Business briefs 2

Social audio platform Clubhouse on Monday said it has partnered TED, which is known for its TED Talks shows, for an exclusive line-up of programming.

This partnership will bring thought leaders from TED on to Clubhouse to speak with the platform's global community on a diverse array of subjects, a statement said. This is the first social audio partnership for TED which has a strong history of embracing audiences on innovative new platforms, it added.

Beginning July 12, TED will host a series of rooms via their official Clubhouse Club. It will commence the programming with Thank Your Ass Off, a weekly room hosted by New York Times bestselling author and popular TED speaker AJ Jacobs and creative strategist and celebrated Clubhouse creator, Mir Harris.

Additional rooms for the summer and beyond will be announced in the weeks ahead. ''For nearly forty years TED has brought the world's preeminent ideas, imaginations and voices to audiences. This partnership will bring those minds into a dialogue with the millions of creators who make up the Clubhouse community,'' Kelly Stoetzel, Head of Thought Leadership Programming for Clubhouse, said.

* * * Bikry app raises USD 1.3 mn in funding from YCombinator, others * Bikry app (by Bizrise Technologies) on Monday said it has raised USD 1.3 million (about Rs 9.6 crore) in funding from YCombinator, along with the founders of Twitch.TV, RazorPay, Angelist, Cabra VC, and Sumon Sadhu.

''Getting every business online, especially during this time of the pandemic, is one of the critical steps we can take together not just to stay competitive but also to foster strong engagement and communication with your large customer base... During this pandemic, we have seen an incredible increase of 300 per cent in our unique customer base,'' Bikry app founder Abhishek Bhayana said in a statement.

The app has onboarded over 50,000 businesses across the country and is now aiming to serve over one million businesses by the end of 2021. Bikry app provides businesses with an online catalogue in the form of a website integrated with all payment options and local and national shipping. Its smart catalogue builder with 5 lakh products enables kirana stores, medical shops, mom and pop stores, restaurants and others to create and maintain professional-looking product catalogue that they share with their customers through WhatsApp and SMS with just a link.

* * * Team MobiGarage raises funding from SOSV, others * MobiGarage, a B2B e-commerce platform for refurbished smartphones, on Monday said it has raised funding from US venture capital fund SOSV and others.

The pre-series A round, details of which were not disclosed, also saw participation from Artesian, Inflection Point Ventures, MobAvenue, AppyHigh Technology LLP, and LetsVenture (Led by Veda.vc), a statement said. Prominent HNIs including Nikhil Aggarwal, Mrunal Jhaveri, Priyanka Chawla, Nitin Uppal, Rishabh Bhatia, Soarabh Gupta and Amit Anand also participated, it added. The funding will help the company scale operations in tier II cities and rural markets, strengthen the leadership team, build proprietary technologies and analytic engines and launch a focused D2C brand for 'Bharat', it said.

''MobiGarage is addressing this multi-billion market gap by providing just-like-new, high-quality refurbished smartphones at a fraction of the cost of new phones, completely removing the biggest hurdle in the consumers' digital journey,” Munish Vashishat, co-founder of MobiGarage, said.

* * * Goodworklabs to invest USD 200,000 in 10 start-ups by Mar 2022 * Mumbai: Goodworklabs on Monday announced that it will invest USD 200,000 in 10 start-ups by March 2022 through a newly launched early-stage venture capital fund.

The 'Goodworks Angel Fund' is led by serial entrepreneurs Vishwas Mudagal and Sonia Sharma and will back start-ups and entrepreneurs across various industries and domains, as per an official statement.