Semiconductor Laboratory revamp: Tata, Texas, Tower among nine bidders

The state-owned Semiconductor Laboratory in Mohali is the only chip manufacturing unit in India that produces semiconductors for strategic and defence purposes, including for space exploration such as the Chandrayaan mission. However, the facility that was founded in 1976, has lagged behind private companies in terms of production as well as technology over the years.

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PB Fintech locks maiden profit for third quarter at Rs 37.2 crore

PB Fintech, the parent entity which operates insurance aggregator Policybazaar and credit marketplace Paisabazaar, has turned profitable and clocked its first ever net profit of Rs 37.2 crore for the third quarter ending December 31, 2023.

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Meesho joins carts queued up at credit & grocery counters

Ecommerce company Meesho wants to start a credit marketplace where borrowers will be sourced on behalf of its lending partners — banks and NBFCs. Meesho is also planning to offer grocery business service, which it had scaled down in 2022, again in one or two cities from April.

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US FTC was poised to reject Amazon acquisition of iRobot

The Federal Trade Commission was poised to reject Amazon.com's $1.4 billion acquisition of robot vacuum maker iRobot before the companies announced early Monday they were abandoning the deal in the face of EU antitrust opposition, a source said.

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Amazon calls off bid to buy iRobot amid pushback in Europe

Amazon announced in 2022 that it would buy iRobot, maker of the circular-shaped Roomba vacuum, for $1.7 billion in cash. But the value of the deal fell 15% after iRobot incurred new debt.

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IT services hiring shows signs of traction, intent up 10% in January

The uptick in IT hiring comes after the macroeconomic slump in 2023 led to a massive headcount correction last year. However, experts caution that current requirements are only filling vacant roles not replaced over the past few quarters and that the numbers are still small.

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Shift in sentiment: Angel investors exercise caution amid changing startup dynamics

Angel investors have become watchful about putting their money in startups as their focus shifts from breathtaking concepts to solid business models.

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Elon Musk's X aims to hire 100 content moderators in Austin by end of year

Social media company X is in the process of hiring 100 content moderators for a new office in Austin, Texas that will focus on fighting child abuse content, a goal it hopes to complete by the end of the year, an X executive said on Saturday.

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Govt seeks ideas to push AI-driven e-governance

The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) recently brainstormed with nearly 15 domain experts from EY to PwC to stay in step with sweeping technology shifts and plan future public service delivery models using AI.

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Outrage over deepfake porn images of Taylor Swift

Fans of Taylor Swift and politicians expressed outrage on Friday at AI-generated fake porn images that went viral on X and were still available on other platforms.

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Flipkart close to profitability: CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy tells staff

While Flipkart has been working to reduce its costs for the past two years, this is the first time Krishnamurthy has spoken publicly to employees about profitability.

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Apple overhauls app store, iPhone features in EU to appease regulators

The revamp will allow customers to download software from outside the App Store for the first time, the company said Thursday. They’ll also be able to use alternative payment systems and more easily choose a new default web browser — addressing two frequent complaints of developers and lawmakers.

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FTC launches inquiry into generative AI investments and partnerships by Amazon, OpenAI, Microsoft

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission launched an inquiry on Thursday into generative artificial intelligence investments and partnerships.

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Fast fashion brand Newme raises $5 million in funding round led by Fireside

The Bengaluru-based startup, which currently sells its own brand of clothing across both online and offline outlets was founded in 2022. It had in the past raised an undisclosed round of funding from investors such as Aum Ventures, 2am VC and All In Capital, all of whom have participated in the current round.

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Fidelity cuts fair value of Meesho, Pine Labs

As per the filings, Fidelity's funds have set Meesho’s fair value at around $4.1 billion as of October 31, 2023, down from around $5 billion as of end-August. Meesho was last valued at $4.9 billion after raising $570 million in 2021.

