Early-stage start-up investment platform We Founder Circle (WFC) has successfully invested in 30 start-ups across 10 sectors in its first year of operation.

The platform has been able to facilitate a total fund worth 12M USD across the investment deals. Unlike other investment platforms and incubators, We Founder Circle, platform connects entrepreneurs directly with potential investors who have founded successful start-ups themselves. The model is not just facilitating investments but also promoting founders turned investors to back the budding entrepreneurs.

We Founder Circle team has taken the sector-agnostic approach. The majority of the investments enabled by We Founder Circle are in the Consumer D2C sector followed by AgriTech, Fintech, Edtech and others. The platform aids the investments through a strong network of over 2000+ angel investors spread globally. Simultaneously, the brand is also focussing on empowering women entrepreneurs that are leading around 30% of the WFC start-up portfolio.

Amit Tyagi, co-founder iServeU Tech, Abhishek Gupta, CEO APAC & ME, Turbotic, Dr Aloknath, Veteran Technologist, Dravya Dholakia, Dholakia Ventures, Siddharth Shah, MD Rajesh Motors Ankur Jain, Eminent Cars, Hitesh Dhawan, Founder Neuronimbus, Gaurav Juneja, Textile Entrepreneur has been the top investors participated in multiple investments throughout the year. 20% of WFC portfolio start-ups are also funded by the Unicorn Founders. Furthermore than 25% of WFC portfolio start-ups have female founders.

“Building a start-up demand a lot of tangible and intangible support. While you are stepping into entrepreneurship, you seek an investor that would understand the early hurdles, and mentor you sharing the same wavelength. WFC weaved this model to fill in the long-existing gap and mark its success, it today stands tall closing 30+ successful investment deals in its first year of incorporation. The start-ups are witnessing high scale growth and more than 25% of them raised their next round of funds within 6-7 months of investment from our side” said Neeraj Tyagi – Co-founder and CEO, We Found Circle.

Community Builder and one of the co-founders of We Founder Circle Gaurav VK Singhvi has been spreading awareness about the angle investment and start-up mentoring start-up community across India. He has taken several masterclasses on how angle investment becomes the asset class investment in cities like Nagpur, Raipur, Surat, Vadodara, Jaipur, Dehradun etc.

Gaurav VK Singhvi, Co-Founder We Founder Circle affirmed, “One of the prime reasons for this milestone achievement is the active participation of investors from tier 2 and tier 3 cities. We have been able to engage HNIs and founder turned investors from over 40 tier 2 and tier 3 cities in India. 70 percent of WFC angel investors are from these cities. We aim at adding at least 2000 more investors from tier 2/3 town in the next year.”

“Within the first year, WFC has spread its wings across 16 countries globally. Despite the pandemic, we were able to attract angels from various geographies to participate in the startup investment deals. 15% percentage of the funds have been infused by investors from outside India,” said Bhawna Bhatnagar, Head of Global Partnerships & Co-founder, We Founder Circle.

We Founder Circle has taken a lot of strategic steps to become the first investment platform to close 30+ deals in its first year of incorporation. The recently launched Global accelerator programme ‘EVOLVEX’ further acted catalyst and became the launchpad for the latest 6 deals in the last quarter of the running calendar year. The brand aims at closing 60 deals in the next calendar year 2022.

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India’s leading digital ecosystem Paytm today announced the launch of Paytm Wealth Academy, a first of its kind tech-powered educational platform.

The launch of the wealth academy is initially on the Paytm Money app, the wealth management app owned by Paytm’s wholly-owned subsidiary Paytm Money. The Paytm Wealth Academy is a first-of-its-kind initiative to allow users to learn trading and financial concepts at their own pace at their level of comfort. The platform offers a wide catalog of courses and webinars along with personalized recommendations for users, curated to complement their existing knowledge.

Over the past couple of years, India has seen an increase in stock market participation. There are many new users who are keen to learn and understand financial concepts. A lot of educational content on this topic has come up in recent times, but there is a lack of a structured platform that focuses on helping traders gain applicable knowledge in formats they are familiar with. Paytm Wealth Academy bridges this gap by offering personalized learning options for every type of investor and trader, regardless of where they are in their trading journey.

