Hello,
Merry Christmas! This festive season, India’s present to itself is a cost-efficient decarbonisation strategy.
The government is reviewing a decade-old $30 billion programme requiring coal-fired power plants to install equipment to cut sulphur emissions, after government-backed studies showed it has little impact in curbing pollution.
Instead, it’s discussing using precipitators, which remove fine particles such as dust and smoke from emissions. And at a fifth of the cost of the previously required desulphurisation systems, that’s a hard deal to pass up.
The stakes for controlling emissions are high, especially with climate emergencies like forest fires becoming more commonplace. But modern problems require modern solutions. And startups are now deploying everything from drones and satellite monitoring to artificial intelligence to come out on top in the war on wildfires.
Clearly, the AI hype is set to roll well into 2025. Case in point: Elon Musk’s xAI just bagged itself a cool $6 billion, bringing its total raised funding to $12 billion so far.
Between plans to train its models on data from Musk’s various companies, including Tesla and SpaceX and provide Tesla with R&D in exchange for some of the carmaker’s revenue, Musk’s vision for xAI is ambitious, especially if it wants to catch up with OpenAI and Anthropic.
The AI race is definitely not for the faint-hearted.
Finally, we all know about the North Pole, but how does the South Pole celebrate its holidays? Scientists at various research posts in Antarctica are ringing in the festivities with crocheted wool baubles, skiing trips, and Antarctic ice cream made with snow from the landscape.
At least a white Christmas is a surefire guarantee!
In today’s newsletter, we will talk about
- IndiQube files DRHP
- Building digital clones
- Automating sales with AI workers
Here’s your trivia for today: Which soda manufacturer is thought to have cemented the rosy-cheeked, bearded Santa Claus associated with Christmas today?
IPO
IndiQube files DRHP, eyes Rs 850 Cr IPO
Workplace solutions provider IndiQube has become the latest company to file its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with markets regulator SEBI to raise funds through an initial public offering (IPO).
The proposed IPO consists of a fresh issue of equity shares of up to Rs 750 crore and an offer for sale of equity shares of up to Rs 100 crore by the promoter-selling shareholders, Rishi Das and Meghna Agarwal.
Capital:
- IndiQube intends to use Rs 462.6 crore of the raised proceeds towards funding capital expenditures related to establishing new centres and Rs 100 crore towards the repayment of certain borrowings availed by the company.
- Founded in 2015, the company currently manages around 103 centres across 13 cities and has a clientele roster ranging from Indian corporates as well as startups such as NoBroker, Redbus, and upGrad.
- The company’s DRHP comes at a time when flexible workspaces are becoming a rising trend in the commercial office market as hybrid working models become more common.
Startup
Building digital clones
Personate.ai is an Uttarakhand based startup that specialises in creating AI-driven digital personas and video content through a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform.
Co-founded by Akshay Sharma and his brother Rishabh Sharma during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, it allows users to generate videos within minutes, using simple text prompts. “You can start creating videos with just a few words, even on mobile devices,” says Akshay.
Key takeaways:
- Personate.ai has attracted a wide range of clients, including corporates, government entities and media houses.
- The company is bootstrapped, and founders used their own funds and provided AI advisory services to corporates to sustain during the initial months.
- The platform is also working to expand its library of avatars, currently at 10, to include diverse ethnicities and scenarios.
Startup
Automating sales with AI workers
Delaware and Bengaluru-based Floworks AI is streamlining sales by using AI-powered employees to handle tasks like prospecting, outreach, and follow-ups. The company says its solutions help businesses improve efficiency and boost conversion rates.
Better flow:
- Floworks AI’s flagship product, Alisha, is an AI sales development representative (SDR) that automates the sales process.
- Currently, the startup’s customer base is primarily located in India and the US, with some in Canada. It is mainly serving software companies, including SaaS and IT services, in the mid-market and enterprise segments.
- As of now, Floworks AI is serving over 50 B2B customers, and by the end of December, the startup expects to have around 100-110 businesses using its solution, shares Shrivastava.
News & updates
- Jumping in: Apple has asked to participate in Google’s upcoming U.S. antitrust trial over online search, saying it cannot rely on Google to defend revenue-sharing agreements that send the iPhone maker billions of dollars each year for making Google the default search engine on its Safari browser.
- Grounded: American Airlines Group said a technical vendor glitch was the cause of a brief groundstop on all US flights on Christmas Eve, one of the busiest days of the holiday travel season.
- Homegrown: Microsoft has been working on adding internal and third-party artificial intelligence models to power its flagship AI product Microsoft 365 Copilot, in a bid to diversify from the current underlying technology from OpenAI and reduce costs.
Which soda manufacturer is thought to have cemented the rosy-cheeked, bearded Santa Claus associated with Christmas today?
Answer: Coca-Cola. In 1931, Coca-Cola commissioned illustrator Haddon Sundblom to paint an image of Santa for their ads and it’s been the basis for Santa Claus ever since.
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