Kabaddi on blockchain

This week, a funding deal lifted the spirits of the startup ecosystem. After a meager $111 million raised last week, Indian startups took in nearly $300 million, boosted by upGrad closing a round worth $210 million.

Meanwhile, Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) reported a multi-fold increase in consolidated net profit for the quarter ended June 30. The insurer recorded Rs 602.78 crore in April-June, compared to Rs 24.36 crore in the same period last year. year.

In other news, an Indian man won a 22-year-old legal battle in a consumer lawsuit against the railways. The plaintiff, Tungnath Chaturvedi, had been charged Rs 20 extra for two train tickets in 1999 in Mathura. After the dispatcher did not offer a refund despite the complaint, he decided to file a case against the railway authorities, as well as the booking clerk.

Now, “more than 100 hearings later”, the consumer court ruled in Chaturvedi’s favor last week. It ordered the railways to not only refund Rs 20, with interest at 12% per annum from 1999 to 2022, but also pay him a fine of Rs 15,000 rupees.

Oh, and here’s a video of a drunken bear high on “crazy honey” to kick off the extended weekend.

Time to get upset!

Kabaddi on blockchain

What if instead of cheering on a game of kabaddi from the sidelines, you could influence your favorite team’s game?

Enter Sportzchain, a blockchain startup that aims to “empower” kabaddi fans to actively engage with the team of their choice and participate in team decisions using tokens.

Hu tu tu:

• The fan engagement platform is built on Polygon, an infrastructure provider.
• The polls take place on the blockchain platforms Ethereum and Polygon. The votes are stored on a blockchain, thus eliminating vote bias and the possibility of rigging.
• The Sportzchain platform currently has 1,200 user registrations for its alpha application and is hoping for 10,000 registrations by September.

Using ML to track emotions

Ever been asked a question in a meeting that you couldn’t answer because you weren’t paying attention? Well, one startup has made it its mission to help companies track user engagement levels.

Lightbulb.ai uses machine learning (ML) models to detect the emotions of participants in video conferences or when consuming content. These are shared in real time with administrators (or the meeting host) to evaluate the participants’ engagement and interest.

Watch:

• The Mumbai-headquartered startup’s technology looks at human faces and maps emotions — such as joy, anger, sadness — and engagement levels.
• The base unit of analysis is a face frame, which it captures by taking screenshots and analyzing faces in those screenshots.
• The startup says accuracy ranges from 70% to 85% across different emotions depending on factors such as image resolution and clarity, and lighting conditions.

True North’s next startup game

Indian private equity funds, which typically do not back startups, are on an active hunt to find the next big bet, investing in businesses that have proven their market value.

Mumbai-based True North is one such PE firm.

Founded in 1999, True North invests mostly in mid-cap, India-focused businesses across four sectors: healthcare, financial services, consumer and technology. It has invested about $3 billion in six funds so far.

Writing checks:

• True North’s first foray into the startup space, in terms of investments, was PolicyBazaar in 2017, where it invested around $50 million in total funding.
• It has so far made 61 investments across 56 companies, including Keya Foods, Fincare, ACT Fibrenet, Biocon Biologics and Manipal Hospitals.
• The firm is now putting together a seventh investment fund, 25% of which it has allocated to investing in technology-driven, late-stage and pre-IPO startups.

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