Paytm Wealth Academy is an educational platform designed to make financial learning intuitive and self-driven. For the first time, highly customizable courses are being offered, allowing users to start their learning journey from any stage. This will allow new traders to establish a ground-up understanding of financial concepts and also encourage experienced traders to stay updated with advanced trading strategies.

Paytm has extensively used cutting-edge technology to ensure that course recommendations will be personalized based on the user interactions & the time spent on the topic, making the learning process efficient. Each course has been carefully designed to offer bite-sized learning without overwhelming the user. Any terminologies or keywords used have been hyperlinked to provide a short explanation on the spot. As a result, users won’t have to refer to any material outside of the course to fully grasp the concept.

Paytm’s technology team has also ensured a seamless and coherent combination of video, audio, and text to convert even the most complicated concepts into lucid explanations. Each course also has checkpoints that let users start their learning from an appropriate stage.

Taking the example of the highly practical course ‘DIY – Create your own portfolio’ – the course has 6 different modules. The first three modules explain various investing strategies and styles such as Value, Growth, Beta, Quality, and Income investing. The next set of modules focus on implementation of these strategies in the market, list out key trading rules, and also offer practical guides. For a new trader it makes sense to start this course right from the beginning. However, a user familiar with the various investing styles would prefer to jump right to the implementation part. Such a user can access the ‘Checkpoint’ by taking a small assessment quiz. If the user is able to pass the quiz, he or she can directly begin from module. The quiz also serves as a refresher for users already aware of the concepts.

Courses are available across different verticals of Stock Investing, Futures & Options, and Technical Analysis. Within each vertical, the courses cover all concepts and topics right from the basics. For example, the Futures & Options vertical starts from beginner courses such as ‘Introduction to Derivatives’, moves to difficult concepts such as ‘Option Greeks’, and finally advanced and actionable courses such as ‘Directional Options Strategies’. At the end of each course, users will have to take a comprehensive assessment which will test all concepts within the course. An exclusive certification will be offered to users who pass this test.

Apart from the courses, the platform also offers webinars by experts with rich experience not just in the finance domain but also in mentoring and training traders. Among the speakers listed are Sankha Mukherjee who has 20 years of experience in trading and investing and is also a Certified Financial Planner. He has conducted over 2,220 workshops and has trained & coached over 36,000 Traders & Investors across the country. Neeraj Gogoi, another esteemed speaker on the platform has more than 20 years of experience in financial markets and 10 years of experience in trading education.

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Webinars cover a wide range of topics such as Options Trading Strategies (spreads, straddles, and strangles), Price Action Trading, Technical Analysis, International Investments, IPO Dynamics and many more. To ensure accessibility, a real impact for the masses, the webinars will be offered in English, Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, and several other regional languages making these learning options available to users across India.

The platform has been structured in a way to encourage users to learn more and explore the learning options themselves just as people currently browse OTT platforms for entertainment options. Thus Paytm Wealth Academy, while offering a rich content library also makes the learning process intuitive and user friendly.

All courses are available in the form of 1-year subscription plan costing Rs 1,200. One-year subscription of all webinars and courses together is available at Rs 4,500. Users can also choose to attend individual webinars at the cost of Rs 500 or Rs 1,000. Additionally, users will get a one-week free trial for all courses as soon as they are onboarded. Education and better understanding of financial concepts is likely to make users more confident about their trades and investments. This has the potential to attract new users to the Paytm Money platform while also encouraging existing users to trade more, which has the potential to increase revenue for Paytm Money.

Paytm Wealth Academy is owned and operated by OCL Ltd. (Paytm) and is being offered on the Paytm Money platform.

Paytm Money is one of the leading drivers of wealth creation in India, and offers investment products such as Stocks, IPO, F&O, ETF, and Direct Mutual Funds.

Varun Sridhar, CEO of Paytm Money said, “Paytm Money is happy to facilitate the launch of Paytm Wealth Academy, given our direct access to the broad investment community and reach across India. The platform will give our trading community access to educational content and specialized knowledge previously available only to institutional investors and traders. The platform will help users build a strong understanding of financial markets, especially F&O and intraday traders. Such users are likely to be better traders and stay longer in the market.”

Paytm Wealth Academy will be available to select users followed by a complete rollout.

