Category: Business
India-based SaaS firm, CloudCherry raises US$6 million In Series A Round Funding
After raising US$1 million in their seed funding round, CloudCherry, an enterprise startup based in Chennai, India has raised to new heights as they recently closed their Series A funding with a six-fold increase of US$6 million.
The funding was led by prominent venture capitals – Vertex Ventures and Cisco Investments plus existing investor IDG Ventures, which now only holds a minority stake in the corporation. This amount by far has made a record for the highest 2016 Series A funding raised by a SaaS startup.
Understanding that a quick, genuine response can always be a game changer to secure a happy customer, CloudCherry was established to help companies by providing a way to act fast on customer feedback.
Thus, CloudCherry set out to provide a platform for companies where companies can apply key metrics to gauge customer experience, capture customer feedback as well as get notified about customer insights in real-time to intervene and fix issues.
The startup enterprise currently works with companies in sectors of banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), hospitality, healthcare, retail, manufacturing as well as e-commerce whereby their clients include brand names such as World of Titan, HDFC Bank, Caratlane and Central Voonik.
According to Deal Street Asia, CEO and co-founder of CloudCherry, Vinod Muthukrishnan said that “With this funding and their support, we are many steps closer to making our presence globally and becoming the name synonymous with Customer Experience.”
In a separate statement, the CloudCherry co-founder has also expressed his ambitions for the company, as they are looking to expand their business outside of India, targeting the markets of United States, Southeast Asia, and West Asia.
About CloudCherry:
Founded in 2013, CloudCherry is a SaaS firm formed with the coming together of a group of management gurus, business leaders and experts in mobility, analytics and technology sectors. The company based in Chennai, India specializes in customer analytics technology whereby it collaborates with brands to provide real-time analytics of the company’s products as well as to help them track, measure and improve user satisfaction.
Apple Acquires First Indian Startup, Tuplejump
Tuplejump, a Hyderabad-based startup with the vision to simplify data engineering recently became the third machine learning expertise acquired by Apple.
Founded in 2013, Tuplejump was helping major companies to stock, process and visualize their data using its unique in-house software, with most operations from both India and United States. But what caught Apple’s eye was Tuplejump’s on-going project called “FiloDB”.
Turns out FiloDB is an open source project working to enable the automation of data pattern recognition without being explicitly programmed. More specifically, the project aims to build a program that can efficiently apply machine learning concepts and analytics to the massive amount of complex data as they streamed in.
After the acquisition, Rohit Rai and Satyaprakash Buddhavarapu, two of the three co-founders moved to work with Apple in May while the third co-founder Deepak Alur left to join Anaplan, a planning and performance management platform for businesses.
According to Business Insider, the purchase price was not disclosed though it is said to be lower than Apple’s last machine learning purchase, Seattle-based Turi Inc. which was purchased at the price of US$200 million earlier August this year.
Collin Johnson, a spokesperson for Apple, made their usual standard non-denial statement when questioned by TechCrunch regarding the acquisition saying that, “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”
Nevertheless, Apple currently has their sights set on artificial intelligence, looking to expand into the machine learning industry. As along with Tuplejump, the iPhone maker has to date acquired three machine learning startups including Turi, a company that builds end-to-end intelligent applications in Python and Emotient, a company that uses artificial intelligence to recognize, analyze and respond to facial expressions.
Singapore To Be World’s Largest Fintech Hub, Marvelstone Group Announced
Singapore’s ambition to be a ‘Smart Nation’ is moving forward as MarvelStone, an Asian private investment group has announced on Tuesday that it will open the world’s largest fintech hub in Singapore next November.
The facility will be known as Lattice80, spanning over 30,000 square feet and to be located in Singapore’s Central Business District, an area that is notably close to the city-state’s key financial institutions, stock exchange, and regulators.
Joe Seunghyun Cho, Chairman of Marvelstone in Crowdfund Insider said, “We think Singapore is the right place for a global fintech hub for a number of reasons. Singapore, being a traditional financial and trading hub, has the legal infrastructure and access to global investors that budding fintech companies would look for.”
