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- Indian cricketer Hardik Pandya has invested in direct-to-consumer (D2C) food startup Yu Foodlabs and joined the company as its brand ambassador.
- Yu specializes in ready-to-eat meals and plans to launch 8-10 new products in the next year.
- The startup has partnered with airlines such as SpiceJet and Akasa Air to provide instant meals to customers.
- Yu's revenue has doubled in the past six months, with 40% from online sources, 10% from exports, and the remaining 50% divided between offline and online platforms.
- LVMH, the French luxury goods company, has entered into the world's top 10 companies by market capitalization following a first-quarter sales beat, causing a 5% rise in share prices on Thursday.
- This pushed the company's market capitalization to $486 billion, ranking it as the 10th-biggest company globally. Should it achieve a value of $500 billion, LVMH would become the first European company to achieve this milestone.
- The company's success can be attributed to a 29% rally for the year, along with a gain in the euro against the dollar.
- Apple has tripled its iPhone production in India and assembled over $7 billion worth of iPhones in the last fiscal year, according to a Bloomberg report.
- The move has made India a key player in the global smartphone industry and highlights Apple's efforts to reduce its dependence on China.
- The company's long-time partners, such as Foxconn and Pegatron, have expanded their assembly lines in India, leading to a significant increase in iPhone manufacturing in the country.
- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's incentives for local manufacturing have further encouraged Apple to increase production in India.
- Amazon has unveiled a cloud service named Bedrock that will allow developers to enhance their software with AI systems to generate text, similar to ChatGPT chatbot.
- The Bedrock generative AI service from Amazon Web Services will provide access to Amazon's first-party language models called Titan, language models from startups AI21 and Anthropic, and a model for transforming text into images from Stability AI.
- The Titan model can be used for generating text for blogs, emails, and other documents, while the other model can help with search and personalization.
- India is set to double its economy in seven years, becoming a $7tn economy by 2030, driven by financialisation, clean energy, and digital revolution, as per a Deutsche Bank report.
- India has had the second-fastest economic growth rate among major countries at 7.5% per annum over the last two decades, with demographic dividend and domestic consumption being primary growth drivers.
- However, other growth drivers will be necessary for India to achieve this ambitious goal. The report also states that India will account for 22% of the world's total workforce in the next decade.
- The Indian government is reportedly creating a ChatGPT-like chatbot helpline to address consumer grievances.
- The chatbot aims to enable audio messaging and support multiple Indian languages for a conversational experience.
- The new chatbot will be separate from an existing helpline launched last month, which does not allow for a conversational experience but asks users to select options in a step-by-step manner. This initiative will likely streamline the consumer complaint process in India.
- SoulUp, a Bengaluru-based startup founded in 2022 by two IIT alumnae, aims to build a LinkedIn-like network for mental health that provides peer conversations to promote mental wellness.
- The platform offers video calls with verified peers who have been in similar situations, covering various topics from diagnosed mental illness to relationships and career growth.
- Users can connect with peers and have 45-minute-long conversations priced between ₹199-399. SoulUp recently won a ₹50 lakh investment on Shark Tank India and is taking a unique approach to mental health, using peer conversations as the core.
- Singapore's Temasek is set to acquire an additional 41% stake in India's Manipal Health Enterprises from investors, including TPG, thereby increasing its stake in one of India's largest hospital chains to 59%.
- Additionally, India's sovereign wealth fund, the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), will also sell its full stake to Temasek, while Manipal founder Ranjan Pai's family holding will reduce from about 50% to 30%.
- Manipal currently serves over 5 million patients a year through its 29 hospitals in 16 cities with 4,000 doctors, according to a joint statement issued by the investors.
- According to a report by Redseer Strategy Consultants, fantasy sports platforms in India are projected to experience a significant boost in revenue during the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 edition.
- The report predicts a rise of 30-35% in gross gaming revenue, amounting to Rs 2,900 to 3,100 crore, with a 25-30% growth in transacting users during this IPL season.
- The surge in user confidence is driven by increasing adoption of fantasy platforms and cross-migration of users from other games, particularly in Tier-2 cities and beyond. To encourage higher spending, platforms are offering lucrative prizes.
