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Hello,

YourStory hosted its flagship startup-tech summit TechSparks in Mumbai for the first time, with Founder and CEO Shradha Sharma calling it the company’s “homecoming”. Over 1,500 Mumbaikars celebrated the spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation.

The inaugural day brought together trailblazers, innovators, and disruptors of the Indian startup ecosystem, including LogiNext Founder and CEO Dhruvil Sanghvi, actor-turned-investor Dia Mirza, Myntra CEO Nandita Sinha, Chingari Founder Sumit Ghosh, and viral musician Yashraj Mukhate.

Haptik CEO Aakrit Vaish said Mumbai is quite conducive to business, offering high capital density and women’s safety, and home to major corporate headquarters, signalling for more startups to open up to the City of Dreams.

On another note, observing that the present environment is challenging for startups. Multiples Alternate Asset Management’s Sridhar Sankararaman emphasised focus, dominance and value as the keys to surviving the ongoing funding slowdown.

Meanwhile, influencer marketing agency Monk Entertainment’s CEO Viraj Sheth talked about how brands are looking beyond celebrities and tapping into the strengths of content creators to catch the user’s attention. 

There’s a lot more to look forward to on the second and final day of the conference! 

Ajai Choudhry, Co-founder of HCL and EPIC Foundation, will kick off the day recalling his journey in India’s tech landscape. 

Dev Bajaj of Dream Sports will discuss the power of gaming and the levels of disruptions happening in the sector. 

Malaika Arora, best known for her work in Bollywood, will share her story of finding her feet in the entrepreneurial world. 

Also, don’t forget to check out the top 25 companies that are taking over the Web3 space. 

In other news, Zoho Corporation Co-founder Radha Vembu and BYJU’S Founder and CEO Byju Raveendran featured on the M3M Hurun Global Rich List of 2023. India is now home to 187 billionaires—the third-highest in the world.

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• NPCI targets 10B transactions daily
• Dreaming on with Dream11
• Ice Age for Web3 startups

Here’s your trivia for today: Which song became the world’s best-selling digital music single of all time?

Fintech 

NPCI targets 10B transactions daily

India is inching closer to processing 1 billion digital transactions a day, said Dilip Asbe, CEO of NPCI, adding that it is preparing to handle 10 billion daily transactions. At the Mumbai edition of TechSparks 2023, Asbe mentioned that the “billion-a-day target” that he had set for UPI could be 24-36 months away.

UPI soars:

• At present, NPCI processes close to 300 million UPI transactions daily. In February, it processed 7.5 billion transactions.
• India has around 300 million transacting users, and 150 million merchants, both of which can increase by 3 times, making a 9X growth very much possible.
• Almost 500,000 transactions are happening on UPI Lite, and for the first time, there is a digital payment mode faster than a cash settlement.

Funding Alert

Startup: Sorted

Amount: $5M

Round: Seed

Startup: Appbrew

Amount: $2M

Round: Seed

Sports tech

Dreaming on with Dream11

Dream Sports, the parent company of the fantasy gaming platform Dream11, is setting up an innovation centre in collaboration with Columbia University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science to advance research on new-age technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Spo(r)t-on:

• Co-founder and CEO Harsh Jain highlighted that Dream11 has 160 million users so far and is hoping the new innovation lab could help scale up the user base further.
• Entrepreneurs must build companies to solve real problems based on personal experiences instead of just jumping at opportunities, he said.
• He added that he faced about 150 rejections before the fantasy gaming platform was able to raise its first cheque. 
• The co-founder of the fantasy sports platform credits his spouse and family for his and his company’s success.

Web3

Ice Age for Web3 startups

The ongoing funding winter may pose a challenge to Web3 startups, but those building the right product and filling the need gaps will remain relevant and grow, said Neeraj Roy, Managing Director, Hungama Digital Media Entertainment. 

Funding freeze:

• Although he was bullish on the disruption of and demand for Web3 startups, Roy cautioned that capital may not be as easily accessible as it was a few years ago.
• Hungama Digital Media Entertainment started in the music segment as an aggregator and later ventured into mainstream videos and gaming, and now Web3. 
• Last year, Hefty Entertainment, a Web3 initiative of Hungama, launched Hefty Marketplace, a platform of NFTs for the media and entertainment industry. 

News & updates

• Pioneer: Venture capitalist and publisher Bob Metcalfe has been awarded the 2023 Turing Award for his role in creating the networking technology Ethernet. The $1 million prize is awarded each year to people who have made world-changing contributions to computer technology.
• Turnaround: GameStop posted a quarterly profit for the first time in two years, with the shares of the company soaring more than 40% during premarket trading on Wednesday. The video game retailer had been earlier riding on meme-stock momentum but has since reworked its cost structure.
• Cost of living: UK consumer prices jumped by 10.4% in February compared with a year ago as food inflation hit its highest level in more than 45 years. The inflation is partly caused by shortages of vegetables and salads, which led to rationing by supermarkets.

Which song became the world’s best-selling digital music single of all time?

Answer: “Spotlight” by Chinese singer and actor, Xiao Zhan. It has sold more than 54 million copies.

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