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Nisha Hussain learned the tricks of the trade by quitting her job and working at a tea cafe . She now operates ‘The Chailand’, selling 10 flavors of tea. Nisha Hussain,believes in a simple success formula. The 28-year-old woman from Rajkot who runs a tea business says, " You should perform the task you like with pride, not shame." Despite family objections, Nisha quit her job as a computer operator in 2017. She then sold tea from a handcart the following year. She is now known as the 'chaiwali of Rajkot,' and her booth, 'The Chailand,' offers up to ten different flavours of tea. "I tossed out most of my tea for at least 15 days straight," Nisha says. People began flocking to The Chailand as a result. It makes me very delighted when people refer to me as Rajkot's chaiwali "She continues. You can drink a cup of normal tea for Rs 10 at Nisha's kiosk. But her flavoured teas sell for Rs 30. Nisha's best-selling ...

Suraksha Mudblock was founded by two friends, Sathwik S and Pradeep Khanderi. The business promotes the building of eco- friendly mud homes. One of the disadvantages of increased urbanisation is that we frequently overlook the ancient wisdom that has moulded sustainable living in India for generations. This is seen in worrying statistics: from 57% in 1971 to 28.2% in 2011, the number of earthen buildings has quickly fallen. There is a shifting preference for cement in the construction of dwellings today. This is damaging to the environment and one of the key causes of climate change. However, two friends from Karnataka are attempting to reverse the trend and reintroduce traditional mud houses. Suraksha Mudblock was founded in 2016 by Sathwik S, a management expert, and his friend Pradeep Khanderi, an automobile engineer. The organisation builds houses with interlocking mud block bricks and supports environmentally friendly building practises. "After finishin...

The Covid-19 pandemic has led to a major change in the workplace, making remote work the new normal. According to one poll, 82% of respondents said they want to work from home rather than return to the office. According to the Tech Talent Outlook by employment site SCIKEY, the remote work trend was initially forced on employees owing to the pandemic, but after two years remote working has become a new normal and as things settled down, new habits have evolved. According to the report, 82% of respondents prefer working from home to working in an office. The Talent Tech Outlook 2022 report is based on an examination of feedback from more than 100 C-suite and human capital leaders from four continents, conducted by SCIKEY through surveys and social media. According to the report, 64% of employees are more productive and less stressed when they work from home. According to the report, the new normal for HR has switched from face-to-face interactions to interactions w...

In 2009, Iqbal Thangal founded Techno Cap Equipment Private Limited, a container home / office company. The business now clocks a turnover of Rs. 5 crore. Iqbal Thangal produced candles and perfumes in Class 12 and sold them to shop owners, without getting paid for them. It was a great disappointment for the adolescent, who lost all of his savings in the small business he had founded. However, but the bad experience did not put out the zeal in him, and he continued to cultivate his ambition of becoming an entrepreneur. At the age of 27, Iqbal invested Rs 3 lakh in an unusual endeavour involving the construction of living spaces, residences, offices, and even swimming pools out of repurposed freight containers, which has since developed into a Rs 5 crore turnover company, Techno Cap Equipment Private Limited, based in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. Iqbal, "Our customers exist in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka and they range from corporations looking to construct labour q...

Krishnan Subramanian and Gowri Gopinath quit their jobs to return to Madurai and start an eco-friendly venture. YellowBag clocked a turn over of Rs. 3 crore before the pandemic. Gowri Gopinath and Krishnan Subramanian had always wished to return to their homeland of Madurai and live a modest lifestyle while working in corporate professions in Bengaluru and Chennai. With their drive to promote eco-friendly cloth bags as an alternative to single-use plastics in 2014, their ambition of returning to their roots began to take shape. We thought about it and realised that we needed to move away from plastics and toward something more environmentally friendly and long-lasting "Krishnan remarked. The pair began by raising awareness among their friends and family about the importance of switching to cloth bags. YellowBag was founded in 2014 due to the needed of boosting production, after the couple started receiving more order requests. After eight years, the proj...

