Blockchain Startup Arcana Raises $2.3 Million From Republic Crypto, Woodstock, DCG, Sahil Lavingia & Others

* Plans to Expand Its Team, Deepen Its Global Penetration through Community Building and Developer Evangelism

* Disrupts the privacy tools for developers

Arcana Network, a fast emerging Blockchain startup that offers Decentralised storage and data privacy platform for Ethereum and EVM compatible app developers, today announced that it has raised $2.3 million from leading investors in the Blockchain Ecosystem. The strategic round of funding was led by Republic Crypto and Woodstock Fund, and also saw participation from Digital Currency Group (DCG), Hyperedge, Sahil Lavingia's shl.vc, Fenbushi Capital, LD Capital, and Paradigm Shift VC. The company has raised this round in less than a quarter since their seed funding.

The $2.3M round also saw participation from Ganesh Swami, CEO of Covalent, Ajeet Khurana, Buidlers Tribe, Nishal Shetty of WazirX, Ajit Tripathi from Aave, along with Arcana’s seed investors AU21 and Arcanum Capital who’ve also invested in this round.

With this fundraise, Arcana expects to expand its squad, strengthen its product portfolio and soon launch Arcana's XAR token. The company also plans to invest in community building; they had recently announced a waitlist for developers and witnessed 100s join the queue to get their hands on its SDK. They have closed the first series of project partnerships that will participate in Arcana’s Alpha Testnet Launching in Oct ’21.

Founded by Mayur Relekar (CEO) and Co-founders Aravindh Kumar, and Abhishek Chaudhary in 2019, Arcana Network aims to be the most developer-friendly decentralized storage option amongst the other storage platforms such as IPFS, Filecoin, Storj, Sia… and gives developers a privacy stack in addition to storage to help apps securely manage data with complete privacy preservation.

Mayur Relekar, CEO of Arcana believes, “Data privacy and security will be first-class citizens in every app’s stack. Privacy and ownership of data will be a necessity for every product and developers need easy to use tools to fulfil this. With a vision to be privacy-first and developer-friendly platform, Arcana is working with developers across sectors from DeFi, NFT platforms, Social Networks, and Wallets, to traditional web 2.0 products in Fintech, Healthcare, and Enterprise SaaS, to bring privacy and security to their data.”

Speaking on the occasion, Aravindh Kumar, Co-founder said, “We have a great partnership with our investors, who continue to believe in our vision for Arcana and how we intend to serve better tools for developers and their users. More than 60% of the strategic fund raised would be devoted to build the community and develop a robust platform that will help app developers from easily authenticating users who can carry their keys and identity while interacting with apps, to easily sharing and managing access to data.”

Himanshu Yadav, Founding Partner from Woodstock, said, “Arcana's team has been building for more than 2 years and is tackling some of the biggest use cases and problems in the blockchain space - decentralized storage, privacy, and identity. Their modular and interoperable infrastructure stack will abstract a lot of complexities for the dapp developers thereby helping accelerate the application development on top of these next-generation Web 3.0 protocols.”

About Arcana Network:

Arcana Network, is a fast-emerging Blockchain startup that offers Decentralised storage and privacy stack with authentication, end to end encryption, key management, and access control for Ethereum and EVM compatible chain’s app developers. Established in June 2019, Arcana’s mission is to catalyse privacy and security of user data by being the most developer-friendly platform for data privacy. The company in July 2021 raised its seed funding from angel investors and veterans in the crypto space.

Union Bank Of India Signs MoU With CDAC, Hyderabad To Create Comprehensive Cyber Security

* The collaboration with CDAC, Hyderabad aims to create comprehensive cyber security awareness and education program for Union Bank’s customers, employees, and people at large. 

Union Bank of India entered into partnership with CDAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing) Hyderabad, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, under Bank’s Cyber Security Centre of Excellence (CCoE) initiative, according to which CDAC will assist the Bank to impart Cyber Security Awareness and Education to its stakeholders. 

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by Shri Raj Kiran Rai G, MD & CEO,  Union Bank of India and Smt P R Lakshmi Eswari, Director, CDAC-Hyderabad, at a virtual event held through Video Conferencing at the Bank’s Head Office in Mumbai and CDAC-Hyderabad Centre. 

