Oyo Hotels & Homes has plans to list itself aiming for a valuation of $12-15B, but founder Ritesh Agarwal is unlikely to sell any of his 30% stake in Oyo’s parent company Oravel Stays. The startup was valued at $9.6B after a “strategic investment” by Microsoft last month and is aiming to raise over $1B by issuing fresh stock in the IPO. Oyo, which has had to cut its employee base, could file for the IPO as soon as next week.
Source: INC42
A new standalone calendar app titled “Day” is being developed by Yahoo, which has recruited Jeremy Le Van, the co-founder of Sunrise. Sunrise was another calendar app, which was bought by Microsoft to become the backbone of its new Outlook system. Yahoo is currently in the closed alpha phase of the app, and the service is “invite-only”, as it gears up for a bigger launch. Yahoo is exploring newer ways to serve customers better, said a spokesperson.
Source: Yahoo
A study by Cisco, has stated that small and medium businesses in India are more scared now of cyberattacks than ever before. According to the study, 74% SMBs suffered a cyberattack incident in the last year, while 85% lost customer information to hackers, suffering a negative impact on business. Over 62% SMBs surveyed said that cyberattacks in the last year cost them over 3.5cr, while for 13%, the cost was more than 7cr.
Source: Financial Express
The European Union’s Trade and Digital Chiefs have said that the US-EU Trade and Tech Council will boost Europe’s global clout, setting standards and rules for the 21st century. Valdis Dombrobski, the EU Trade chief said that the council will be a platform for EU US cooperation and coordination on policies. The Council’s 10 working groups will focus on important areas like green technology, export controls, etc.
The encrypted messaging app Signal was down for many users, and was “experiencing technical difficulties”, it said in a Tweet. According to the website DownDetector, users started experiencing problems at 11:05 am Eastern Time. However, the company soon tweeted that Signal was now back online, after working on, and resolving the technical difficulties faced. The error was apparently due to a “hosting outage”.
The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, has launched the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, which provides a digital ID to all citizens to contain their health records. The project was announced last year on 15th Aug by the PM. Using the foundations of Aadhar, Jan Dhan, and other digital initiatives, Ayushman Bharat will create a seamless digital platform to host and provide all health data of a citizen. This will ease business for healthcare professionals.
Automated data integrations provider Fivetran has announced that it had raised $565M in a Series D funding round consisting of new and existing investors. It has also announced a definitive agreement that will see it acquire HVR, an enterprise data replication technology provider. To date, Fivetran has raised $730M and is now valued at $5.6B. The HVR acquisition will help it provide breakthrough database replication performance.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch the Aayushman Bharat Digital Mission today, through video conferencing, said the Prime Minister’s Office. The mission was announced on Independence Day last year, and was being tested in 6 UTs. One of the key features of this is the Health ID, which ties every citizen’s health records to an ID, and will make it easy to access them from the Cloud. The official announcement of the launch will be made at 11 AM on 27th September.
Source: Times Now
Intel has started construction on two new factories in the US, as part of its plan to become a major chip manufacturer. The plants, dubbed Fab 52 and Fab 62, will cost $20B and will house Intel’s most advanced chip-making technology. With the new plants, Intel plans to take up orders for outside customers, including Qualcomm, and deepen its relationship with the US Military, as well as compete with rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing.
Source: NDTV
