Bridging the SME credit gap on blockchain

by · January 8, 2023

Hello,

While the new year brings new hope, the first week saw quite a stir in the stock market as eight of the 10 most valued firms on the Indian bourses lost Rs 1 lakh crore in market capitalization. IT majors Infosys and TCS took the biggest hit.

On the bright side, Mercedes Benz is doubling down on the Indian market as it expects double-digit sales growth this year despite the threat of higher car prices. Last year it sold 15,822 cars – the highest ever in the country.

This comes as India overtook Japan in car sales in 2022, becoming the third largest car market after the US and China, according to a Nikkei Asia report.

Over to the digital world. While OpenAI’s seemingly “too real” ChatGPT language processing tool has many hitting the panic button, artificial intelligence has already entered the courts.

An AI-based legal advisor will for the first time play the role of a lawyer in an actual court case. DoNotPay’s AI chatbot will guide a courtroom defendant on how to escape a speeding charge.

Wonder how it will work in family courts…

In today’s newsletter we will talk about

  • SME loans on the blockchain
  • Increasing TV production in India
  • Renewing Middle East tourism

Here’s your trivia for today: How many eyes does a bee have?

Startup

SME loans on the blockchain

Many fintechs and NBFCs are struggling to cater to the unorganized SME market due to lack of transparency and liquidity. Dignify aims to solve this by using blockchain to channel crypto liquidity into the SME market.

Bridging the SME credit gap:

  • Dygnify is building a credit infrastructure for capital to flow from crypto and digital asset investors to small businesses.
  • Its Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is live on the Polygon testnet and can be accessed by all operating environments and projects built on the Ethereum network.
  • Dygnify explores SME markets in Southeast Asia while ensuring compliance with crypto regulations in India.
dygnify

Inspiration

Increasing TV production in India

Father-son duo CP Gupta and Sagar Gupta started Ekkaa Electronics in Noida in 2019 to strengthen TV manufacturing in India. Today, it is a company with a turnover of Rs 600 crore with more than 100 brands under its portfolio.

Creator for the world:

  • Ekka Electronics designs and manufactures smart LCD TVs, LED TVs, 4K 2K TVs and other TV products.
  • It manufactures more than 1 lakh TVs per month. To date, the company has sold around three million TVs.
  • To compete with China, Ekkaa is now focusing on backward integration to optimize costs.
Ekkaa Electronics

Gulf

Renewing Middle East tourism

From buying tickets and delivering customers door-to-door 14 years ago, Fazil Parakkat now runs Thrillark – an online booking platform for tours, activities and local experiences. It connects customers with local tour operators to offer curated local experiences, services and attraction tickets.

Curated travel:

  • The platform has served over 1,84,000 guests since its inception in 2017. It processed 30,000 bookings in 2019 alone, manually.
  • Users can use Thrillark’s services in Dubai, Turkey, Oman and Abu Dhabi in the Middle East.
  • The curated experiences on offer include sunset camel rides, indoor skydiving, S-jet skiing and scuba diving.
Thriller

News and updates

  • The dismissal: Twitter has reportedly laid off several employees from its already reduced trust and safety team that handles global content moderation and the unit related to hate speech and harassment. At least a dozen more cuts hit workers in the company’s offices in Dublin and Singapore.
  • AR driving: BMW unveiled a Vision Dee concept sports sedan that features a ‘Mixed Reality Slider’ that can “gradually fade out reality” and overlay the car’s surroundings with Augmented Reality. The e-ink panels can mix and match up to 32 colors across the body and wheels.
  • Breakthrough: The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved lecanemab, the second-ever treatment for Alzheimer’s disease intended to tackle the root of the condition and slow cognitive decline.

How many eyes does a bee have?

Answer: Five.

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