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Microsoft hits $3 trillion value, cementing strength of AI rally

The stock rose as much as 1.3% to $403.95, resulting in a market capitalization of $3 trillion. The threshold cements Microsoft’s status as one of the largest public stocks. It briefly surpassed Apple Inc. in value — which last year became the first company to hit $3 trillion — but subsequently dropped back below the iPhone maker, with the two trading places ever since.

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Good Glamm cofounder Priyanka Gill to join Kalaari Capital as venture partner

Gill will also join the board of Good Glamm and become the chairperson of Good Media Co that runs the group’s digital media business, the company said in a news release.

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Byju’s rights issue at $500 million valuation; what’s hurting cloud kitchens?

Happy Wednesday! Beleaguered edtech major Byju’s finally filed its much-delayed audited FY22 results with the Registrar of Companies. It’s also holding talks to float a rights issue at a valuation of less than $1 billion. Yes, you heard it right. More on that in today’s ETtech Morning Dispatch.

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Price rise, funding slump may dampen cloud kitchen growth

The earnings reports of the first two quarters of listed restaurant and food companies point to a broader trend of sluggish growth amid macroeconomic headwinds.

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Tech demand in FY25 to be better than this fiscal: TCS' NG Subramaniam

Though clients are not cutting down on the budgets in the ongoing fiscal 2024, they are optimising every aspect of the business since macro uncertainties remain, Subramaniam told ET in an interview.

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North Korea's AI development raises sanctions concerns, report says

North Korea is developing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning for everything from how to respond to COVID-19 and safeguard nuclear reactors to wargaming simulations and government surveillance, according to a new study.

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Coforge net profit rises 4.3%, maintains revenue guidance for FY24

The consolidated revenue for Q3FY24 was up 13% yoy to Rs 2,323.3 crore as compared with Rs 2,055.8 crore and up 2.2% quarter-on-quarter (qoq) from Rs 2,272.2 crore.

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Supreme Court to decide Google-CCI dispute finally on April 30

Google has challenged a part of the NCLAT’s March 29 order that upheld the Rs 1,337-crore fine imposed on it, and also quashing of six of the 10 directives that the anti-trust body imposed on the US search giant to change its business model for anti-competitive conduct in the Android ecosystem.

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Tech boost? several US federal contracts up for renewal in next two quarters

Experts are of the view that while it's still hard for Indian companies to crack large US federal deals that are up for renewals over the next two quarters, there is a more positive attitude towards Indian-heritage suppliers.

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AI and death: Sundance films grapple with our digital afterlife

Two documentaries premiered at Sundance explore the ethics of AI and its relationship to death. 'Eternal You' focuses on predatory AI-powered startups profiting from bereaved customers seeking to communicate with deceased loved ones. The film highlights the addictive nature of these services and the potential harm caused by AI programs going astray.

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OpenAI suspends bot developer for Congressman Dean Phillips: report

OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, has banned the use of its AI tools in a political campaign after a bot mimicking Congressman Dean Phillips was created by a super PAC named We Deserve Better. The bot, called Dean.Bot, was powered by OpenAI's ChatGPT and was created by entrepreneurs Matt Krisiloff and Jed Somers.

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IT gives bears a bull hug: what is driving the rally in tech stocks?

Despite muted earnings in the previous quarter and little expectations of major recovery in the next quarter, what is driving the rally in tech stocks? The answer lies in FY25, on which everyone is pinning their hopes.

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Davos 2024: Top quotes from tech world’s leading minds on artificial intelligence

​​In all, about 60 heads of state and 800 CEOs were in attendance among a total of 2,800 participants, as they discussed wide-ranging issues — from climate change to economic slowdowns — at both formal and informal gatherings.

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Sam Altman seeks to raise billions for network of AI chip factories

Altman has had conversations with several large potential investors in the hopes of raising the vast sums needed for chip fabrication plants, or fabs, as they’re known colloquially, said the people, who requested anonymity because the conversations are private.