Reportedly to be an independent non-profit initiative, one of Lattice80 objective is to establish a global fintech connection. Besides, the project is also aimed to promote local fintech innovations through providing innovation support schemes to existing company and financial institutions.
While for fintech startups prototype, programs such as workspace, events, and educational programs is provided to help develop and expand their business models oversea. These projects are moving smoothly as Marvelstone works closely with Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
Gina Heng, the CEO of Marvelstone furthermore added, “The time is right for innovation, and people are more receptive to the use of technology in financial services. Lattice80 aims to support the fintech ecosystem in Asia and bridge global players to the region.”
Besides MAS, the Marvelstone Group also seeks to bring partners onboard as well, voicing out their intentions to collaborate with other regional Fintech hubs like London’s Level 39, Australia’s Stone and Chalk as well as Israel’s The Floor to create a global ecosystem for fintech innovation.
Parentlane, A Connecting Platform For Parents Gets Funding From Capier Investment
Parenting can be a formidable task, as parents bear the responsibilities of raising a new life into the world, shaping their personalities and values.
For this, Parentlane offers a social platform that enables parents to connect with other parents and to a community of parenting experts from grandparents to teachers as well as child psychologists and nutritionists. The company works on a community model, which means it operates on the expansion of its increasing members and growing information.
Founded in December 2015, the Bengaluru-based startup leverages on machine learning and data science technology to map out a child’s development. The company specializes in the child development timeline from the age of a newborn to a toddler of eight.
The company was founded by Vijay Anand which has its first round of angel investment on May 2016 with the round led by Sujeet Kumar, the former president of Flipkart and Aprameya Radharkrishna, the co-founder of TaxiForSure.
On the other hand, this funding by Rohit MA came four months later as an extension of the angel investment round earlier in May whereby the managing director of Cloudnine Hospitals has made the investment through his personal investment arm. The amount was undisclosed.
“I believe Parentlane team has done a great job in leveraging technology to deliver personalized guidance to support parents during their early child development cycle,” said Rohit of Capier Investments, “I am personally excited with their plans in delivering superior value to the entire parenting community.”
The development of Parentlane was due to the realization of the needs of today’s city-educated millennial generation for precise and personalized information related to their child as they become parents. Relatedly, the app also provides parents the opportunity to track and treasure their memories with their child as childhood can be brief. The app is currently only available on the android platform.
About Parentlane:
Parentlane is a social parenting platform empowering parents by delivering personalized, timely assistance to raise smart and healthy kids. Parentlane also allows parents to map the development of their child from their first smile to when they crawl. Aside from that, parents can also obtain personalized baby care and child development tips from registered child experts or other experienced parents. The app cover all aspects of growth and development, brain development activities for kids, food recipes and tips for parents during the journey.
FountainVest Sees Fund Three Close with $2.1 Billion (U.S.)
FountainVest Partners announces the successful completion of its third fund (FountainVest China Capital) with a total capital commitment of $2.1 Billion (U.S.). Due to the oversubscription, the fund attracted exceptional support from current investors along with new institutional investors which included insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, and pension plans from Europe, the Middle East, North America, Asia, and Europe.
FountainVest believes in China’s vast opportunities within the private sector as the industry consolidate, mergers and acquisitions will fuel the fire and new national leader will rise. With an increasingly complex environment, valuable opportunities rise via expertise and enhancement.
FountainVest was founded in 2007, a firm dedicated to investment and partnership with private enterprise in China – leaders bent on China’s transformation into a consumption economy. In its last round of funding, FountainVest raised $1.35 billion (U.S.) while its original funding campaign closed just shy of $1 billion (U.S.).
April 2016, saw FountainVest partner with Focus Media in the launch of a $400 million (U.S.) investment in sports companies in China and overseas. The firm’s previous investments have included IMAX China, O2O, Fangdd.com, Xingren, and Shanghai Kehua.