Snap looks for boost👻; Icertis raises $150 Mn💰; Google pauses Play Store billing▶️
Snap looks to India for a boost, SaaS startup Icertis raises $150 million, Google pauses Play Store billing in India, Funding Deals and more.
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Snap looks to India for a boost amid US tech meltdown👻
In April 2017, news broke that social media company Snap’s cofounder Evan Spiegel had once said in a meeting that its photo-sharing app “was only for rich people” and wasn’t meant for “poor countries like India”.
The company dismissed the claim, noting that the photo-sharing app was available to be downloaded for free worldwide. But the damage had been done — Indian social media users erupted in fury and in no time reduced the rating of the popular app to one star.
Five years on, that incident has faded from the collective memory and India has become home to Snapchat’s largest user base.
The app’s popularity is soaring, especially among Gen Z users — people born between 1997 and 2012. Spiegel himself told us in October 2021 that the app had crossed 100 million monthly users in the country. That’s almost a third of its global base of 363 million users (as of Q3, 2022).
SaaS startup Icertis raises $150 million from Silicon Valley Bank💰
Software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup Icertis has raised $150 million through a revolving credit facility and convertible financing from US-based Silicon Valley Bank.
The company said on Monday that it would use the funds to further accelerate the adoption of technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and blockchain.
Icertis’s latest funding round comes after it raised an undisclosed sum from German enterprise software maker SAP in exchange for a minority stake in January.
Hot Shorts⚡
Haryana-based green hydrogen company Hygenco has received a $25 million investment from SBICAP Ventures managed Neev II Fund.
Fintech company PayVEDA has raised $11.5 million in Series A funding from SphitiCap, an early-stage, sector-agnostic fund.
Google pauses Play Store billing in India after CCI ruling▶️
Android maker Google has paused its plans to enforce the Google Play billing system on Indian developers from October 31. The company announced the plan through an update to its help page today.
The move comes less than a week after the Competition Commission of India (CCI) imposed two back-to-back fines on the company for flouting competition norms in the country.
“Following the CCI’s recent ruling, we are pausing enforcement of the requirement for developers to use Google Play’s billing system for the purchase of digital goods and services for transactions by users in India while we review our legal options and ensure we can continue to invest in Android and Play. The requirement to use Google Play’s billing system applies for in-app digital content purchases for users outside of India," Google said.
Tweet of the day🐥
Other Top Stories
👨🏻💻 Indian techie Sriram Krishnan ‘helping’ Elon Musk with Twitter revamp
🎓 Byju’s CEO emails sorry to staff for not so ‘smooth’ layoffs
"Accept what is, let go of what was, and have faith in what will be."
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