The Weekly Dispatch

Sequoia Capital India & Southeast Asia which recently rebranded itself as Peak XV Partners said that it has promoted Rohit Agarwal to the post of MD from his earlier position of principal investor. The firm would now have three MDs in the investment team at its Singapore office – Shailendra Singh, Abheek Anand, and Rohit Agarwal. Agarwal, who has expertise in fintech, ecommerce, consumer goods, and SaaS investment, would focus on early and growth stage investments.

Together Fund, led by Girish Mathrubootham and Manav Garg, has announced its second fund worth $150 million to continue backing opportunities in the Indian SaaS and AI space. The total corpus for Together’s Fund II is almost double that of the previous one, as it looks to make larger follow-on investments and back local disruptors in the generative AI space. It has also marked a first close of the second fund, raising the corpus from endowments and sovereign funds across the US and Asia.

Jio Financial Services (JFS) has signed a JV with investment giant BlackRock to foray into the Indian asset management space. Called Jio BlackRock, the two companies will own a 50% stake each in the newly formed digital-first entity. At the outset, JFS and BlackRock will target an initial investment of $150 Mn each in the JV. Jio BlackRock will have its own management team and will commence operations after receiving necessary regulatory & statutory approvals.

Early-stage accelerator 9Unicorns has announced the launch of ProStar, an exclusive three-part event, in association with JM Financial. ProStar is an exclusive fundraising event where growth-stage portfolio startups and companies from Venture Catalysts++ and 9Unicorns will get a chance to raise $25-$100 million from Indian and global large private equity (PE) and VC funds. The three-phased event will be held in Bengaluru, Singapore, and the US.

Skillstech platform iMocha announced the launch of Skills Intelligence Cloud, an AI-powered platform to revolutionize enterprise hiring, talent management, internal mobility, and workforce planning processes. According to the startup, The new platform provides HR and business leaders with real-time access to skills data across their organisation, enabling them to forecast, predict, and effectively address skills gaps to build a future-proof organization.

Pocket FM has promoted Anurag Sharma as CFO, the company said. Sharma joined Pocket FM in 2021 as VP of Finance and was involved in the startup's fundraising efforts, operational efficiency and driving strategic partnerships.In his new role, Sharma will be responsible for Pocket FM's financial operations, playing a key role in shaping the company's financial strategy and driving its execution, the firm said in a statement.

Google for Startups Accelerator is inviting applications for its 8th cohort with a focus on AI-first startups, the company announced in a blogpost. Indian startups funded from Seed to Series A level can apply for the 3-month programme till August 22, 2023, it said.According to the announcement, the select startups will receive mentorship and training on product, design, growth and leadership development.

Conversational AI startup Yellow.ai announced that it has appointed KT Prasad as the Chief Revenue Officer - International Region. He will lead the GTM teams across the International Region, including India, APAC, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. KT holds over 25 years of experience, having led high-performing teams in his previous roles at leading organisations such as Zendesk, Stripe, and HP, among others, driving substantial revenue generation and contributing to their growth trajectories.

GalaxEye plans to launch the world's first multi-sensor satellite next year. It would be capable of observing Earth night and day, even peering through dense clouds. GalaxEye Space Co-founder & CEO Suyash Singh said the satellite -- Mission Drishti -- synchronises two complementary sensors, thus pioneering data fusion at its core. The new multi-sensor satellite will capture both Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data & data from optical sensors from the same satellite to improve the correlation and analytical utility of the data generated.

Sequoia Capital has massively cut its crypto fund, more than 65% to about $200 million, amid the funding winter. Sequoia Capital has downsized its two major venture funds, including the crypto fund (from $585 million to $200 million), reports the Wall Street Journal. The move came amid several crypto exchanges and platforms announcing bankruptcy in recent months amid tightening regulations.Sequoia is now reportedly looking to invest in younger startups.

Walmart has paid $1.4 billion to buy out Tiger Global's investment in Flipkart, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a letter by the hedge fund to its investors. The transaction brings the value of Flipkart to $35 billion from nearly $38 billion after it sold its shares to Japan's SoftBank, Walmart and other investors in 2021, the report said. The purchase of Tiger Global’s stake in Flipkart comes as Walmart has been spending big on two of its crown jewels in India.

Binny Bansal along with Accel and Tiger Global Management have all fully exited Flipkart by selling their stakes to Walmart. Accel, both India & US together held more than 20% initially when they backed the firm in 2008, but gradually reduced their stake to about 6% before Walmart acquired a majority share in 2018. While Sachin Bansal, co-founder of Flipkart, had already sold his entire stake to Walmart in 2018, his co-founder Binny Bansal continued to hold onto a small stake in Flipkart.

Fidelity Investments has now halved the valuation of conversational messaging software provider Gupshup from its initial investment, according to a regulatory disclosure as of June 30, 2023. The updated value of its holding now pegs Gupshup’s valuation at $697 million, suggesting a steep markdown for the homegrown software startup. It was valued at $1.4 billion when Fidelity first invested in the company.