Learn from France: Vaishnaw to startups💡, upGrad doubles valuation🎓, Binance opens 2k positions for hiring🪙

Learn from France to handle failures: AW, UpGrad raises $225 million, Binance opens 2,000 positions for hiring, Funding Deals and more.

Jun 16, 2022

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Learn from France to handle failures: Ashwini Vaishnaw to startups💡

Indian startups should adopt the French way of thinking to handle failures, which will help them develop robust products, Union Minister for IT and Telecom Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Wednesday.

While inaugurating the India pavilion at technology exhibition Vivatech, Vaishnaw said the combination of billions of smartphones, billions of bank accounts and billion plus digital identities is enabling the creation of unique use cases for technology development in India.

"One thing that...you should take away from here (France) is the way of thinking. That way of thinking basically teaches how to prepare for failure cases. We always think of use cases. The French way of thinking is how to prepare for the failure cases. What can fail, what else can fail, what else can fail? If you learn that, then your products will be very robust," Vaishnaw said.

Edtech unicorn UpGrad raises $225 million in funding, doubles valuation🎓

An education technology unicorn built by a cable TV-era entrepreneur almost doubled its valuation after raising $225 million in fresh funding.

India’s UpGrad Education Pvt, founded by Ronnie Screwvala, increased its valuation to $2.25 billion in the round that included billionaire James Murdoch’s Lupa Systems LLC and US testing and assessment provider Educational Testing Service.

The Mumbai-based company spans several segments, from test prep to study abroad, and undergrad degrees to campus courses in 250 universities. Its offerings include finance, law, business and software for the 18-60 age group.

Screwvala founded UpGrad in 2015 with Mayank Kumar and Phalgun Kompalli to offer short courses on entrepreneurship and data science. The founders combined own about 55% of the equity.

B2B manufacturing startup Groyyo has raised $40 million in a combination of equity and debt in its Series A round led by Tiger Global.
Fintech giant Innoviti Payment Solutions has raised an additional fund from Alumni Ventures taking its ongoing Series D funding round to $22 million.
Plobal apps, a no-code app platform for e-commerce stores has raised $8.5 million in a funding round led by Elevation Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners with participation by Better Capital.
DAOlens, a B2B decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) service provider, has raised $5 million in a funding round led by Nexus Venture Partners.
Mewt, a banking super-app for MSMEs has raised $4.6 million in a seed funding round led by global fintech investor Quona Capital.
Fintech startup DPDzero has raised Rs 3.9 crore in pre-seed funding led by Better capital.

➡️ Check out our LinkedIn space for more on the funding deals.

Crypto giant Binance opens 2,000 positions for hiring🪙

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has opened 2,000 positions for hiring, Chief Executive Officer Changpeng Zhao said, a sharp contrast to a slew of job cuts by companies operating in the digital currency space.

"It was not easy saying no to Super bowl ads, stadium naming rights, large sponsor deals a few months ago, but we did. Today, we are hiring for 2000 open positions for #Binance," Zhao said in a tweet to his 6.4 million followers on the social media app.

The move by Binance comes amid extreme volatility in the cryptocurrency market as investors are dumping risky assets over fears that soaring inflation would force the US Federal Reserve to aggressively raise interest rates and tip the economy into a recession.