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Online retailer Wayfair's shares jump on job cuts, upbeat 2024 core profit

The company said the job cuts, which affect 19% 0r 1,650 of its corporate employees, would lead to annual cost savings of $280 million.

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Insurtech startups check expenses to secure profits

Insurtech startups such as Acko and Digit have switched gears to health insurance which is a more long-term product despite starting with motor insurance, which is mandatory for vehicle owners in India, as their principal product.

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Meta bringing together AI research and product teams

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Thursday that the company was bringing its AI research team "closer together" with a more business-focused generative AI team launched last year, doubling down on a push to get the technology into products.

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Insurtech startup Bharatsure raises $1 million in funding round led by Capital-A

Insurtech startup Bharatsure, the parent of Healthysure, has raised $1 million in a funding round led by early-stage venture capital fund Capital-A.

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Elon Musk's X approved for Virginia money transmitter license

Social media platform X received approval for a money transmitter license in Virginia, the 17th U.S. state to grant approval, as the Elon Musk-owned company advances efforts toward introducing payment features.

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Samsung bets on Google-powered AI features in smartphone revamp

At its Unpacked conference Wednesday in San Jose, California, Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S24, S24+ and S24 Ultra phones, which all add AI tools based on the Gemini technology from Alphabet Inc.’s Google. The devices can live-translate phone calls, transcribe voice recordings, summarize web articles, fix handwriting and use generative AI to fill in parts of photos.

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DMI Group acquires ZestMoney in a firesale

The news comes as ZestMoney had informed employees last month about its plans to shut down by the end of December.

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Startup Awards: Three southern states figure among five best performers

Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu shared the recognition with Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. In the startup ranking, while Himachal Pradesh is placed among Category-B states, the others are Category-A states.

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Centre may allot Rs 10,000 crore for quantum computing hubs

An announcement to this effect is likely to be made during Global Artificial Intelligence Summit and Awards scheduled to be held here on January 18 and 19, a government official said.

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Baidu denies report that its Ernie AI chatbot is linked to Chinese military research

Technology company Baidu on Monday refuted a newspaper report that said its artificial intelligence chatbot Ernie was linked to Chinese military research.

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Google India's gross ad revenue grows 12.49% to Rs 28,000 crore

Google India's FY23 operating revenue decreased by 0.11% to Rs 9,275 crore from Rs 9,286 crore in FY22. The company has demerged its IT services business to an independent entity, Google IT Services India.

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Agri LLM Dhenu 1.0 on pilot to seed a new AI revolution

Launched by agricultural AI startup Kissan AI’s founder Pratik Desai last month, the large language model is named after Kamadhenu, a divine bovine-goddess described in Hinduism as the mother of all cows and is trained on high-quality conversational datasets, specially focused on Indian agriculture practices.

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Upgrad in talks for $100 million to close US edtech Udacity buy

Upgrad founder Ronnie Screwvala, who owns 22.4% in Upgrad, likely to participate in $100 million round. The company has pitched to external investors for about $50-60 million. The rest would be from existing investors like Temasek.

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Data brokers know everything about you: what FTC case against ad tech giant Kochava reveals

Kochava, the self-proclaimed industry leader in mobile app data analytics, is locked in a legal battle with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over its secretive data acquisition and AI-aided analytics practices. The FTC's recently amended complaint reveals that Kochava collects and sells sensitive location and personal data, which allows it to predict and influence consumer behavior.

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Netflix reels in viewers with three-word hooks

The two- or three-word tags, meant to convey the gestalt of a show or movie, regularly help viewers choose a show from the service's nearly endless library, the company says. The words are selected by about 30 employees -- so-called taggers.

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Google removes Binance, other offshore crypto apps from Play Store

Less than 24 hours after access to web platforms of crypto wallets such as Binance was cut off for Indian users, theirapps were also taken down from Google Play Store..

