Indian Startup News Ep 51: Byju's to Buy Aakash Institute, Amazon in Edtech & Lava's New Smartphone

This week in Indian Startup News, Lava’s new customizable smartphone, Byju’s potential acquisition of Aakash Institute, Amazon expands into edtech with Amazon Academy, WhatsApp’s new privacy policy, Indian startups set up Atmanirbhar Digital India Foundation and Tesla gets a Bengaluru address.

In funding news, CoinSwitch Kuber raises $15 million. Zupee raises $10 million and Chalo raises $7 million.

00:00 Introduction
00:30 Lava’s new customizable smartphone
01:54 Byju’s potential acquisition of Aakash Institute
03:15 Amazon expands into edtech with Amazon Academy
05:46 WhatsApp’s new privacy policy
07:30 Indian startups set up Atmanirbhar Digital India Foundation
08:18 Tesla gets a Bengaluru address
08:40 CoinSwitch Kuber raises $15 million
09:45 Zupee raises $10 million
10:35 Chalo raises $7 million

Lava’s new customizable smartphone: Indian smartphone manufacturer Lava has launched five new smartphones: Lava Z1, Lava Z2, Lava Z4, Lava Z6 and myZ. The company is claiming its myZ to be the world’s first customizable smartphone which offers 66 different combinations of rear camera, front camera, RAM, storage and colour and an option to upgrade their phone for a small fee.
https://www.livemint.com/technology/g...

Byju’s potential acquisition of Aakash Institute: Indian edtech behemoth Byju’s could expand into offline education space with the potential acquisition of Aakash Educational Services which operate more than 200 Aakash Institute coaching centers. This deal is expected to be worth a massive $1 billion (Rs 7,305 crore).
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...

Amazon expands into edtech with Amazon Academy: Amazon to take on Indian edtech giants like Byju’s and Unacademy by launching its own edtech platform Amazon Academy. Amazon Academy will be offering free live online classes, real-time doubt solving sessions, mock tests, and detailed step by step solutions to students preparing for IIT JEE exams. The company wants to get more people to experience their platform and spread more awareness before it starts charging for its platform.
https://blog.aboutamazon.in/our-busin...

WhatsApp’s new privacy policy: WhatsApp has updated its privacy policy and while this means that WhatsApp will be sharing more commercial user data and metadata with Facebook, the company has clarified that our personal chats with family and friends will continue to remain safe and secure. However, our chats with businesses on WhatsApp will be shared with Facebook and its companies for the purposes for personalized ads.
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...

Indian startups set up Atmanirbhar Digital India Foundation: Indian startups have come together to set up Atmanirbhar Digital India Foundation in order to provide a level playing field for Indian companies and to build an open and fair technology ecosystem for the country.
https://yourstory.com/2021/01/indian-...

Tesla gets a Bengaluru address: Tesla is officially in India and they have set up their Indian subsidiary named Tesla India Motors and Energy in Bengaluru.
https://www.livemint.com/companies/ne...

CoinSwitch Kuber raises $15 million: CoinSwitch Kuber has raised $15 million (Rs 110 crore) in Series A round from Ribbit Capital, Paradigm, Sequoia Capital India and Kunal Shah (Founder of CRED).
https://www.livemint.com/companies/ne...

Zupee raises $10 million: Zupee has raised $10 million (Rs 73 crore) from WestCap Group and Matrix Partners India.
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...

Chalo raises $7 million: Chalo has raised $7 million (Rs 51 crore) from Raine Ventures, Neeraj Arora (former Chief Business Officer of WhatsApp) and Amit Singhal (Founder of Sitare Foundation and Former Senior VP at Google).
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...

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