Perfios has secured around $70 Mn in a funding round. This makes it the tenth business that has joined the Indian unicorn club in 2022. Perfios has become a unicorn after raising around $70 million from its current investors Bessemer Venture Partners, and Warburg Pincus. The Bengaluru-based fintech startup has secured the amount in it Series C funding round. Earlier this month, the startup announced it will give Warburg Pincus and Bessemer India Holdings a total of 4,16,336 Series C CCPS. Warburg Pincus is pumping about $55 million, with Bessemer infusing the remainder. In addition, the business intends to raise roughly $40 million in debt funding this year. The new financing comes nearly 27 months after it raised $50 million in its Series B investment from Warburg Pincus and Bessemer Venture Partners. Several investors were said to have exited the firm at the time. Perfios is a credit decisioning and analytics firm founded in 2009 by V R Govindarajan and Deb...

Perfios has secured around $70 Mn in a funding round. This makes it the tenth business that has joined the Indian unicorn club in 2022. Perfios has become a unicorn after raising around $70 million from its current investors Bessemer Venture Partners, and Warburg Pincus. The Bengaluru-based fintech startup has secured the amount in it Series C funding round. Earlier this month, the startup announced it will give Warburg Pincus and Bessemer India Holdings a total of 4,16,336 Series C CCPS. Warburg Pincus is pumping about $55 million, with Bessemer infusing the remainder. In addition, the business intends to raise roughly $40 million in debt funding this year. The new financing comes nearly 27 months after it raised $50 million in its Series B investment from Warburg Pincus and Bessemer Venture Partners. Several investors were said to have exited the firm at the time. Perfios is a credit decisioning and analytics firm founded in 2009 by V R Govindarajan and Deb...

Induben, from Gujarat, owns and operates Chilli and Cheese, a home-cooked food business that serves delectable vada pav. The adventure began when she was involved in a catastrophic accident that profoundly altered her life. Induben Rajput of Mehsana, Gujarat, was involved in a bike accident in 2017 that left her spine gravely wounded, with many cracks and compressed nerves. She was recommended to spend the entire day in bed in order to avoid a permanent back problem. This put the mother of three in a difficult situation. Her stitching business was just getting started, and her hard-earned money was going towards her pricey medical treatment. Her husband, a government clerk at the time, took out many loans to pay for her post-surgery treatment and their children's education. Induben, 44, said, "Our lives were devastated after that occurrence. I felt helpless because I had lost my money. My husband worked longer hours since I stayed in bed all day. I'd nee...

With Rs 6 lakh, Varun Sarda established Wtfares as an airline ticket booking portal in 2014.  The company has since then clocked a Rs 20 crore turnover. Varun Sarda, the founder of wtfares, a Nagpur-based online travel company, has an unique narrative to his Rs 20 crore-turnover company, which he launched with a Rs 6 lakh investment eight years ago. In 2013, he used a renowned travel portal to book flights from Nagpur to Delhi for himself and his father, as well as a hotel in Delhi for their stay. However, when he arrived in Delhi, he was horrified to learn that the hotel was no longer in operation, having closed down six months prior. " "Back in Nagpur, he recounted his traumatic experience on social media, and the positive feedback he received inspired him to start his new business. He worked as an independent travel agent booking aeroplane tickets for six months to acquire a feel for the industry and gather experience before taking the plunge. Va...

Pocket FM has secured $65 million in a Series C round of funding. The audio-streaming startup is looking to expand into additional languages, grow its network of audio content creators, and assist them in monetizing their work on the platform. Pocket FM has raised $65 million in Series C fundraising headed by Goodwater Capital, South Korean internet behemoth Naver, and current investor Tanglin Venture Partners. This round of funding comes roughly three months after the company received $22.4 million in Series B capital in December of last year. To date, the business has received $93.6 million in funding from investors including Lightspeed, Tencent, Times Group, and Tanglin Venture Partners. The money raised will be used by the Gurugram-based firm to develop its product, extend to additional languages, invest in artificial intelligence capabilities, scale its community of audio content makers, and assist them in monetising on the platform. CEO of Pocket FM, Rohan ...

