Business briefs 2

Zebi, a blockchain company, Wednesday said it has acquired Element42, a Bengaluru-based blockchain start-up. Zebi has made the acquisition to bolster the strength of its in-house blockchain engineering talent while adding new products and customers, a statement said.

"This acquisition will transfer all of Element42’s clients to Zebi, allowing Zebi to expand its product line and customer base. The solution provided by Element42 leverages blockchain technology and offers advanced protection against fraud risk management with wide applications across many industry segments," it added. No financial details of the deal were disclosed.

* * * * Paytm Money appoints Suresh Vasudevan as CTO

* Paytm Money, a wholly owned subsidiary of One97 Communications that operates Paytm, Wednesday said it has appointed Suresh Vasudevan as its chief technology officer (CTO). Vasudevan will lead the overall engineering and technology functions at Paytm Money and will be based out of Bengaluru, a statement said.

"Suresh will also be working on building Data Science and AI capabilities for Paytm Money as we continue focusing on automating our platform and building robo-advisory based investment products to ease the investment advice and decision-making process for our users," Paytm Money whole-time Director Pravin Jadhav said.

* * * * BLS Accelerator to invest upto $1 mn in startups

* BLS Accelerator has said it will invest up to USD 1 million (around Rs 7.11 crore) in early start-ups across sectors like agri-tech, government to consumer (G2C), e-governance, healthcare and travel, this year. BLS Accelerator will run its first programme in April followed by two more similar accelerator programmes in 2019, a statement said.

"We are looking at supporting nearly 5-6 start-ups from our focussed sector groups and partner with them to build companies that will have global relevance," BLS Accelerator founder and CEO Riya Aggarwal said.

* * * * CRDB Bank partners Nucleus Software

* Nucleus Software Wednesday said CRDB Bank, a financial services provider in Tanzania, has gone live with its Nucleus FinnOne Collections and Lending Analytics solution. Established in 1996, CRDB Bank is one of the largest banks in Tanzania and offers a range of corporate, retail, business, treasury, premier, and wholesale micro-finance services through a network of 260 branches and 569 ATMs.

In 2017, the bank engaged Nucleus FinnOne Collections and Nucleus Lending Analytics to improve loan collections efficiency by streamlining, automating and digitising their operations, a statement said. No financial details of the partnership were disclosed.