Who is India's technology start-ups set to continue IPO rush into 2022

Year 2021 belonged to India’s technology startups. And that's not just because they raised more than $36 billion from the private market or that 43 of them became unicorns.

Some of the biggest tech start-ups in the country – most of them either loss-making or just about in the black – hit the bourses this year. These companies accounted for more than $6 billion of the estimated $24 billion raised by initial public offerings (IPOs) in India in 2021.

And the IPO rush for startups is set to continue in 2022, according to industry watchers and tech entrepreneurs. While logistics firm Delhivery, online pharmacy PharmEasy, e-commerce company Snapdeal, hotel aggregator OYO and a host of others, have already filed their IPO prospectuses, unicorns like Ola, Capillary and OfBusiness are expected to join the party next year

startup Byju’s is in talks with Churchill Capital to raise $4 billion and go public through the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) route. The round is expected to more than double the Bengaluru-based firm's valuation to about $48 billion, according to sources. The Byju Raveendran-led startup is currently valued at $21 billion, the first domestic startup to reach the mark.

If the fundraise with Churchill Capital materialises, Byju’s can merge with one of Churchill’s SPACs and list in the US market by mid-2022.

Amazon has updated its Alexa voice assistant after it "challenged" a 10-year-old girl to touch a coin to the prongs of a half-inserted plug.

The suggestion came after the girl asked Alexa for a "challenge to do".

"Plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs," the smart speaker said.

Amazon said it fixed the error as soon as the company became aware of it.

The girl's mother, Kristin Livdahl, described the incident on Twitter.

She said: "We were doing some physical challenges, like laying down and rolling over holding a shoe on your foot, from a [physical education] teacher on YouTube earlier. Bad weather outside. She just wanted another one."

That's when the Echo speaker suggested partaking in the challenge that it had "found on the web".

The dangerous activity, known as "the penny challenge", began circulating on TikTok and other social media websites about a year ago.

Metals conduct electricity and inserting them into live electrical sockets can cause electric shocks, fires and other damage.

"I know you can lose fingers, hands, arms," Michael Clusker, station manager at Carlisle East fire station

Reliance New Energy Solar Ltd (RNESL), a wholly owned subsidiary of energy-to-telecom behemoth Reliance Industries Ltd, today (Dec 31) announced that it has signed definitive agreements to acquire 100% shareholding in Faradion Limited, a leading non-aqueous sodium-ion cell technology provider, at an an enterprise value of $134.9 million.

Sodium-ion batteries is being explored as an alternative in the background of huge surge in demand for lithium, cobalt and nickel, which are the key ingredients used in current batteries.

Reliance also said that it will invest $134.9 million as growth capital to accelerate commercial roll out of Faradion's sodium-ion cell technology.

Based out of Sheffield and Oxford in UK and with its patented sodium-ion battery technology, Faradion is one of the leading global battery technology companies. It has a competitively superior, strategic, wide-reaching and extensive IP portfolio covering several aspects of sodium-ion technology.

Reliance will use Faradion’s state-of-the-art technology at its proposed fully integrated energy storage giga-factory as part of the Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga Complex project in Jamnagar, the Mukesh Ambani-led firm said.

Due to increasingly widespread adoption of electric vehicles, car and battery manufacturers across the world are seeking new alternatives to the current three main technologies