Terming     the    collaboration    with    CDAC   as   an    important   milestone, Shri Rajkiran Rai G said “CDAC-Hyderabad has been engaged in multiple areas of IT, more particularly in Education, Training, Multilingual Technology, e-learning Technologies, and Information Security Education and Awareness (ISEA) among others. This association with   CDAC, Hyderabad will help the Bank in conducting Online/Offline sessions on Cyber Security Awareness, preparation of information security material like Audio/ Video / Brochure and Booklets and also for conducting mass campaigns and Social Media campaigns to educate the Staff, Customers and people at large, as a national initiative towards spreading Cyber Security Awareness.” 

This collaboration is a first of its kind initiative on Cyber Security and will benefit Bank’s Staff and Customers and different user groups, people at large to improve their security awareness levels and guide them to protect themselves from cyber threats in this digital era. 

On the occasion, Shri Rajkiran Rai G, MD & CEO, Union Bank of India also unveiled following initiatives for Cyber Security Awareness for Bank’s Customers and people at large: 

1.    E-book on Cyber Security Awareness - "We care for you" , 

2.    T Shirt promoting Cyber Security Awareness Messages #SafeWithUBI 

3.    Spin-N-Learn – A unique Spin-N-Learn Online game on Cyber Security Awareness which is hosted on Bank’s corporate website. 

4.    Union Bank Corporate Cyber Security Awareness Song– Bank's corporate song on Cyber security awareness with theme “Do your part-#Becybersmart” which will remind all of us to be alert and vigilant always and do their part to be cyber smart for mitigating and tackling cyber related Banking frauds. 

Also, Bank inaugurated the “Union Bank Conclave on Cyber Security Awareness Mission 2021-22” on 11.10.2021 as part of the National Cyber Security Awareness month being observed nationally.  The event was attended by senior Officials from  Reserve Bank of India, NCIIPC, Cert-In, Indian Cyber Crime Co-ordination center (I4C), IDRBT,Hyderabad, CDAC-Hyderabad, NIBM-Pune, IIT Bombay and Cyber Jagrithi Foundation. 

Photo Caption:  Shri Rajkiran Rai G, MD & CEO Union Bank of India along with Shri Gopal Singh Gusain, Executive Director, Shri Nitesh Ranjan, Executive on the occasion of MOU signing.

CarDekho Raises $250 M In Pre IPO Round, Reaches Unicorn Status With $1.2 B Valuation

Leapfrog Investments led the round, alongside Canyon Partners, Mirae Asset, Harbor Spring Capital and existing investors Sequoia Capital India and Sunley House 

CarDekho Group exceeded $100mn revenue run-rate in Sep’21 with strong performance across business segments 

The new funds will be used to accelerate growth in CarDekho’s Used Car transactions, Financial services and Insurance businesses, and expand internationally 

CarDekho, India’s largest car search platform, has announced a $250mn round of funding that included $200mn Series E equity and $50mn debt in its pre IPO round. With the latest fundraising, CarDekho joins the unicorn club with a valuation of $1.2bn and becomes the first unicorn based in Jaipur, Rajasthan. 

It is the largest ever fundraise by CarDekho and the proceeds will be used to accelerate CarDekho’s growth in the Used Car transactions,  Financial services and insurance businesses, build robust product and technology functions, increase brand awareness, and expand into new markets.  

CarDekho currently buys cars from customers in more than 100 markets and has a catalogue of 3,000+ certified pre-owned cars for online purchase. The company will be expanding its Used Car retail transactions business geographically and is set to increase its catalogue to 10,000 cars in the near future.  

The company plans to expand across India with retail hubs that will focus on both used car buying and certified pre-owned car retail transactions with customers. CarDekho team is currently present in India, Indonesia and Philippines and aims to use the funds to expand internationally. The company’s auto and non-auto products are currently used in more than 30 countries globally. 

Mr. Amit Jain, Co-founder and CEO CarDekho said, “CarDekho, from being a car research portal, has evolved to become a complete ecosystem for car buying, lifecycle management and selling. We are committed to empowering our customers and providing them with a convenient and hassle-free experience. The new fundraise will help us expand our Used Car transactions and Financial services businesses. The trust and conviction of our investors will help us to accelerate our growth plans whilst we provide our customers with an experience that will continue to re-define car buying and selling.” 

