Startup-Buzz Weekly Round-Up

It’s a Sunday morning; time to do a quick round-up of posts published on Startup-buzz media last week. If you were offline for any reason, this is a great way to catch up with the entire buzz!

INTERVIEW- Enjoy Our Interaction with Startup Founders

Conversation with Kanika Subbiah, Founder, Wedding Wishlist

Chennai-based Wedding Wishlist is a first-of-its kind wedding gift registry service where the bride and groom can make a wishlist of what gifts they would like, and they can also select a price range for those gifts. This ensures that the guests don’t end up bringing useless gifts.

Conversation with Dakota Gallimore, Founder & CEO, Dreams.Build 

A unique two-stage crowdfunding model for innovators! Crowdfunding is all about reaching out to like-minded people who can monetarily help you with actualizing your dream project. Dreams.Build is a crowdfunding platform for innovators but with a unique two-stage model.

Conversation with James Wyman, Co-founder, Pillo Health

Co-founders Aiden Feng, James Wyman and Emanuele Musini have come up with Pillo, a personal healthcare robot that can keep track of your medication, remind you to take them, answer your health-related queries, connect you directly to doctors, and can also notify your family members when you miss your medication.

FUNDING – Checkout which startups raised funds
Mobile Rewards Startup Kiip Raises $12 Million In Series C Round – San Francisco-based Kiip is a mobile advertising startup. In recent times, Kiip received $12 million amount in a Series C round of funding. This round observed participation from Kiip’s existing investors and some new investors.
WorkApps, Yellowdig and Zuppler receive $2.3 million funding – Hyderabad -based SRI Capital has funded three startups recently – WorkApps, Yellowdig and Zuppler. SRI Capital has invested $2.3 million in total.
Goldman Sachs Invests $10 Million in Brazilian Trucking Startup CargoX –  CargoX, a Brazilian Trucking startup that is popularly known as “Uber for trucks,” recently raised $10 million in Series B round of funding to enable the company to accelerate its technology development.
Former Coca-Cola Executive launches Fingerlix; A solution to hassle-free cooking – Fingerlix is founded by Shripad Nadkarni with co-founders Shree Bharambe, Abhijit Berde and Varun Khannna. The startup is an outcome of investment made by Maverix Platforms.
Slack Makes 11 New Investments – Slack Technologies Inc. invested around $2 Million in companies that can integrate with its platform. Slack Technologies Inc. invested around $2 Million in companies that can integrate with its platform.
A Brief study Of Microsoft’s Investment Pattern InThe Startup Ecosystem – Microsoft Ventures (MV) is the investment arm of Microsoft. It is a global initiative of Microsoft to support startups all over the world. This article gives you a detailed study of the investments done by the giant on startups.
Raising a Toast to Deliveroo – Deliveroo has partnered with Majestic Wines, Brew Dog and a gamut of independent wine merchants like Clapton Clark and Humble Grape across the country.
Ford Invests in 3D Mapping Startup for Self-Driving Cars – Ford funds $6.6 Million to Civil Maps. Civil Maps is into developing 3D maps by using Artificial Intelligence and sensor data for self-driving cars.
Nokia Growth Partners and others invest $10 M in Health Startup Lifesum – Stockholm-based health startup has raised $10 million in a round led by Nokia Growth Partners (NGP).The Swedish startup is looking for partnership prospects with companies operating in food, pharmaceuticals, fitness and DNA sectors
Hyderabad-based startup Smartron Playing New Innings with Sachin Tendulkar – Smartron is a leading technology OEM company and an Internet of Things (IoT) startup that recently announced its tie-up with the legendary cricketer Sachin Tendulkar.
ACQUISITIONS – Checkout all startup acquisition and mergers news.
Nowfloats Acquires Lookup, A Chat Based Commerce Platform – Hyderabad-based tech start-up, NowFloats is acquiring Bengaluru-based commerce chat startup, Lookup. NowFloats will get access to over 1.2 million Lookup registered users, particularly in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi and Pune.
U.K. Chip Giant Arm Set to Be Acquired by Softbank For $31 Billion – One of the most successful technology companies in the world, ARM, is being acquired by SoftBank for $31 billion. As per the reports, SoftBank has offered 43% premium on the last week’s closing price of ARM’s stock.
Myntra to Take Over Hrithik Roshan’s Lifestyle brand ‘HRX’ – Myntra, the renowned online fashion portal is about to take major stakes in Hrithik Roshan’s active lifestyle brand ‘HRX’. With this investment, Myntra will increase its high-margin private brands business.
INNOVATION – Startup news on most innovative product or service.
