Archive: September 30, 2021

Australia’s coffee capital celebrates with Sip for Vic

Victorians are being encouraged to Sip for Vic by supporting their favourite local cafe this International Coffee Day, Friday 1 October.

As part of the Sip for Vic initiative, Visit Victoria will shout Melburnians hundreds of coffees across the city to give a helping hand to some CBD businesses doing it tough during the global pandemic.

CBD residents and authorised workers will be able to quote Visit Victoria’s Sip for Vic initiative to receive a free cup of coffee to help kick start their day at their local participating cafe.

Participating cafes include a range of businesses spread across the city who sell coffees made from Victorian-produced coffee beans. Some include top roasters Industry Beans and Axil Coffee Roasters, the iconic Brother Baba Budan and tiny hidden gem Little Rogue.

“Caffeine has been pumping through the arteries of Melbourne’s city centre for years. Our Sip for Vic initiative is about supporting the CBD and reminding Melburnians about why we’re the coffee capital of Australia,” Visit Victoria CEO Brendan McClements said.

“If you’re lucky enough to benefit from this initiative, I’d encourage you to pay it forward – be extra kind to
your baristas, post about the cafe on social media, or even consider buying a morning muffin with your coffee if you can,” Mr McClements said.

The Sip for Vic initiative – an extension of Visit Victoria’s Click for Vic campaign – will be available to the
first 100 customers at each participating cafe and there is a limit of one per person.

Victorians living outside the CBD zone are encouraged to celebrate International Coffee Day by buying their favourite brew from their local cafe or ordering Victorian coffee products online via Click for Vic. “It’s been inspiring to see the Victorian community get behind our industry through Click for Vic. We’re once again asking people to consider supporting local operators by ordering coffee products from your favourite Victorian business this Friday,” Mr McClements said.

According to data from Roy Morgan (2015), Melbourne leads the country when it comes to our coffee culture. Melbourne has a higher cafe visitation rate than any other capital city with 11.5 per cent of Melburnians visiting a cafe 16 or more times in an average three-month period.

Founder of the ST. ALi family and a pioneer of Melbourne’s coffee culture scene Salvatore Malatesta said coffee has become an even more important part of Melbourne’s cultural fabric during the pandemic. “Heading to our local café has become the biggest outing we have each day. Your barista is your daily high priest serving up your daily dose of caffeine, therapy, love, community and a conduit to some normality,” Mr Salvatore said.

Homeville raises $ 7 Mn from 9 Unicorns and Varanium NexGen Fund

Mumbai, Sep 30, 2021: Homeville, a financial technology company in housing finance has raised US$7 million with participation by 9Unicorns, Varanium NexGen Fund, JITO Angel Network, CREDAI Members Network, Blacksoil and Earlsfield Capital along with other investors.

Homeville is building a housing credit enablement network through its technology-driven platforms. The platforms serve the consumer housing credit demand and build the credit rails for institutional capital to flow seamlessly to retail credit assets linked to housing. The company has been a pioneer with their technology enabled solutions for home buyers.

Homeville is leading the efforts to build open banking products on the mortgages side of the financial services industry. The company’s technology architecture is based on open banking principles and designs. It creates significant operating leverage with an in-house technology stack powering its platforms.

The company operates three platforms as part of its housing credit enablement network. The hugely popular HomeCapital platform pioneered down payment assistance program in India and is a market leader with US$250 million of housing sales facilitated through the platform. Bharat Housing Network, the company’s second platform, builds the co-lending infrastructure in affordable housing finance to deliver grassroots-level credit. The third platform, HomeNxt (B2C), currently in the beta stage, is a digital mortgage platform which uses technology for mortgages underwriting and delivery by leveraging India’s technology stack. The company is building the entire software stack for the digital mortgage journey.

Dr Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Founder 9Unicorns and Venture Catalysts added “The company is building out the missing credit network and fintech rails in the massive Indian housing ecosystem. This will accelerate housing for all mission and create a massive social impact. We are backing a solid team with extraordinary leadership and execution track record.

Madhusudan Sharma, Co-founder, Homeville added “We pioneered India’s first down payment assistance program to accelerate housing for first time home buyers. With our digital mortgage product and co-lending platform for affordable home finance, we are deepening our commitment to home buyers and India’s housing finance ecosystem.”

Jaxay Shah, MD of Savvy group, Investor JITO Angel Network and Ex National President, CREDAI added “Homeville’s various platforms address the challenges faced by millennial home buyers and the real estate market. The company aims to help accelerate the $100 billion housing industry, poised to reach approximately $500 billion by 2025. This company is focused on helping people buy their first home, facilitate the flow of credit to affordable housing and share lending infrastructure among the housing finance companies. With their disruptive technology and the strong founding team, Homeville aims to broaden the entire housing finance market.”

Aparajit Bhandarkar, Partner, Varanium Capital, added “ Housing is a priority for government and regulators across the world. The long term and safe nature of housing finance assets create a large opportunity for new age technology companies for building interesting fintech models. Homeville is uniquely positioned to be a market leader in the technology business driving home finance digitally.

Homeville is founded by IIM alumni – Lalit Menghani, Madhusudan Sharma, and Prasad Ajinkya. The founders each have over 15 years of experience in finance, technology and real estate. The current funding will be used to further strengthen its technology infrastructure and scaling the mortgage platforms serving millennial home buyers as well as homebuyers in the affordable segment.

