Startup News – 6th October 2017

Startup news for the day:

• P2P car and bike sharing platform Drivezy has raised $10M in a part equity and part debt funding from American and Japanese investors, including Das Capital, Axan Partners, Das Capital and IT Farm.
• B2B agritech startup, Farm Taaza.com, has reportedly raised $8M in Series A funding led by Epsilon Venture Partners.
• Zomato is On A Mission To Stop Malpractices, launches a couple of new features that would keep wrongdoings in check including “Report Abuse”which would allow restaurant owners to flag any review that might have been written with malicious intent. 
• Facebook is currently testing out a new ‘Context’ button that will allow its more than 2 billion users get a little more context about the source of the news that they’re reading on the platform. Earlier in the year, the company launched its much-awaited ‘disputed‘ tag to fight ‘fake news’ on its famous social networking site.
• SlicePay, a fintech startup has raised $2 million as part of its ongoing series-A round from new investors including Japan’s Das Capital and Simile Ventures from Russia. It helps college students make ecommerce purchases of products such as phones and even services such as cab rides.
•  NearGroup, a chatbot allowing users to connect with like-minded people based on proximity, personality and their creative content has raised a $1.6m seed round led by OpenOcean, with participation from Neotribe and BoostVC. NearGroup will use the funding to expand in Asia Pacific, the US and Europe.
• US-based payments company Mastercard is open to acquiring companies in India and will invest $800 million over the next 4-5 years.
• IFC – International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, has invested Rs 500 Cr in non-banking financial company (NBFC), Fullerton India owned by Singapore-based Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd

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