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After the humongous success of its Pure Sound Series, Portronics is all set to launch yet another powerful soundbar Sound Slick III. Now your house parties will be memorable forever with this soundbar that has been ideally designed to meet the need for quality music.

The deep bass, excellent vocals and crisp highs of this soundbar ensure the best audio experience, thanks to its 2 driver units that produce immersive 80W sound output, providing a 3D-like surround sound experience. The soundbar is elegantly designed to add style and class to your living room thanks to its premium finish design that adds to its looks.

Equipped with multiple connectivity options, users can connect the soundbar via Bluetooth 5.0 making it easily compatible with any TV, Laptop, Tab, or Smartphone with just one touch. For those who simply love plug & play, the soundbar also supports a USB reader with MP3/WMA dual formats decoding.

One can discover a new level of immersive, cinematic audio experience at every corner of their home with this soundbar, which comes with 10M of wireless range. The soundbar is portable, sleek and weighs merely about 1.85 kg that makes it easy to carry around.

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With Pure Sound Slick III, walk freely around the room without worrying about wire tangling. Experience hassle-free music listening experience with instant and seamless pairing on Sound Slick III. It offers multiple connectivity options to users, enriching their buying experience. It is compatible with HDMI, USB, 3.5MM Aux and Optical input modes.

Price and Availability:

The Portronics Sound Slick III can be purchased at a reasonable price of INR 4,199 from the company’s official website, Portronics.com, Amazon.in and other online and offline stores. Available in an attractive black colour, the product is backed with a 12 months warranty.

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Puresight Systems, the official and exclusive distributor of iRobot products in India, has announced its end-of-season sale starting from Wednesday, December 15 to Friday, December 31, 2021. The exclusive year-end carnival sale offers mega discounts on all iRobot’s key models in the series of Roomba and Braava to bring cheer to millions of versatile consumers ahead of the New Year.

The company is all set to enlighten its customers with great deals and offers to bargain on the best mopping and vacuum solutions around this Christmas and before New Year’s celebrations. iRobot’s one-time mega year-end sale opportunity is for people who have missed upon the recent festive season sale. The advanced mopping and vacuum iRobot products offer consumers a wide range of premium and best-performing features that provide a complete automated and immersive floor cleaning experience.

The top-end vacuum models of iRobot – the Roomba i7 and i7+ are available at the discounted price of INR 44,900 and INR 59,900 respectively letting consumers save INR 15,000 each from the regular selling price. Customers can also seize the advanced and most recently launched Roomba i3 and i3+ at a discounted price of INR 29,900 and INR 44,900 respectively. In addition, other vacuum devices such as Roomba 698 and Roomba S9+ will be available with discounts from INR 18,900 to INR 1, 29,900 respectively. IRobot’s automatic mopping robot Braava Jet M6 is also on sale with the heavily discounted value of INR 15000 at INR 44,900 from the regular selling price.

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The special year-end 15 days mega sale will be live on e-commerce and online platforms such as iRobot’s official website, Amazon and Flipkart. The sale will also be up on iRobot’s offline stores, and other retail partners such as Croma and Reliance Digital stores from Wednesday, December 15, 2021.

Puresight Systems bring forth the best combination of innovative robotic vacuum and mopping robots with advanced and exclusive features for consumer across the globe. The Roomba i3 and i7 series are the mid and premium-range vacuums from iRobot in India that offer 3-staged cleaning efficiency with advanced features such as smart mapping, automatic dirt disposal, high-tech sensors, etc. The Roomba 698 comes with dual multi-surface brushes, adaptive navigation, and operates through voice-based commands with the support of Amazon Alexa and Google Home. Dirt-detect sensors eliminate the dirt even from the toughest places in a room. It is a must-have for the obsessive ones.

The Roomba i3, i7, and S9 series can automatically align their task of vacuuming with Braava’s mopping job without any manual efforts in-between using the iRobot Home App. Braava jet M6 works with vSLAM navigation learn the layout of any home and builds personal Smart Maps where users can selectively choose which room to clean. The vacuum and mop duo serves as the ideal ‘cleaning assistant’ for users who need far-reaching floor-cleaning assistance at their home with spotless finishing.

