Business briefs

Nazara invests USD 2.5 mn in US-based game fund Bitkraft Ventures * Nazara, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the diversified gaming and sports media company Nazara Technologies, has invested USD 2.5 million (over Rs 18 crore) in the US-based game fund Bitkraft Ventures.

Of the total investment of USD 2.5 million, USD 0.875 million will be invested upfront and the balance USD 1.625 million will be deployed over three years, Manish Agarwal, Chief Executive of Nazara Technologies, said.

In addition, Nazara Technologies, the only gaming company to be listed in the country after an IPO last year, has acquired multiple companies over the past few years. It has also invested in Absolute Sports that operates Sportskeeda and Paper Boat Apps and OpenPlay-Skill Gaming, among others.

*** DCB Bank opens its 400th branch, to add around 35 more * Small-sized private sector lender DCB Bank has crossed the landmark of opening its 400th branch.

The bank said it will add 25-35 branches more.

While the pandemic had slowed down the branch expansion, the bank aims to open 25-35 new branches in the next 12-18 months, and Delhi-NCR is and will continue to be a major (hotspot) in our branch expansion plans, Murali Natrajan, MD of DCB Bank, said.

The new branch at Azadpur Mandi will be primarily serving MSMEs/SMEs, and small traders, the bank's new chairperson Rupa Devi Singh, said.

*** Vested Finance raises USD 12 million led by Ayon Capital * US stock investment platform Vested Finance, founded by Indians, has raised USD 12 million (around Rs 90 crore) in a funding round led by Ayon Capital.

Existing investors Tenoneten, Ovo Fund, Wedbush Ventures, IPV, and Upscale also participated in series A funding round.

The California-headquartered online investment platform enables Indian investors to invest in US stock markets, and has so far processed more than USD 250 million in transactions in 2021. It has also tripled the deposits on the platform in 2021.

Apart from this, 9Unicorns, Ankur Warikoo of Groupon India, Dhruvil Sanghvi of Loginext), and Saumil Parekh of PharmEasy, along with content creators like Akshat Shrivastava, Mukul Malik Sharan Hedge, Dhruv Rathee, Shashank Udupa have also come on board as investors.

To facilitate Indian investors to invest in US markets, Vested has joined hands with more than 35 partners like brokers, fintechs, and wealth management firms in India, including the likes of Axis Securities, Kuvera, Angel Broking, and 5Paisa.

*** We360.ai raises USD 500k * Bhopal-based employee productivity monitoring app We360.ai has raised USD 500,000 (Rs 3.7 crore) in seed funding from GSF Accelerator, Hem Angels and others.

The startup was founded by 21-year-old Arnav Gupta along with Sandeep Panda and Swapnil Tripathi last year.

Other investors include SucSEED Indovation Fund, Vishal Gondal who is the founder of GOQii, Ah! Ventures, and Campus Fund VC.

We360.ai is a cloud-based employee monitoring software that helps managers gain actionable insights into employee productivity with analytics through personalised dashboards and reports, irrespective of the location of the employee.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)