Here Comes a Pokémon Go Mobile Charger – A seller named “magicalsuperstore” builds handmade Pokéball charger and sells on Etsy. Pokéball charger is actually a portable power bank and holds a battery of 5300 mAh.
Hopper App Helps To Save Money On Your Trip – Off late, Hopper has launched Hopper 3.0 that lets users personalize recommendations such as how to adjust your trip plans to save more money, which travel deal can benefit them and so on.
Startup Offers Electronics On Rent – Launched in 2015; Germany-based startup Grover allows you to rent electronics such as laptops, headphones, cameras, wearables, smartphones and IoT products at reasonable prices.
Teal: The World’s Fastest Production Drone – Teal is the brainchild of George Matus, who has been developing drones since he was 11 years old.
PokéDates: The first PokémonGo dating service – No you don’t have to throw a pokéball at your date since, world’s first PokémonGo dating service launches, named as PokéDates. It’s a service built on an existing venture.
How Facebook reaches you in remote places? Facebook uses laser beam technology to deliver high speed internet access. Also, Facebook is researching on more ways to transfer laser internet hardware through the laser technology.
Service: An App to Assist you on Your Bad Experience – Service app comes in between to make things right for you in the form of refund, credit and so on. All you need to do is post your issue with a detailed description and attach a proof of purchase.
Startup that Lets You Pay for Your Flight Tickets in Installments – Airfordable, a startup launched from Y Combinator’s Summer 2016 batch that allows you book your flight tickets and pay over time before you take off. The startup charges a fee for providing a convenience to pay in installments.
Startup Develops Tags to track lost keys, wallets and smartphones – Bengaluru-based startup Gida Technologies comes up with a smart device for tracking your lost keys, wallet and smartphone called as ‘Yoky Tag’, worth INR 1k.
TV Remote that Obeys Voice Commands – This smart remote features a button on the side that activates voice commands like “Watch ESPN,” “Record this,” or “Romantic Comedies featuring Harvey Keitel.” Also, it has a touchpad-like interface, above the play and fast forward buttons that allows gesture-based commands.
‘Mandela’ Phones for South African Children – This project is a partnership of AG Media and Nelson Mandela Long Walk to Freedom Foundation, and is a Mandela day initiative. The device has an inbuilt Madiba’s Journey app where users can explore the inspiring life of Mandela.
Bots for Automating Your Sales Pitch – San-Francisco-based startup, Legion Analytics is building bots (Kylie) to automate your sales pitch to make your sales team more productive.
Startup Develops Technology to Transfer Data via Light – Founded in 2012 by Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer Prof. Harald Haas, PureLiFi is a UK-based, light communications technology startup that brings an alternative to Wi-Fi to transfer data.
Startup news – Checkout the latest buzz
Snowden Backs An iPhone Case That Tracks Wireless Prying – Edward Snowden joins hands with hacker Andrew “Bunnie” Huang to introduce “introspection device” that will inspect electric signals sent to iPhone’s internals antennas at MIT Media Lab on Thursday.
Samsung’s Serif TV Launches In US – After Europe, it was the turn of consumers in New York to be bedazzled by Samsung‘s Serif TV, which was launched at the Museum of Modern Art, recently.
Apple Pay Launches in Hong Kong – After France, Apple pay is now available in Hong Kong. It is already available in, the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, China, Singapore and Switzerland.
Food Delivery Startup, Bite Club, Halts Its Operations – Recently, this Gurgaon-based startup announced that it has temporarily put their operations to a halt. While scaling up their business, they faced certain problems repeatedly. So it will solve all those problems and make a fresh come-back as a stronger one.
Tinder Launches “Tinder Social” To Let People Date in Groups – With, the launch of Tinder Social, people can now make matches through groups. At the same time; people can plan some outing together, get into the real world and meet some new people.
Find out why AUTOnCAB had to call off their services..  – AUTOnCAB, who aimed to facilitate one million rides by expanding in 200 cities by the end of 2016, was not able to withstand the competition given by well-funded rivals Uber, Jugnoo and Ola. Hence, the startup started from laying off its 40 employees.
Edugaming: Attempts To Make Education Interesting – Learning is possible in any part of the world today. Taking this idea forward, the sector of edugaming is gaining a lot of momentum and this sector is helping children go out of the box.