Hello Reader,
How many times have you stared at a menu and asked yourself, “What do I want to eat?” and come up with… no answer? Well, now A.I.’s here to help.
A company in San Francisco, Raydiant, is planning to roll out AI-driven kiosks with tiny cameras to scan a customer’s height, age, gender, and mood, and show them tailored meal options. After all, if A.I. can predict which YouTube video I should watch next, why not my next meal?
Meanwhile, CRED has ranked first in LinkedIn’s list of top 25 startups in India, based on four parameters—employee growth, jobseeker interest, employee engagement, and talent acquisition.
The other companies in the top 5 are upGrad, Groww, Zepto, and Skyroot Aerospace.
ICYMI: This luxury cruise ship will allow residents to permanently live at sea, indefinitely touring the world. Accommodation on the cruise ranges from $1 million for a 237-square-foot studio to up to $8 million for an exquisite 1,970-square-foot duplex.
Who’s up for a voyage of a lifetime—literally?
In today’s newsletter, we will talk about
- Are NFTs dead?
- EV cells tailor-made for India
- Build your dream house
Here’s your trivia for today: What is the name of Pringles’ mascot?
Web3
Are NFTs dead?
Throughout 2021, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) were on the top of everyone’s minds, wish lists, and shopping carts. But it’s a different story now.
In fact, the most popular NFT marketplace, OpenSea, reported a decline of over 90% in daily trading volumes since its peak in May. However, not all is lost yet as those running NFT projects are now experimenting with “fractionalisation” to increase demand. Will it work?
Break it down:
- Fractionalising is on the uptick with projects like Unic.ly and Fractional.art experimenting with this method, especially for expensive NFTs.
- But with widely distributed ownership, issues of governance may crop up around “who decides how the original NFT can be used,” says Himanshu Yadav, General Partner and CIO, Woodstock Fund.
- In India, early-stage startups like Estate Protocol, FanTiger, and Artfi are experimenting with fractionalised versions of tokenised assets in music, real estate, art, etc.
<Funding Alert>
Startup: Saveo
Amount: $4.5M
Round: Undisclosed
Startup: unSCRIPT.ai
Amount: $1.25M
Round: Undisclosed
Startup: NATUREPRO
Amount: Rs 50 lakh
Round: Seed
Electric vehicles
Lithium-ion cells tailor-made for India
A team of 30 PhD scientists, working for Hyderabad-based Godi India, is developing indigenous cells (for electric vehicles) that are suitable for Indian conditions.
Godi India is India’s largest advanced cell and supercapacitor manufacturer that caters to the e-mobility and stationary storage systems sectors.
EV cells for India:
- In January this year, Godi India rolled out its first batch of commercial grade 21700 cylindrical NMC811 lithium-ion cells at its facility in Hyderabad.
- Godi India says it is the first company in the country to receive the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) certification for its 21700 cylindrical NMC811 lithium-ion cells.
- Godi India currently works with over 60 suppliers from across the world, including Germany, Japan, Korea, and China, to import materials.
Startup
Build your dream house
Home renovation and construction in India require precise planning and execution.
With a range of end-to-end construction services, WeHouse, a Hyderabad-based startup, aims to simplify the process of building and renovating a house. Incorporated by Sripad Nandiraj (Founder and CEO) and Rohan Reddy (COO), it started operations in 2019.
Brick by brick:
- WeHouse offers a stack of services for residential construction— project management, architectural structure, design, décor and interiors of smart homes, and legal permissions.
- The startup has completed over 200 projects in Hyderabad and over 400 projects are in progress in Hyderabad and Chennai.
- Construction project management contributes 50% to Wehouse’s revenue, while materials management accounts for 30% and interior design projects contribute 20%.
News & updates
- No muzzle please: Elon Musk’s lawyers urged a federal appeals court to throw out a provision in his 2018 consent decree with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requiring a Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) lawyer to vet some of his posts on Twitter.
- Rescue mission: The Bank of England would buy UK government bonds with long maturities “on whatever scale is necessary” in an effort to restore order to the market after a large set of government tax cuts sent borrowing costs soaring.
- Milestone victory: Three decades after the presumed cause of Alzheimer’s disease was identified, a Japanese company little known outside of the pharmaceutical industry has become the first drugmaker to prove the debilitating condition can be slowed.
- Not a child’s play: The rapid rise in voice assistants, including Google Home, Amazon Alexa and Apple’s Siri could, researchers suggest, have a long-term impact on children’s social and cognitive development, specifically their empathy, compassion and critical thinking skills.
What you should watch out for
- The National Academy of Agricultural Research Management (NAARM) is organising a national meet on mainstreaming agricultural higher education by private universities.
- Binance to discontinue support for three stablecoins USDC, USDP, and TUSD.
- World Heart Day.
What is the name of Pringles’ mascot?
Answer: Julius Pringles.
The name actually originated from a ‘Wikipedia hoax’ in 2006, wherein an editor entered the name to the Pringles’ Wiki page. It was subsequently quoted by media outlets and the company officially acknowledged it only in 2013.
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