Hello,
Apparently, there is such a thing as ‘too much money’.
Asset management firm Blackstone’s plan to raise money from retail investors, rather than giant institutions, has been ‘too successful’. It is now striking deals with smaller private equity firms on their buyout deals, according to Semafor.
Closer home, India’s retail inflation rate eased slightly in May at 4.75%—down from 4.83% in April—partly helped by a fall in fuel prices, according to government data. Food prices, however, remained high.
In other news, the initial public offer (IPO) of Le Travenues Technology, the parent company of travel booking platform ixigo, got subscribed 98.1 times on the closing day of subscription on Wednesday.
Moving on, India is a hotbed for startups and a key market where Google Cloud is doubling down on its investment efforts, said Matt Renner, President and Global Sales Leader, Google Cloud, who is on an India visit.
ICYMI: Bath has a lot more to offer than just being the pretty backdrop of Netflix’s Bridgerton.
Oh, and a new study has found that elephants call each other by name!
In today’s newsletter, we will talk about
- Gen AI solutions for developers
- Wakefit sees profitability on the horizon
- Sangeeta Bavi’s tech journey
Here’s your trivia for today: What was Indonesia called before its independence in 1945?
Startup
Gen AI solutions for developers
Anshuman Pandey, Naman Maheshwari, and Rohan Pooniwala created Tune AI to help enterprises and developers leverage generative AI for their applications and workflows.
“We were one of only four companies, alongside major players, to get Meta’s Llama 2 available for internet users within just 24 hours of its release to the public,” Naman tells YourStory.
Maximising efficiency:
- Tune Chat is an AI chat app that provides powerful models for text generation, code generation, and brainstorming. It fine-tunes, deploys, and manages the Gen AI model lifecycle, and enables data security with enterprise-grade compliance.
- “Tune Studio is being used by builders in AI to whip up quick prototypes, which is to build applications… Use cases could range from a simple API integration and LLMs to giving responses or building an AI agent,” Naman adds.
- Some of its prominent customers include agriculture AI startup Kissan AI; AmalgamRx, a US-based healthtech firm; and Juicy Chemistry. Some of its other clients are from the information services and healthcare industries.
Funding Alert
Startup: Foxtale
Amount: $18M
Round: Series B
Startup: Smartworks
Amount: Rs 100 Cr
Round: Equity
Startup: CredAble
Amount: Rs 30 Cr
Round: Debt
D2C
Wakefit sees profitability on the horizon
Wakefit.co expects to turn a net profit by the end of the fiscal year 2024-25, backed by home furnishing and Tier II penetration, Co-founder and CEO Ankit Garg told YourStory.
“So, this whole omnichannel is working much better for us compared to just being online or offline,” said Garg.
Key takeaways:
- Wakefit.co is banking on its expansion, especially penetration in Tier II and Tier III cities. It plans to open 130 stores by the end of FY25, of which 40% are expected to be in Tier II towns.
- For FY24, the company expects to turn EBITDA-positive and record a turnover of Rs 900-1,000 crore. It plans to go public in 2-4 years.
- It rolled out two tech-backed offerings under its premium smart sleep solutions. Regul8 is a mattress temperature controller while Track8 is a contactless sleep tracker.
Women in tech
From Sholapur to Microsoft leader
Sangeeta Bavi comes from a family of doctors and chose to do engineering instead. She joined REC Warangal (now NIT) to major in computer engineering, leading to a career spanning 24 years in the tech industry.
She is currently Executive Director-Digital Natives at Microsoft India, where she established the ISV-GTM programme for India, focusing on core commercial aspects.
Tech journey:
- As part of the UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) project, Bavi led a team to launch the first integrated fingerprint sensor with a mobile device while at Nokia.
- “I was part of the team that worked on creating the playbook for incubating the startup business in India, and it became a model for Microsoft globally,” she adds.
- Through the Microsoft India leadership programme, she, along with others, encourages Microsoft women leaders who have taken a break due to motherhood or various reasons.
News & updates
- Dieselgate: Shares of European carmakers—Porsche, BMW, Volkswagon—fell on Wednesday following a report that some of the world’s largest auto manufacturers face possible lawsuits in Britain for allegedly cheating emissions tests.
- Higher tariff: The European Union on Wednesday said it would slap higher tariffs on Chinese electric vehicle imports, which it found benefit “heavily from unfair subsidies” and pose a “threat of economic injury” to EV producers in Europe.
- Space travel: A study into the impact of spaceflight suggests women may be more resilient than men to the stresses of space, and recover more quickly when they return to Earth. The findings are preliminary, but if the trend is confirmed, it could prove important for astronaut recovery programmes and selecting crews for future missions to the Moon and beyond.
What was Indonesia called before its independence in 1945?
Answer: Dutch East Indies
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