Accel has announced a new fund to back Indian startups. The storied venture investor is looking to double down on its bet on the world’s second-largest internet market. Accel has announced the launch of its seventh India fund, with a $650 million investment target, as it seeks to double down on its bet on the world's second-largest internet market while simultaneously becoming more active in Southeast Asia. The new fund's announcement comes less than two and a half years after Accel's sixth fund, which debuted in late 2019. The first round of checks for the new venture are scheduled to be wired within a few weeks. The Silicon Valley venture capital firm was among the first to invest in India. In the South Asian country, the corporation has a sizable portfolio of unicorn businesses. Some of its notable investments include backing Flipkart, which sold a majority stake to Walmart in 2018; top food delivery startup Swiggy; and Freshworks, which went publi...

Scaler has bought AppliedRoots, an online learning platform. The deal is aimed at bolstering Scaler’s data science, and other offerings. Scaler, an India-based edtech business, has paid US$50 million for online learning platform AppliedRoots in order to expand the former's data science, Artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning offerings. Scaler, which is backed by Sequoia Capital India and Tiger Global, focuses on reskilling college students and tech professionals. Over 1,000 tech leaders and subject matter experts from companies like Google, Facebook, Intuit, Microsoft, and Amazon teach users on the platform. AppliedRoots, founded by Srikanth Varma Chekuri, Murali Krishna Varri, Naveen Krishnakanth Bade, Brahma Reddy, Srinivas Reddy, and Satish Atcha, has serviced over 40,000 students in the last four years. It offers diploma courses in AI, machine learning, and coding. As part of the agreement, all six co-founders of AppliedRoots will join Scaler and ...

Hema’s Veg Rasoi has so far served more than 10,000 healthy meals inspired from the traditional dishes of Maharashtra. The business was founded by a Mumbai couple, Prashant and Hemangi Nakwe. Hemangi Nakwe, a 46-year-old woman from Mumbai, decided to use her cooking skills to launch Hema's Veg Rasoi on July 13, 2020, despite the current pandemic. She says it's been a rewarding experience, having served over 10,000 dinners so far. "This is the millennial generation, whose taste buds have been accustomed to pizza and burgers. With the debut of Hema's Veg Rasoi, I hope to show how delicious our traditional meals are," says Hemangi, who has brought joy to many people via her cooking. She says, "When I first arrived at my husband's house as a new bride, my mother-in-law handed over some of her mother-in-traditional law's kitchenware. The stone grinder and brass utensils were passed down to me, and they still have a special place in my ki...

Kuhoo has secured $20 million in a seed round. The startup will now form partnerships to provide credit to students. Kuhoo, a Mumbai-based fintech startup focused on education, has secured $20 million from WestBridge Capital in a seed round. The business is now trying to work with banks and non-banking finance institutions (NBFCs) as well as premier colleges in India to provide credit to students as a result of the funding. Kuhoo, founded by Prashant A. Bhonsle, offers digital loans to students applying to Indian and international colleges. Currently, the startup focuses on providing loans for higher education courses such as engineering, business administration, executive education, and online courses, among others. Kuhoo competes with Propelld, which focuses on giving individual education loans, and Sequoia-backed Eduvanz, which lends to those wishing to reskill and upskill. In February, Propelld raised $35 million in a Series B investment headed by WestBr...

A man, who was banished from Patiala, built one of the largest business empires in India. Here's the inspiring story of Gujarmal Modi started the Modi Group with a sugar mill. It was 1932, and a young man had been expelled from the state of Patiala. What was his crime? In a celebratory banquet at the Patiala Palace, he had denied a sip of alcohol. The fact that the man was a teetotaller had made no difference to the maharaja. The restriction proved beneficial, as the 30-year-old fled Patiala and built one of India's largest commercial empires. Gujarmal Modi chose Begumabad, a small village on the outskirts of Delhi, as the site for his new plant. The seeds of the Modi Group were planted here. Starting with a sugar mill, he built a conglomerate that included companies that produced tyres, textiles, copy machines, cigarettes, pharmaceuticals, oil, and steel, to name a few. The narrative of an ambitious young man who saw misfortune as an opportunity and went on ...