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Smartphone brand Vivo announced the findings of the third edition of the study titled ‘Impact of Smartphones on Human Relationships 2021’, focusing on the behavioral impact on children due to excessive use of mobile devices both by kids and their parents.

Conducted in association with Cybermedia Research (CMR), the study showcases the impact of smartphones on users and its effect on relationships. The third edition of Switch Off focusses on a unique angle of relationship dynamics especially in context to excessive use and all-pervasive presence of smartphones in our lives. The study sheds light on the various trends, patterns associated with smartphone usage and analyses the changing behavior of consumers.

Indeed, smartphones have become an essential tool in our day-to-day routine helping us connect with our friends and family in general. It became even more significant during Covid-19 and ensued lockdowns improving our overall quality of life and help us feel safe, secure and entertained at home. The study underlines that more than 80% of people agree that smartphones help boost their productivity and improve their quality of life. However, excessive usage of smartphones is triggering addiction among parents and that is hurting relationship with their kids.

The survey underlines that the average daily time spent on smartphones remains at alarming levels (in the post-Covid era) as there has been a 32% increase in the time spent on smartphones from the pre-Covid period. Interestingly, the survey also highlights that while the time that is spent with kids and family, in general, has gone up, the quality of time spent has deteriorated. 80% (four in every five) smartphone users are on their phones even they’re spending time with their kids, and a whopping 74% of Indian parents feel that their relationship with their kids may be hurt because of smartphones.

This has its ramifications on the psychological and cognitive development of children. 90% of parents confess that their children display signs of aggression due to their extended smartphone usage. The same number of parents feel that their children are sometimes lacking in acceptable moral and social behaviour.

Yogendra Sriramula, Director, Brand Strategy, Vivo India, said, “It is an undisputed fact that smartphones have become an integral part of our lives, helping us stay connected with work and social circles, giving us access to information and improving our productivity. However, their excessive use is impacting human relationships and behaviour. The Vivo study in 2019 and 2020 focused on the broad impact on relationships. In the 2021, Vivo CMR study, we wanted to ask the parents something their unconscious mind may already know – is their excessive use of smartphones hampering their relationship with their kids and impacting their psychological and cognitive development?”

“As a brand that wants to bring joy to people, this study is indeed a message to the parents that they should be mindful of their smartphone use, particularly while using them with their kids,” he said.

Some of the key findings of the study are as below:

Smartphones impact on human relationships – Obsession of smartphones is climbing the ladder, and decreasing attention spans are evident. While the time that we spend with our kids and family has gone up by 57% and 49% respectively, the quality of time spent has deteriorated.

• 66% confess to being on their smartphones while spending time with their kids.
• 74% of Indian parents feel that feel that their relationship with their kids maybe hurt because of smartphones.
• 75% admit to having been distracted by their smartphones and not being attentive to kids even while with them.
• 69% of people believe that they lose track of children, surroundings, and people when they are immersed in their smartphones, and 74% admit to getting irritated when their children ask them something.

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Impact of parents’ excessive usage of smartphones on children’s behavior – Smartphones are impacting everyday interactions and it’s a noticeable impact on kids, where uninterrupted time and attention are leading to visible behavioral changes in children:

• 90% of parents confess that their children display some signs of aggression owing to their extended smartphone usage
• 85% of parents feel that their children find it difficult to mix with other kids in a social setting and the overall outdoor experience to be daunting.
• 90% of parents feel that their children are sometimes found to be lacking in acceptable moral and social behavior.

Impact of Covid-19 – Today, smartphones are integral to everyday function and in a pandemic impacted world, they are integral to our existence.

• Consumers claim to spend an average of 6.5 hours on their smartphone per day, a 32% increase from the pre-COVID era.

Smartphone Addiction – Literally, the smartphone is the place where we live. Our smartphones are our digital home. While more than 80% people think that smartphones help them stay connected with their loved ones and improve their quality of life but;

• 94% of people agree that the smartphone has become a part of their bodies and they cannot separate from them.

The overall dependency on phones has increased and there is no sacred space, people use their phones while eating food (70%), in the living room (72%), and even while sitting with family (75%).

Parents Desire – It’s imperative to #SwitchOff and connect in an old-school way:

95% of respondents accept that they would love to spend more uninterrupted time with their children.

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