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The AI-ceberg of innovations: Meet AI-first startups shaping India's tech future

Over the last 12 months, a new generation of AI-driven companies and generative AI tooling startups have attracted investments, but this represents only a small percentage of the companies driving innovation in this space. Under the surface lies vast, untapped potential for more.

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ET Explainer: OpenAI’s response to NYT’s copyright lawsuit

OpenAI has refuted some of these allegations and claimed that the fair use doctrine of copyright laws will apply in its case. ET explains the case and its ramifications.

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Centre blocks web platforms of offshore crypto apps, including Binance, Kucoin and others

India blocked access to foreign cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance, Kucoin, and OKX, as well as virtual digital asset service providers. The Android versions of these apps are also expected to be removed.

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Bitwise bitcoin ETF draws most inflows on first trading day, company says

Bitwise reported that its spot bitcoin ETF received the most inflows out of the 10 products that began trading on Thursday. The SEC approved 11 spot bitcoin ETFs this week, including BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust and Grayscale Bitcoin Trust.

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US firm ACI Worldwide sees a spot in cross-border payments business here

Says technology for cross-border payments is already available, needs regulatory push for greater adoption

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K-12 edtech startup ConveGenius raises $7 million in funding

ConveGenius, a K-12 edtech startup, has raised $7 million in funding led by UBS Optimus Foundation. The funding round also saw participation from Mount Judi Ventures and existing investors. ConveGenius provides schools with conversational AI tools like chatbots.

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Indian govt should continue to keep China apps in check: FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr

The chief of FCC also said he found the work India is doing to provide access to the internet and telecommunication services to every citizen “very admirable”.

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The Baker’s Dozen raises Rs 33 crore in funding round led by Wipro Consumer VC unit

The funds will be used to enhance distribution growth, expanding reach into non-metro cities and international markets. It will be also employed for brand-building and marketing initiatives.

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SaaS accelerator Upekkha announces first close of $40 million VC fund

The fund was created with a leading investment from WestBridge Capital, among other limited partners including Godard Abel, founder and CEO of G2, a business-to-business marketplace that ranks SaaS companies.

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OpenAI launches new store for users to share custom chatbots

OpenAI has launched an online store where people can share customized versions of the company’s popular ChatGPT chatbot, after initially delaying the rollout because of leadership upheaval last year.

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Eye on GenAI, Indian IT companies seek opportunities to build and expand

AI services such as AI model training and data preparation will gain steam in the next five years and will be critical in helping enterprises capitalise on the full potential of AI, Tatavarti said.

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DPDP Rules: Furore over leeway to some companies on use of kid’s data

Digital privacy and cybersecurity experts as well as lawyers ET spoke to also said that there needs to be additional deliberation on the finer workings of the consent artefact architecture, including how giving and revoking consent will work.

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Microsoft's OpenAI investment risks EU merger probe, EU regulators say

Microsoft's financial backing for ChatGPT maker OpenAI may be subject to EU merger rules, EU antitrust regulators said on Tuesday, underscoring a similar warning from its UK peer in December.

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Blue-collar jobs may weather raging AI storm better: experts

Only 1% of blue-collar jobs were currently at risk of being automated by AI, according to HR services firm TeamLease Services. In addition, AI can enhance blue-collar workers’ productivity in ways that could improve their pay, and companies are already investing in such technology.

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AI will become companion to creative process, not its master: Anand Mahindra

The chairman of the Mahindra and Mahindra Group said what ChatGPT does is aggregate data but what it doesn't do is capture what a human being has experienced and concluded about something.

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Voice actors air their fears about voice-stealing AI

With different GenAI models working on cloning voices, they can create a five-hour-long audiobook within minutes or even dub an entire OTT web series in 10 different languages. Regarding this, the Association of Voice Artists has reached out to FICCI to represent its concerns before the IT Ministry.