ClaimBuddy has secured $3 million in a pre-Series A funding round. The startup will use the money to bolster technology framework and boost sales and marketing efforts. Insurtech startup ClaimBuddy, has bagged INR 21 crore $3 Mn) in a Pre-Series A round of funding led by Chiratae Ventures and Rebright Partners. Titan Capital and Relentless Ventures, both existing investors, also participated in the investment round. It should be noted that ClaimBuddy was just accepted into Chiratae Ventures' inaugural seed investing project, Sonic. The 19 selected firms came from a variety of industries, including consumer technology, SaaS, deeptech, and healthtech. In addition, ClaimBuddy is an insurtech firm that provides hospitals with digital infrastructure for their patients' health insurance claims. Khet Singh and Ajit Patel founded the firm in June 2020, claiming to be a one-stop solution for insurance claims processing by combining technology and robust operations. ...

Niyo has secured $100 million in its Series C funding round. The startup will use the money to innovate its products, marketing and branding, among other things. Niyo, a consumer neo-banking platform, has secured $100 million in a Series C round headed by Accel and Lightrock India, with Beams Fintech Fund participating. This round also included existing investors Prime Venture Partners and JS Capital. The new funds come after a more than 30-month wait for the Bengaluru-based startup, which raised $35 million in a Series B round in July 2019 from Horizons Ventures, Tencent, and others. According to a news statement from Niyo, the funds will be used for product innovation, marketing and branding, expanding its distribution reach, and employing top people across divisions. In collaboration with banks, Niyo offers digital savings accounts and other financial services. The company claims to have over 4 million customers across its banking and wealth management solutions, ...

Upflowy has secured $4M to optimize web experiences with its no-code solution. Counterpart Ventures led the Sydney-based startup's latest funding. Consumer behaviour and purchasing patterns have been altered by the Covid-19 pandemic; data-driven decision-making is increasingly more critical to ensure that companies' products or services truly benefit people in times of uncertainty. According to Guillaume Ang, CEO of Australian startup Upflowy, demand for SaaS tools that enable online transactions has skyrocketed during Covid-19. Upflowy believes that it has the capabilities to assist organisations in generating high-performing user flow. The Sydney-based firm, which just raised $4 million, has created a platform that provides drag-and-drop tools for A/B testing and personalisation on web and mobile apps, and the best thing would be that businesses don't need to know any coding to use it. Counterpart Ventures led the current round of fundraising, which was...

A Kerala-based retired bank employee, turned a 1-acre rubber plantation into a mini forest. Gopalakrishnan KR, used his retirement benefits for the remarkable project. Gopalakrishnan K R, says we frequently forget, that natural products are not simply for humans to enjoy. The 67-year-old. has been cultivating a tiny fruit forest on a one-acre plot of land in Mannamangalam for the past seven years, owing to his deep passion for nature. Thousands of trees provide shelter and food for birds and animals in this lush sanctuary. Gopalakrishnan says, "I don't mess with the forest or take any of the fruits because it is set up for the birds and animals." Gopalakrishnan opted to buy a piece of land that was once a rubber plantation after retiring from SBI in 2014. It was the ideal plot of land, with a forest on one side and a lake on the other. Gopalakrishnan began clearing the area after purchasing it by removing all of the rubber trees. Then, over time, he...

Shankar Nath, of Junio, says the age-old concept of pocket money has evolved over time. The startup is helping parents teach their kids’ money management. Shankar Nath, who jointly founded Junio, a kid-focused pocket money app, says, Pocket money was traditionally provided to children for offline purchases, but there is now a huge shift toward online and making in-app purchases while they are on Roblox or if they want to buy something on Amazon. Nath, who worked as Paytm's chief marketing officer for five years before co-founding Junio with his former colleague Ankit Gera in 2020, says the idea for a kid-focused pocket money app occurred to him while observing his 12-year-old daughter. "Children of the modern age are doing transactions online. But for the majority of transactions, they are still reliant on their parents' payment instruments," Nath explained. According to Nath, the epidemic and going cashless have fundamentally altered the piggy bank...