The funding round was led by LeapFrog Investments, a global impact investor focused on financial services and healthcare access. As CarDekho Group continues to scale, LeapFrog will support the company’s plans to deliver quality and affordable vehicles, insurance, and finance to millions of new emerging consumers. Improved mobility remains a proven driver of access to healthcare, education, and employment opportunities. 

Other new investors who participated included US based Canyon Partners, Mirae Asset and Harbor Spring Capital. CarDekho’s existing investors Sequoia Capital India and Sunley House invested further, reaffirming their confidence in the company. Sequoia Capital India was one of the early investors in CarDekho having led the Series A round in 2013 and Series C round in 2018.  

CarDekho’s digital platforms, ‘New Auto’, and its financial services businesses are already profitable and its insurance business, InsuranceDekho.com, has crossed the breakeven point. With the new investment, CarDekho moves closer to its vision of making car buying, selling, and owing an enjoyable, transparent and affordable experience for its customers.  

CarDekho has been the pioneer in digitalizing the auto ecosystem in India and, along with its group companies, it has become the go-to destination for all auto stakeholders, including original equipment manufacturers, dealers, car buyers and sellers. CarDekho works directly with almost all automobile manufacturers in India, amounting for up to 30% of annual sales for its strategic partners. CarDekho works actively with 3,500+ new auto dealers and 4,000+ used car dealers, homegrown traders and entrepreneurs. It collaborates with 14+ financial institutions and 40+ insurance companies to facilitate used car finance and insurance thereby providing a seamless experience to both used car buyers and sellers. 

Stewart Langdon, Partner and Co-Head of South Asian Investments, LeapFrog Investments, said, “Amit and the team have done an outstanding job in building the leading digital platform in India’s auto-tech market. We expect the business to continue on its rapid growth trajectory thanks to the calibre of the team and the extraordinary tailwinds which this segment now enjoys from increasing formalisation, digitisation and transparency. CarDekho is an outstanding platform for large scale social impact, already making vehicles more accessible, affordable and trustworthy for over three million emerging consumers. Improving access to mobility in this way will help to drive development in other key areas, such as healthcare and education.” 

Mr. Shailesh Lakhani, Managing Director, Sequoia India said, “Amit, Anurag, and the team at Cardekho have built a business that has far exceeded our initial expectations. Several of their business units hold leadership positions, and are now building further expertise in the used cars and financial services space where they are strongly positioned. The team at Sequoia India continues to be strong believers in their long-term success.”  

Mr Abhinav Sharman, Director, Sunley House Capital said, “We are thrilled to continue our support of CarDekho and their mission to be the leading retail auto and financial services provider in Southeast Asia. Since our initial investment, the company has had tremendous growth, establishing itself as the largest tech-auto platform in India. We are confident that this new investment will enable Cardekho to accelerate its growth in the auto retail market while capitalizing on the sizeable addressable market in auto insurance.” 

Numis and Credit Suisse acted as the financial advisors to CarDekho. 

About CarDekho Group  

CarDekho Group, headquartered in Jaipur, was founded in 2008 and has footprints in India and South-East Asia. The group currently operates various leading Indian auto portals such as CarDekho.com, Gaadi.com, ZigWheels.com, BikeDekho.com, PowerDrift.com and more. CarDekho Gaadi has a presence in 100+ markets across India where customers can sell their used cars. CarDekho currently has 3000+ certified pre-owned cars for customers to buy from its portal.  

The company expanded its presence in Indonesia under the brand name OTO and has quickly become the number one auto portal in the country. It also acquired the Philippines operations of Carmudi thereby expanding its operations to two Southeast Asian countries. CarDekho has raised funding from marquee investors including Sequoia Capital India, Hillhouse Capital, Ping An, Sunley House, CapitalG (formerly known as Google Capital), HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, Times Internet, Trifecta, Ratan Tata, Times Internet Limited, Kreatif Media Karya and Dentsu. 

Equicom Savings Bank Selects FSS Secure3D For Online Fraud Detection

FSS (Financial Software and Systems), a leading global provider of integrated payment products and a payments processor has partnered with Equicom Savings Bank (EqB) - one of the leading banks in the Philippines to address online fraud and to boost e-commerce growth.

