Tech Bytes
Unicorn count may rise to 152 in 5 years with valuation over $1 billion
According to the ASK Private Wealth Hurun India Future Unicorn Index 2024, India is poised to witness the addition of at least 152 new unicorns (startups valued over $1 billion) from 31 cities over the next 3-5 years. This growth would expand the current count of 67 unicorns. Throughout the year, there has been notable activity in the future unicorn list, with 25 startups dropping off. Additionally, 12 companies were downgraded from gazelle status to cheetah, while 10 moved up from cheetah to gazelle.
Winning design: As Gen Z shoppers take fancy to Indian wear, venture investors look to stitch deals
Ethnic wear brands targeting the Gen Z population and offering a variety of Indian wear products are attracting interest from venture investors, with brands like Libas and Koskii securing significant funding. The trend of young Indians wearing Indian wear to work is on the rise, with brands like Suta and Fashor experiencing growth in revenue.
Bengaluru's Incluzza helps Google bring accessible gaming closer home
Project Gameface, is an open source, hands-free, on-device, AI-powered ‘mouse’ developed by Google that allows phones, computers to be controlled with facial expressions.
Infosys cuts average bonus to 60% for Q4
The average pay-out, according to several employees, has dropped to 60% for the final quarter of fiscal 2024. It had announced a variable bonus pay-out of 73% for the October-December period, 80% for the quarter through September and 75% for the first quarter of the fiscal year.
Steep H-1B fee hike to burn a big hole in IT companies pockets
The steep hike in US H-1B visa fees could spell bad news for Indian IT service providers and dent their pockets significantly, experts and industry insiders have warned.
HCLTech to buy Hewlett Packard’s communications tech assets for $225 million
As part of this agreement, HCLTech will also absorb around 1,500 employees and 700 contractors with experience of engineering services for telecom industry in countries including Spain, Italy, India, Japan, China, Americas and APAC region, HCLTech said in a regulatory filing on Thursday.
Angel tax destroyed startup ecosystem, GST killed gaming industry, says Priyank Kharge
His comments come as political parties are in the middle of the Lok Sabha election, with two more phases scheduled over the next ten days.
Caltech professor Shrinivas R Kulkarni bags Shaw Prize for his work in astronomy
Kulkarni is the younger brother of well-known writer and Rajya Sabha member Sudha Murty, and hails from Karnataka. He was born in Kurundwad, near Sangli in Maharashtra and studied at Hubballi.
Traditional financial services catch the super app bug
Financial services companies such as Aditya Birla Capital, Angel One and Muthoot Fincorp are building superapps -- a one-stop applications for all their customers' needs. This development comes as large groups such as Reliance Industries and Tata Group have already rolled out such superapps for everything from shopping to payments and credit under one roof.
Google invests 1 billion euros in Finnish data centre to drive AI growth
In recent years, many data centres have been located in the Nordic countries because of the region's cooler climate, tax breaks and abundant availability of renewable power.