CUSMAT an upskilling platform, has raised USD 100K from We Founder Circle and others

New Delhi, 30 September 2021: We Founder Circle (WFC) – a startup investment platform, in continuation to its mission to fund early-stage start-ups, has invested in Pre Series A round raised by CUSMAT. The 100K round is led by We Founder Circle along with other esteemed investors participation including Venture Catalyst, Better Inc., and Map My India.

CUSMAT is an immersive skilling and training (skilling, up-skilling, re-skilling) platform for industries moving metrics across productivity, safety and customer satisfaction. Founded by Mr. Abhinav Ayan and Mr. Anirban Jyoti Chakravorty. The brand has exhibited splendid performance over the period and trained a workforce of more than 30,000 pan India.

CUSMAT enables organizations to Onboard, Assess, Train, Upskill, Plan Learning Tracks for the employees to maximize retention rates, and on the Job Performance by using our AR/VR, Cloud-based Learning Management system.

On the Investment in Cusmat Mr. Neeraj Tyagi- Co-Founder and CEO, We Founder Circle said “Cusmat is a new age immersive reality training tool which has a potential to unleash finest trend in the upskilling industry. Given the fact that in the post pandemic era, around 18 million Indians might need to switch occupations by 2030, the market holds a huge scope. And Cusmat comes with a wide portfolio of use cases from manufacturing to healthcare, supply chain to education, and more. All this makes Cusmat an exciting startup growing rapidly, and hence a very good investment opportunity for angel investors.”

There is a huge scope in the field of upskilling and reskilling in India. The prominent need for jobs has made it one of the hottest markets. And the scope has only widened after the pandemic as around 18 million Indians might need to switch occupations by 2030, as stated in recent reports. Given this market scenario, it will not be wrong to say that business models like CUSMAT are more relevant now than ever.”

“We have focussed on finding the Right Product Market fit, over the last 10 months through our Seed round. Going forward the focus is on Scaling by pursuing High Growth Opportunities identified with strong metrics of improvement that we have been able to establish for our customers. Through our XR Industrial Learning Platform we have a chance to impact the Indian Industrial Productivity Index by unlocking the Human Capability of the 1.2 Mn people joining the industrial workforce across Mining, Infra, Logistics, Manufacturing, Pharma amongst others,” said Mr. Abhinav Ayan, Co-Founder and CEO CUSMAT.

The brand is planning to utilise the fresh funds in scaling enterprise sales team, developing Product Training Content, and developing industry driven features for the platform. The brand has raised USD 650K in total including the current round.

TiE Hyderabad is the proud host of the world’s largest summit for social enterprises in the sustainability space.

Hyderabad, September 30, 2021: TiE Sustainability Summit (TSS 2021) hosted by TiE Hyderabad clocked a record 25,000 registrations from social enterprises from 54 countries and is adding more. Thus makes it the world’s largest summit for social enterprises in the sustainability space.

85% of the registrants are Founders, Co-founders, Chairmen, Managing Directors, Directors of social enterprises. The size of start-ups include right from a start-up to a billion dollar unicorn.

TSS 2021 will be held from Oct 4 and 6, 2021 as a virtual event and will witness participation from 25,000 social entrepreneurs, policy makers, academia, impact investors, mentors, incubators and accelerators focused on social enterprises.

Aligned with the theme of the summit ‘Where entrepreneurship meets sustainability’, all social entrepreneurs representing their organizations will engage in discussions on policy making, debate on how to address and solve issues identified by UN in the sustainable development goals (SDGs), how to shape the future of social enterprises to create a deep impact at the bottom-of-the-pyramid (BoP) and deliver affordable solutions to the underprivileged people living in rural areas through technology and process innovation. The summit will discuss finding unique solutions to challenges such as access to water, healthcare, education, electricity, transportation, agricultural production, besides issues such as climate change, gender diversity among others.

Manohar Reddy, TSS Global Chair and President TiE Hyderabad, said, “We have received an overwhelming response from the social enterprises across 54 countries and this stands as a testimony to our efforts at building a robust ecosystem of social entrepreneurs who can shape the future of planet by solving the issues highlighted in the sustainable development goals (SDGs). At TiE, it has been our constant endeavour to solve business and social problems through innovation, policy intervention to deliver unique, affordable solutions to the bottom of the pyramid.” He further added, “I am confident, the social enterprises will have a unique opportunity to achieve their objectives at the summit by meeting prospective investors, customers, mentors, future board members, besides taking part in discussions and debates.”

At the summit, the social enterprises will gain access to funding, mentors, future board members through TSS ‘Match Making’ Technology where investors can identify and shortlist social enterprises for a potential investment. A total of 200+ social impact investors will be attending the summit. The matchmaking technology will also allow social entrepreneurs to either find a seller or a buyer during the summit to conduct business. They will also have an opportunity to find a suitable alliance or joint venture partner during the three day summit.

Suresh Raju, TSS 2021 Co-Chair and Vice President, TiE, Hyderabad, said, “We are delighted to note that TSS 2021 has attracted the attention of worldwide social enterprises. The summit truly stands at the intersection of entrepreneurship and sustainability and is designed to shape the future of social enterprises, enabling them to create a ‘tangible impact’ on critical issues facing planet earth.”