Hello friends and welcome back to the week in retrospect! I’m back from a very fun and rehabilitative few weeks away from my phone, twitter account, and messaging cycle. Still, I really missed writing this newsletter and while Greg did a fantastic job in my absence, I won’t be releasing the reins anytime soon. A … Read more
Disrupt is just around the corner and this year the show is filled to the brim with incredible panels and conversations, an absolutely stacked Startup Battlefield cohort of companies launching on our stage, investor insights and a virtual exhibition hall full of exciting new products and services in Startup Alley . We can hardly wait! … Read more
Manav Garg is CEO and founder of Eka Software Solutions and founding partner of SaaSboomi and Together Fund. Software as a service is one of the most important technology sectors today. While its transformative potential was fairly clear prior to the pandemic, the sudden shift towards dispersed workforces skyrocketed interest in SaaS products as medium … Read more
In an APK teardown of the latest version of the Peloton Android app, 9to5Google found evidence that the company is preparing the software to support a rowing machine in the near future. The point of sale found various code snippets that mentioned a device with the code names “Caesar” and “Mazu”. The latter is a … Read more
Choosing an insurance policy is one of the most complicated financial decisions a person can make. Jakarta-based Lifepal aims to simplify the process for Indonesians with a marketplace where users can compare policies from more than 50 vendors, get help from licensed agents, and make claims. The startup, which it claims to be the largest … Read more
Amazon launched India’s first celebrity voice feature on Alexa with the country’s biggest movie star, Amitabh Bachchan, as the company seeks to attract more users to the world’s second most populous country. The company, which introduced Samuel Jackson’s voice on Alexa in the US in 2019, said users in India could add the voice of … Read more
Floods are devastating. They are tearing apart communities, devastating neighborhoods, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people each year, and it can take years to recover – provided recovery is possible at all. The US government estimates that floods (excluding hurricanes and tropical storms) have caused an estimated $ 160 billion in damage and killed … Read more
Twitter introduced a new testing feature on Tuesday that allows users to report any misinformation they encounter on the platform and report it to the company as “misleading”. The test will roll out to most users in the United States, Australia, and South Korea starting today. In the new test, Twitter users can expand the … Read more
Many Southeast Asian digital companies encounter early-stage obstacles when looking for growth finance. They may not want to sell equity in their business, but they often struggle to secure working capital loans from traditional financial institutions. This is where Singapore-based Jenfi comes in, offering revenue-based funding of up to $ 500,000 with flexible repayment plans … Read more
Rapido, a bicycle taxi aggregator in India, announced Monday that it has raised $ 52 million in a new round of funding as the six-year-old startup seeks space in an Ola and Uber-dominated category in the South Asian market. The six-year-old startup’s new funding – Series C – was funded by Shell Ventures, Yamaha, Kunal … Read more