Blog

Finally, a truce!

Fintech companies BharatPe and PhonePe have settled all long-standing legal disputes related to the use of the trademark with the suffix ‘Pe’. 

The settlement marks the end of a five-year legal battle that involved multiple courts.

In other news, online travel aggregator EaseMyTrip has restarted online flight and hotel bookings for Maldives after suspending it in support of the government amid India-Maldives row in January.

Moving on, Google was in firefighting mode last week as social media was abuzz with examples of Google’s new AI Overview product saying weird stuff, from telling users to put glue on their pizza to suggesting they eat rocks. 

The messy rollout meant Google had to race to manually disable the product’s specific searches.

Speaking of Google, the search engine’s updates are changing the web… possibly forever. 

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Helping cos make the right acquisitions 
• A beacon of hope for women with disabilities 

Here’s your trivia for today: Which European town inspired Vincent van Gogh’s famous “Starry Night”?

Startup

Helping cos make the right acquisitions 

Incessant news cycles about startups raising millions in funding can give any entrepreneur FOMO. However, the reality is different. Many startups do not gather enough funds and some of them look towards mergers and acquisitions.

Pune-based GrowthPal, an M&A deal-sourcing platform, facilitates small and mid-size M&A transactions for startups.

Key takeaways:

• GrowthPal has secured $1.4 million in funding from Ideaspring Capitaland prominent angel investors including Anand Deshpande from Persistent, and Mukul Kumar from Pubmatic.
• In the past three years, the 30-member team has built over 150 curated M&A pipelines.
• The company has sourced two deals for payment processing firm Razorpay, including risk tech SaaS firm TERA Finlabs, and seven deals for roll-up ecommerce startup GOAT Brand Labs.

Inspiration

A beacon of hope for women with disabilities

The urge to give back to society was ingrained early on in IAS officer Ira Singhal. She grew up in Meerut watching her parents always stepping in to help community members in need.  

Singhal, who lives with hyperkyphosis scoliosis–a spinal condition that causes the spine to curve excessively and deteriorate over time—has 62% locomotor disability. In 2014, she secured an all-India first rank in the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) exam. 

Onwards:

• In the 1990s, in Meerut where she grew up, Singhal couldn’t go to school for six months because of the curfew that was imposed following riots that frequently broke out in Uttar Pradesh. 
• Singhal had passed the exam thrice in 2010, 2011, and 2013, securing ranks that should have ideally got her a posting. Despite acing the UPSC exam, she was denied a posting by the Department of Personnel and Training, owing to her disability. 
• After her final attempt in 2014, Singhal applied to the Central Administrative Tribunal, challenging the decision. After a four-year legal battle, she was finally recruited as the assistant commissioner in the Customs and Central Excise Service in Hyderabad.

News & updates

• New home: Two teams of scientists have discovered a theoretically habitable planet, smaller than Earth but bigger than Venus, orbiting a small star about 40 light-years away. The exoplanet, named Gliese 12b, orbits a cool red dwarf star situated in the constellation Pisces and is about 27% the size of our sun and 60% of its temperature
• Pay day: Proxy advisory firm Glass Lewis said on Saturday it has urged Tesla shareholders to reject a $56 billion pay package for Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk, which if passed would be the largest pay package for a CEO in corporate America.

What you should watch out for

• Awfis IPO: Workspace solution provider Awfis Space Solutions will close its initial public offering on May 27. The IPO was subscribed 11.40 times on Friday. 
• Earnings: While most firms have released their quarterly earnings, companies including some big names such as Tata Steel, PTC India, Reliance Capital, and Apollo Hospitals, among others, will release their financial results next week. 

Which European town inspired Vincent van Gogh’s famous “Starry Night”?

Answer: Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France

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