Under this partnership, FSS will provide its Secure3D, an intelligent payment authentication solution, to create a safer and seamless way for consumers to transact in the digital economy.  The Philippines is one of the fastest-growing e-commerce markets in Southeast Asia, with transactions projected to grow from US$ 4 Billion in 2020 to US$ 15 Billion in 2025[i].

With increasing adoption, fraud attack vectors have grown in sophistication, and costs are on the rise, amounting to 2.03% of overall annual revenues. FSS Secure3D, modelled on EMVCo 3.2 guidelines, will help Equicom verify customer identity and flag fraudulent transactions before a payment transaction is authorized.

Speaking on the collaboration EqB Vice President and Head for Consumer & Small Business Lending Division Roussel E. Larger, noted; “Fraud is an ever-evolving problem, so we need to ensure that our prevention technology is evolving even better to maximize protection. Our partnership with FSS enables us to leverage its experience and technology to mitigate fraud threats and create low-friction trusted experiences that customers expect, providing both protection and opportunities to increase sales and revenue.”

For his part, FSS PayTech COO Krishnan Srinivasan said; “The payments market is fiercely competitive, so it is of paramount importance for financial institutions to layer intelligent counter-fraud measures to lower fraud costs. Our globally proven Secure3D delivers a solid technology foundation to keep ahead of fraud and aligns with core operational and risk strategies, enabling Equicom balance fraud detection without compromising the customer experience.”

Modelled on EMVCo 3DS 3.2 guidelines, FSS Secure3D exploits rich data streams exchanged between merchants and issuers to continually learn customers’ transactional DNA and assess risk based on a combination of location, merchant, transaction, and device-related attributes.

This technology helps systemically isolate higher-risk transactions while reducing the need to interrupt the consumer’s purchase. As for higher-risk transactions, FSS Secure3D dynamically provides additional verification checks such as biometric-based identification or a one-time passcode. FSS offers Authentication As-a-Service on FSSNeT, where FSS assumes responsibility for implementation, integration, certification, testing, and technical operations. This practice alleviates costs as well as the regulatory compliance burden.  Benchmarked to process 8,000 transactions per second, FSS Secure3D assures faster processing time and higher sales conversion. FSS Secure3D is certified by EMVCo and key card schemes like Visa, MasterCard, and Amex.

About FSS 

Financial Software and Systems (FSS) is a leader in payments technology and transaction processing. The company offers an integrated portfolio of software products, hosted payment services, and software solutions built over 30+ years of experience. FSS, end-to-end payments products suite, powers retail delivery channels including ATM, POS, Internet, and Mobile and critical back-end functions including cards management, reconciliation, settlement, merchant management, and device monitoring. Headquartered in Chennai, India, FSS services leading global banks, financial institutions, processors, central regulators, and governments across North America, UK, Europe, ME, Africa, and APAC and has 2,500 experts on board. For more information, visit www.fsstech.com.

About Equicom 

Equicom Savings Bank (EqB) is a medium-sized savings bank established on September 29, 2008. It is a member of the Equicom Group and was among the country’s top 20 thrift banks (in a group of 51 small, medium, and large thrift banks) in terms of total assets, total deposits, total loan portfolio volume, and return on equity. Moreover, its cardholders have access to over 20,000 BancNet ATMs nationwide and around one (1) million Visa Plus ATMs worldwide. The Bank’s corporate vision is to be the preferred savings bank of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and consumers. EQB is the first bank to receive the Pagtugon Award bestowed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) in 2012.

Punjab National Bank Reduces “Gold Loan Rates” Across India

Adding cheer to the festive season, Punjab National Bank (PNB) has come up with a range of deals and offers, making its banking services and transactions more attractive than ever before. As part of the new scheme, the bank has slashed the interest rate on loans against gold jewellery and Sovereign Gold Bond by 145 basis points to bring more joy to its customers. 

PNB now offers loans against Sovereign Gold Bond (SGB) at 7.20% and loans against gold jewellery at 7.30%. 

Additionally, PNB has slashed the home loan rate which now starts from 6.60%, while customers can avail car loans starting from 7.15% and personal loans from 8.95%, one of the lowest in the industry. 