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Microsoft executive Dee Templeton joins OpenAI board: report

The ChatGPT maker had made headlines in November, when CEO Sam Altman was briefly ousted by the OpenAI board and reinstated days later after more than 700 employees threatened to quit and join backer Microsoft in solidarity.

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A crystal ball gaze at the best tech of 2024

This year will have big tech showcasing advancements in AI and other technologies.

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Cracking the code: Charting the consumer landscape of India

India’s consumer tech sector stood at $100 billion in FY-22, something that is expected to go up to $300 billion by 2027, growing at an annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 25%.

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Confident of Aditya L1’s insertion in halo orbit around L1: Nigar Shaji

Aditya was launched from the Sriharikota spaceport on September 2 and the spacecraft has traversed a distance of 1.5 million km from Earth. The final manoeuvre will involve firing a group of thrusters for a short period of time till 4 pm on Saturday. Aditya L1 has 12 thrusters.

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System that could help power proposed Indian Space Station tested successfully: Isro

The 100W class polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell based power system (FCPS) was tested in space on PSLV Orbital Experimental Module or POEM, launched onboard PSLV-C58 on January 1.

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US-based firm SentinelOne acquires Bengaluru cybersecurity startup PingSafe

The Mountain View-headquartered company in a statement said it will acquire PingSafe for a combination of cash and stock and that the acquisition is expected to conclude in SentinelOne’s first quarter of fiscal year 2025.

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LTIMindtree creates Banking Transformation Practice

The BTP will deliver end-to-end consulting, digital and IT services, leveraging commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products and platforms serving banks and capital market firms, LTIMindtree said.

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Apple suffers second rating downgrade in tough start to 2024

Apple has been grappling with a demand slowdown since early last year and forecast holiday-quarter sales below Wall Street estimates.

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ONDC crosses record 5.5 million transactions in December

Of the 5.5 million transactions made via ONDC in December, 3.4 million (63%) were in the mobility category while two million (37%) were in the retail category.

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Adidas to set up its first Asia GCC outside China in Tamil Nadu

Adidas, headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, will set up its Global Business Services (GBS) hub with Akhil Kapoor leading operations. This reinforces the recent boom of MNCs investing in India in large numbers to set up their GCCs.

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Govt may amend IT Act to add new rules for AI, GenAI models

The amendments to the IT rules are likely to mandate that GenAI platforms which use artificially intelligent algorithms or language models to train their machines are free from “bias” of any kind.

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India's space startups report success of in-orbit experiments onboard ISRO's POEM

ISRO's PSLV Orbital Experimental Module (POEM) enables in-orbit scientific experiments using the spent PS4 stage as an orbital platform.

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IT stares at slowest quarterly revenue growth in a decade

The third-quarter results season will begin with TCS and Infosys announcing their results on January 11, followed by HCLTech and Wipro on January 12. The focus this quarter will be the commentary on the demand environment and 2024 budgets.

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Catamaran president Deepak Padaki sees startup valuations falling further

In an interview with ET’s Beena Parmar, Deepak Padaki, who joined Catamaran Ventures last August, also talks about its investment exits, deal sizes and corporate governance at startups. Edited excerpts:

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Apple hits seven-week low after Barclays downgrade

Barclays is the second brokerage to have the equivalent of a "sell" rating on the stock, which now has its most number of bearish recommendations in at least two years, per LSEG data.

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More startups want to ‘flip’ back to India; SoftBank’s returns from listed firms

Startups are moving their overseas holding entities to India ahead of their forthcoming public listings, especially in the fintech sector which is governed by the country’s central bank regulations.

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Meesho’s early backers eye new secondaries at $3-3.5 billion valuation

Norwest Venture Partners, WestBridge Capital are among entities said to be in talks to pick up stake in ecommerce firm Meesho. The development underscores the growing trend of secondary share sales in late-stage firms.

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India job scene sees early signs of disruption from AI

Millions of working employees will need reskilling and upskilling, which in turn could create new job opportunities as well, say experts

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