Google puts $350M into Flipkart, a massive online retailer in India.
As part of the agreement, Flipkart, a Bengaluru-based firm, will also receive cloud services from the Android maker, the company announced in a succinct statement on Friday. The Google investment is a part of Flipkart's 2023 financing round, which is valued at close to $1 billion. Walmart, which invested $600 million in the round late last year, is in the lead. (Flipkart is also backed by Microsoft.)
With the new investment estimated at $36 billion, Flipkart is the market leader in e-commerce in India, catering to hundreds of millions of customers in smaller cities and villages. The firm, which also owns Myntra, an online fashion retailer, controls roughly 48% of
The leading venture advisor in India, Avendus, has confirmed that it wants to raise $350 million.
The leading venture capital bank in India, Avendus, revealed on Wednesday that it is seeking to raise up to $350 million for a new private equity fund.
The Mumbai-based company will be able to write bigger checks and keep a significant stake in the firms it backs thanks to the new fund, called Future Leaders Fund III, according to managing partner Ritesh Chandra in a TechCrunch interview. Early in April, TechCrunch revealed that Avendus was organising a strategy to raise fresh capital.
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Avendus, the leading venture advisor for companies in India, is a consistent presence in the majority of growth-stage deals. According to Venture Intelligence, a research firm, it participated in more than 30 transactions last year, including merger and acquisition activities.
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Alexandr Wang is the CEO and founder of Scale AI.
Denise Dresser, Slack's CEO
Matt Rogers, CEO and co-founder of Mill
Mayfield Fund Managing Partner Navin Chaddha
Spenser Skates, Amplitude's co-founder and CEO
Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures' founder and partner
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With its $47 billion semiconductor fund, China prioritises chip sovereignty.
In an effort to strengthen its semiconductor industry and lessen its dependency on other countries for the production and use of wafers, China has closed its third state-backed investment fund, emphasising the concept of "chip sovereignty."
Prior iterations of China's National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, or "the Big Fund," were Big Fund I, which ran from 2014 to 2019, and Big Fund II, which ran from 2019 to 2024. The latter was far larger than the earlier, but according to official documents, Big Fund III is greater than both at 344 billion yuan, or roughly $47.5 billion.
The amount of Big Fund III exceeded expectations and, in light of Huawei's recent increased reliance on Chinese suppliers, validates the nation's goal of achieving self-sufficiency in semiconductor production. It serves as a reminder that both sides are involved in the chip war between China and the West.
Reducing reliance on their enduring tech opponent is something that many other countries share with the U.S. and Europe. China has legitimate concerns regarding its supply, and these concerns extend beyond shipments from the United States and its allies.
Taiwan is the main source of concern when it comes to chip manufacturing. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) presently produces around 90% of the most sophisticated chips in the world; if China were to take over its production capabilities, the United States and its allies would be at a severe disadvantage.
However, Bloomberg has learned from sources that ASML and TSMC, both located in the Netherlands, have the ability to shut down chip manufacturing equipment in the event that China invades Taiwan.
China, on the other hand, produces about 60% of legacy chips, or the kind that.
There are hints that limits may damage China in the most obvious ways, such as denying its AI companies access to Nvidia's cutting-edge chips or making it more difficult for its supporter, SMIC, to manufacture its own.
China is clearly feeling the heat, as evidenced by Big Fund III itself. Reports state that in addition to being used for large-scale wafer fabrication, the cash will also be used to produce High Bandwidth Memory chips. HBM chips are employed in AI, 5G, IoT, and other fields.
The biggest clue, though, is its size.
Now greater than the $39 billion in direct incentives the U.S. government would allocate to chip production as part of the CHIPS Act, Big Fund III is backed by six significant state-owned banks.
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With the exception of Arc, Apple's Design Awards candidates mostly overlook AI in favour of independents and startups.
Apple's annual list of what it considers to be the best and most technically innovative software available on its platform, the App Store, is turning its attention to the little guy at a time when lawmakers and regulators are questioning the company's business model. For example, ChatGPT is not present on Apple's list of finalists; instead, the company favours small to midsize app makers like Copilot Money, SmartGym, recipe app Crouton, creative app Procreate Dreams, Gentler Streak, and others, as well as those from venture-backed startups like the creativity app Rooms and the redesigned web browser Arc Search.
Despite ChatGPT's record-breaking launch last year, neither Apple nor Google named it their "app of the year." The ADAs would have provided Apple with another chance to acknowledge the innovation, but they are once more disregarded.
Instead, independent games like The Bear from German self-described "weird bunch of creatives" Mucks Games, The Wreck from independent Paris-based games studio The Pixel Hunt, Rytmos from Copenhagen-based Floppy Club, a match-three puzzler called fini on Apple Arcade, and others are highlighted in Apple's finalist list.
The non-gaming apps that Apple has chosen to highlight this year are also frequently independent projects. Examples include the meditation timer Meditate from the Indian independent developer RhythmicWorks Software; the sun-tracking app Sunlitt from the Italian independent developer team led by developer Nicholas Mariniello; the drawing app Dudel Draw from the American independent company Silly Little Apps; the journaling app Bears Gratitude from the Australian developer Isuru Wanasinghe; and Things Inc.'s Rooms, an imaginative app for creating imaginative spaces in an 8-bit style, created by former Google employees and supported by a16z. (Apple actually nominated Rooms in two categories, giving it double blessing status.)
Not that some larger studios aren't represented on the list; among them are South Korea's Neowiz, which is nominated for its Lies of P game; 505 Games' Death Stranding Director's Cut; Honkai: Star Rail, which is developed by HoYoverse, the creator of Genshin Impact; and Activision's Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile, to name a few. But in some situations, Apple's decisions are influenced by the company's utilisation of proprietary technologies, such as MetalFX or processor optimisations for M1 and above models (or maybe in-app purchases!).
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This year, What the Car?, NYT Games, Hello Kitty Island Adventure, Cityscapes: Sim Builder, How We Feel, Ahead: Emotions Coach, The Bear, Lost in Play, Wavelength, Little Nightmares, and a select few apps and games were among the products that received the nod.
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