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Hello,

Subscriptions seem to be the flavour of the season.

After Twitter, Facebook and Instagram parent Meta is going to test out a paid ‘Meta Verified’ subscription service that will help users verify their accounts. The goal, CEO Mark Zuckerberg says, is to increase “authenticity and security”. 

Wish there was a service to limit all that doomscrolling. IYKYK.

Meanwhile, Uber is revving up its EV push in India. The company has signed a deal with Tata Motors to enlist 25,000 of its electric cars on the platform. The option will be presented as a ‘premium’ service and is set to roll out in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, and Bengaluru.

Elsewhere, Delhi’s transport department has cautioned bike taxi services such as Ola, Uber, and Rapido to not ply on the city’s roads, saying it violates motor vehicle laws and that aggregators are liable for fines up to Rs 1 lakh.

ICYMI: Can ChatGPT help you find love? 

Valentine’s Day may be over but AI is forever…💘

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• MyGate lays off 30% of employees
• Meat retailer Fipola shuts shop
• Differentiating in a large market

Here’s your trivia for today: Who was the first woman to graduate from dental school?

SaaS

MyGate lays off 30% of employees

MyGate laid off 30% of its employees from teams across cities last fortnight, sources told YourStory. This is the second round of layoffs by the apartment management software provider after raising $12.2 million in November 2022.

The culling:

• The layoffs have affected mainly mid-manager level and junior-level employees across ground operations and community engagement
• MyGate presently has 400 employees, down from nearly 600 before the recent layoffs.
• A source confirmed to YourStory that MyGate offered some employees two months of severance pay while others were not paid any severance. 

Funding Alert

Startup: Mintoak

Amount: $20M

Round: Series A

Startup: GetWork

Amount: ₹7 crore

Round: Pre-Series A

Closure

Meat retailer Fipola shuts shop

Chennai-based meat retailer Fipola has been served legal notice by vendors for non-payment of dues. The company has now begun to liquidate the assets to pay off dues to pay off channel partners, vendors, and other parties.

Key points:

• Sources told YourStory that Fipola has not paid its 850 employees their salaries for nearly two months. 
• Employees also alleged that the company had not deposited its contribution to the Employee Provident Fund.
• Founder Sushil Kanugolu said that Fipola was unable to raise funds due to undesirable market conditions and had shut down operations earlier this month.

Manufacturing

Differentiating in a large market

Domestic electronics manufacturer Veira Group started making cassette players in 1975 amid stiff competition from global players. Nearly 50 years on, the Delhi-based company has invested in R&D facilities, service centres, manufacturing, and testing units, to become an ODM (Original Design Manufacturers) for smart televisions. 

Make in India:

• In 1995, Veira Group started manufacturing VCD players followed by DVD players in 1998.
• The company established a new production facility last year which boosted its capability to produce 10,000 televisions per day.
• In the current fiscal year, it has generated a revenue of Rs 850 crore and projects finishing the year with Rs 1,000 crore as revenue.

News & updates

• Deciding liability: The firestorm over big tech and content moderation is coming to a head at the US Supreme Court, which is set to hear arguments in two lawsuits—one against Google, another against Twitter—this week involving Section 230.
• The old normal: Amazon is asking employees to work from the office at least three days a week, scrapping a prior policy that had left such decisions to senior managers. The mandate takes effect on May 1, CEO Andy Jassy said in a memo to employees and posted on Amazon’s corporate blog.
• A new milestone: Femke Bol broke one of the oldest records in track and field as she set a new world-best time of 49.26 seconds in indoor 400 metres. Bol, running at the Dutch Indoor Championships, beat Jarmila Kratochvílová’s world record of 49.59 seconds set in 1982. 

Who was the first woman to graduate from dental school?

Answer: Lucy Hobbs Taylor, who graduated from the Ohio College of Dental Surgery in 1866.

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