During the festive season, PNB is also offering a full waiver of service charges/processing fee on the loans against gold jewellery and SGB, similar to home loans and vehicle loans announced recently. 

The bank has also slashed the margin on home loans. Hence, home loan seekers can now avail of loans up to 80% of the property's value without any upper ceiling on the loan amount. 

With the reduction in interest rate and zero processing fee, funds are available at a very competitive rate on a range of retail loan products offered by PNB during this season. 

Hero Motocorp Adds Cheer To The Festive Season With Exciting Retail Finance Schemes

Hero MotoCorp, the world’s largest manufacturer of motorcycles and scooters, has introduced a range of new and exciting retail finance schemes for customers.

Adding cheer to the ongoing festive season, the company is making numerous finance offers available to customers through a wide range of partners.

The innovative financial products such as No-Hypothecation, No cost EMIs, and Cash EMI (loan without a bank account), ensure that customers can bring home their preferred Hero MotoCorp product hassle-free. Along with Hero FinCorp, it has also introduced segment-first schemes such as Kisan EMI and Balloon EMI. These schemes provide tailor-made solutions for farm-income-based customers as well as customers with seasonal incomes. 

Through easy options and customized schemes, Hero MotoCorp is ensuring that almost all customer segments in the country have access to convenient finance and purchasing power. Thus, empowering them and boosting the economy in the process.

Additionally, Hero MotoCorp has introduced attractive schemes such as Aadhaar based funding, low down payment starting from Rs. 6,999/-, low interest rate of 5.55% and long tenure loans of up to 48 months. Customers can also avail of instant monetary benefits by using credit and debit cards of select banks like SBI and ICICI.

Providing customers with the power to choose, Hero MotoCorp has tied up with multiple nationalized banks, private banks and Non-banking financial corporations (NBFCs), including HDFC Bank, IndusInd Bank, Shriram City Union Finance, HDB Financial Services, IDFC First Bank, and Wheels EMI.

Customers can visit their nearest Hero MotoCorp outlet for more information.

SchoolEdTech LEAD To Host A Nationwide Student Championship Event For 10 lakh+ Students

* Top performers of LEAD Championship stand chance to win rewards up to INR 10 lakhs~

India’s largest SchoolEdtech Company in K-12 segment, LEAD today announced the launch of LEAD Championships 2021, the country’s biggest student championship. The inaugural session was hosted by Master Entertainer Aditya Narayan. This year, the Championship will have four categories – English Champs, Science Champs, Quiz Champs and Li’l Champs and is open to 10 lakh+ students from 2000+ schools across India.

The competition is designed to provide a national platform to students of all age groups & prepare them for success in the examination of life. By motivating students to demonstrate skills such as speaking, reading, listening, comprehension, application of their science-based concepts, current affairs, etc, LEAD focuses on holistic learning of students instead of only curriculum based assessments.

Students from Senior KG to Class 9 can submit their entries from October 13 to November 10, 2021 on the website here: www.leadschool.in/championships.

LEAD Cofounder & CEO, Sumeet Mehta said, “For a long time, students in small towns and affordable schools have not had the opportunity to demonstrate their talent at the national level. LEAD Championships 2021 is India's biggest national platform. It will provide students with exposure, practice and experiences that will propel them to achieve newer heights.”

English Champs will focus on elocution and public speaking, while Science Champs will provide an opportunity to students to showcase their scientific acumen and create science projects that have a strong real-world connection. Besides, Quiz Champs will test students’ level of knowledge regarding geography, nations, governments, current events and news from around the world. Lastly, a special competition has been designed for pre-primary students called the Li’l Champs which focuses on creating awareness about the surrounding as students will have to dress up as one of the characters from the list of themes and speak a few sentences or dialogues while acting as the character. Once the qualifier round is conducted, the students will compete in the Quarter Final round followed by Semi Finals and Finale round.

LEAD will provide all students qualifying to Quarter Final Round with an exclusive opportunity to interact and learn from experts through a series of exclusive masterclasses.

The winners of the four championships will take home exciting prizes up to INR 10 lakhs in addition to the highly coveted LEAD Championship Trophy.

Link and snapshots of the launch event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Mqkwfeuei4