Snippets

PGP ALUMNI-LED CLEANTECH FIRM GPS RENEWABLES RAISES FUNDING FROM NEEV FUND II OF SBICAP VENTURES

Founders Mainak Chakraborty and Sreekrishna Sankar plan to utilize this funding towards R&D as well as the firm’s growth and expansion initiatives. GPS Renewables, a Bangalore-based cleantech firm set up in 2012 by Mainak Chakraborty and Sreekrishna Sankar, has raised Series B funding from Neev Fund II, which is managed by SBICap Ventures, a wholly owned subsidiary of SBI Capital Markets Limited.

According to the official press release, with the current round, GPS has cumulatively raised close to $20 million in the form of equity. The earlier round was led by Netherlands-based Hivos-Triodos fund and Hyderabad-based Caspian Impact Investments in Sep 2020.

“We are excited to partner with Neev II as we further strengthen our mission towards making the world cleaner and more sustainable. This partnership will help accelerate our growth while capitalising on the organic feedstock to bioenergy
market,” said Mainak Chakraborty.


NSRCEL-INCUBATED SAAS TECHNOLOGY LEADER AMAGI SETS FOOT INTO INDIA’S UNICORN CLUB

Bangalore-based Amagi, incubated at IIM Bangalore’s innovation and entrepreneurship hub NSRCEL, has set foot into India’s Unicorn club, with their latest round of funding. This funding will help the firm in its bid for business expansion to multiple geographies as well as enhance its product portfolio in the media and entertainment industry.

Founded in 2008, Amagi is a SaaS technology leader offering complete cloud-managed live as well as on-demand video infrastructure for TV and the OTT platform. Amagi has presence in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, London, Paris, Singapore; has broadcast operations in New Delhi, and an innovation centre in Bangalore. The CEO and Co-founder of Amagi is Baskar Subramanian.

Amagi is a leading technology provider with a complete suite of solutions. Due to its strong all-round performance and tremendous market demand which led to further investments from existing investors, the firm has earned the unicorn status.


RELEASING COURSES ON EDX TO ENRICH LEARNERS WORLDWIDE

The MOOCs from IIMB have emerged as a valuable learning tool for students in India and abroad. Team IIMBx released six courses, on re-run, on the edX online learning platform on March 17th 2022. The courses will be live till September 30th, 2023. The courses cover Services Marketing, Quantitative Marketing Research, Brand Management, Advance Corporate Strategy, Platform Business Models, and Applied Bayesian Statistics.


A STEP TO STRENGTHEN THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SKILLS OF WOMEN

The National Commission for Women (NCW) is the apex statutory organization, in India, working towards enabling women to achieve equality and equal participation in all spheres of life. Acknowledging that economic independence is the key to women empowerment, NCW aims to create a lasting impact for women across the country by providing women entrepreneurs access to knowledge and skills required to grow and sustain their entrepreneurial ventures.

To this end, IIMB has entered into an agreement with National Commission for Women to foster excellence in management, innovation and entrepreneurship and has envisioned a collaborative online training programme to support and sponsor digital learning among aspiring women entrepreneurs.

The course, ‘Do Your Venture: Entrepreneurship for Everyone’, has been delivered in Hindi for the first time.  After the successful completion of the course, the selected participants will also get an opportunity to be mentored by the India SME Forum, a not-for-profit organization for small and medium enterprises,

The ‘Do Your Venture: Entrepreneurship for Everyone’ programme was delivered in English until now, and over 1800 women have successfully completed the course. The programme has now been re-conceptualized in Hindi to promote linguistic diversity, improve the rate of participation, enhance learning outcomes and expand regional reach.

Around 2900 participants have applied for the programme during the current run.

The programme was launched on 7th March 2022. As it is instructor paced, there will be a weekly release of each module. Each week, there is a “virtual office hour” session to help the learners clear their doubts regarding course content. The programme will also have live webinar session by Prof. Suresh Bhagavatula. The course will end by April and the learners who score the required percentage to pass the course will be selected for mentorship by the India SME Forum.