHP would make it all official. Some of the other firms that are set to enter the public markets include Berkshire Hathaway Inc-backed Paytm and private equity firm TPG-backed Nykaa, Mobikwik, as

Remote learning, remote working and remote entertainment- ever since the pandemic hit last year, everything has been remote, which has led to a massive spike in sales of hardware devices that allow people to go remote. Microsoft, one of the biggest names in the tech game, has been betting heavy on its Surface lineup, which has become quite popular over the past few years. Now, expanding on the series, the company has announced the all-new Surface Laptop Studio and the Surface Duo 2. Let’s delve a bit deeper. Surface Laptop Studio: The 2-in-1 device, that can be folded into a tablet-like device (studio mode, according to Microsoft) and performs all the functions of a laptop, is deemed to be the most powerful Surface ever built by Microsoft. In the words of Pete Kyriacou, VP of Devices at Microsoft, the device is the culmination of years of Surface innovation – on hinges, display, silicon, and more – and brings the best of the Surface heritage together in one powerhouse device. The redes

Competition Commission of India is notorious for keeping a tight check on businesses in the country, and ensuring that they abide by all the anti-competitive laws that prevent the creation of monopolies. However, every now and then, everyone makes a slip up, and for CCI, that happened when a confidential report about an antitrust probe against Google was leaked to the press. Now, Google, which has been unable to review or receive the report, has filed a writ petition in the Delhi High Court against the CCI. The company claims that it seeks “redress in this matter, specifically protesting against the breach of confidence which impairs Google’s ability to defend itself and harms Google and its partners.” Google, which practically rules the smartphone market in India thanks to the unbound proliferation of its Android OS, was accused of using its power to suppress competition. The report claims that Google had reduced device manufacturing firms’ ability and incentive to develop and sell a

Freshworks, Salesforce rival, has become the first Indian SaaS to list on NASDAQ, setting a precedent for others from the country to reap benefits from the flourishing US investor markets. The company had intended to raise $969 million at the top end of its increased price range of $32 to $34 per share, seeking a $9Bn valuation. However, surprisingly, it managed to raise $1.03Bn, by selling 28.5 million shares at $36 per share. Thus, Freshworks was valued at $10.13Bn, making it one of the biggest startups in India and a prestigious member of the country’s decacorn startup club. In response to this stellar opening, the company’s founder and CEO Girish Mathrubootham tweeted: Today is a dream come true for me – from humble beginnings in #Trichy to ringing the bell at @Nasdaq for the FreshWorks IPO. Thank you to our employees, customers, partners, and investors for believing in this dream. #Freshworks #IPO #NASDAQ pic.twitter.com/fXz73YxXXR — Girish Mathrubootham (@mrgirish) Septembe

Even though the Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) segment is in its nascent stage in India, it has been growing at a rapid pace, as the pandemic has led to a shortage of cash for many individuals. This has been beneficial for BNPL startups like ZestMoney, which has raised $50 million as part of its Series C financing round from Australian BNPL startup Zip Co Ltd, which will be acquiring a minority stake in ZestMoney. The round marked the Australian firm’s entry into the Indian market. The eight-year-old Zip has a footprint in 12 markets across five continents and serves more than 7.3 million customers and over 51,000 merchants. Backed by Goldman Sachs, Quona Capital, Xiaomi, and Alteria Capital, and others, ZestMoney has raised over $100 million to date and said that the financing round has not been closed yet, since its existing investors will be participating in it as well. The proceeds from the funding round will be utilized towards expanding ZestMoney’s product suite, deepening the merchant

Business payments facilitator Spenmo has raised $34 million in a Series A investment round. Oversubscribed by a multiple of 5, the round is the largest Series A funding round ever closed for a South-East Asian company which is backed by Y Combinator. It was led by New York-based venture capital and private equity firm Insight Partners and included participation from Lee Fixel’s Addition, Salesforce Ventures, Alpha JWC, Global Founders’ Capital, Broadhaven, Operator Partners, and Commerce Ventures, as well as angel investors William Hockey (Founder of Plaid), Andy Cohen (Ex-SVP of Sales, Bill.com), Ongki Kurniawan (Head of Stripe Indonesia), Kunal Bahl & Rohit Bansal (Founders of Snapdeal), Matt Doka (Founder of Fivestars) and John Kim (Founder of Sendbird.) Prior to this round, the company had raised seed capital from Y Combinator, with participation from Flash Ventures, Rocket Internet, Iterative Capital, and the XA Network. According to the company, the proceeds from the funding

The VC market in India is flourishing, thanks to Indian startups reaching new heights this year. The potential is huge, and thus, venture capitalists have been looking to make new and bold bets. With this in mind, Pentathlon Ventures, a B2B Saas oriented fund founded by ‘founders turned funders’, has announced the close of its maiden fund at ₹76 crore. The firm also notes that the fund was oversubscribed, and will now be used to invest in 20+ B2B SaaS startups in a year and make investments between ₹75 lakh and ₹3 crore on an average. Found by industry veterans Gireendra Kasmalkar (Ideas to Impacts), Sandeep Chawda (formerly MD at Globant India), Madhukar Bhatia (co-founder Sapience Analytics), Saurabh Lahoti (has run 3 early-stage funds in past), Hemant Joshi (Cofounder Sapience Analytics), and Shashank Deshpande (co-founder Clarice Technologies), Pentathlon is looking to serve as a bridge between pre-Seed and Round A for B2B Saas companies. The company is looking to invest in busines