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Indian fintech Money View said on Monday it has raised $75 million in a new funding round, its second this year, despite the market slump as it looks to scale its core credit business and build more products in the South Asian market.

Apis Partners led Money View’s Series E funding round, valuing the Bengaluru-headquartered startup at $900 million, up from $615 million in a $75 million Series D funding round in March. The startup said in a statement that the round hasn’t closed and it expects to raise more capital.

TechCrunch reported in October that Money View was engaging with investors to raise up to $150 million at a valuation of $1 billion. The startup said today that existing backers Tiger Global, Winter Capital and Evolence also participated in the funding.

The eight-year-old startup offers personalized credit products and financial management solutions to customers who otherwise don’t have a credit score and so can’t avail credit from banks and other financial institutions. India’s credit bureau data book is thin, making most individuals in the South Asian market unworthy of credit. Fintechs use modern-age underwriting systems to lend to customers and a maze of regulatory arbitrage — increasingly getting closed — to operate.

Money View is currently disbursing about $1.2 billion in loans, at an annualized-basis, and managing over $800 million, it said. The startup, which says it has been profitable for the past two years, clocked a revenue of $30.6 million and a profit of $2.14 million in the financial year that ended in March, according to regulatory disclosure.

“Our performance and growth over the past two years has allowed us to drive our mission of true financial inclusion in India with great success,” said Puneet Agarwal, founder and chief executive of Money View, in a statement. “We are thrilled to have Apis Partners join us in our journey and with their support, we look forward to becoming India’s leading online credit platform with innovative and holistic financial solutions.”

Money View plans to deploy the fresh funds to grow its credit business, broaden its product portfolio with services such as digital bank accounts, insurance, wealth management and hire more talent, it said.

Its new funding comes at a time when the dealflow activity has slowed down dramatically in the South Asian market as investors grow cautious of writing new checks and evaluate their underwriting models after valuations of publicly listed firms take a tumble.

“Money View has achieved great success already, with their credit products democratising the access for millions of customers in India, and we are truly excited to partner with the company at this stage of its journey,” said Matteo Stefanel, Co-founder and Managing Partner at Apis Partners, in a statement.

Indian fintech Money View valued at $900 million in new funding by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch

The year is coming to an end, and with it, I continue an annual tradition of writing a x words about x piece. This year, that means trying to cram the year 2022 into 2,022 words. As you might imagine, that’s a lot. I usually write 5,000-6,000 words and then have to ruthlessly edit it down to try to hit my word cap. Part of the challenge, though, is to re-live all the highs and lows of the year without getting overwhelmed. The trick is to keep your fingers moving no matter what. And recently, I found an app for that, which I’d love to share with y’all. ’tis the season, after all.

As a writer, you’ll often find yourself reaching for the save button. It is your lifeline, after all. A short power cut or a computer snafu is all it takes to make all of your hard work crumble to nothingness, after all. But what if there was no save button? What if there was no staring out of the window for inspiration, no pauses to think of a witty turn of phrase, and no way to stop for a break? What if this was like the movie Speed 2, except instead of a boat, you’re on a bus? What if, when you slow down, it explodes? Well. Welcome to the world of extreme writing.

That’s the premise for the Most Dangerous Writing App. If you stop writing for more than a couple of seconds, you’ll see your writing fade out of existence. And, if you’re particularly slow about it, that’s the end. Your words disappear into the digital ether, never to be seen again. Don’t pick up your phone. Don’t react to a notification. If the FedEX guy finally turned up with that parcel you’ve been waiting for well TOUGH, there’s no way to slow down for even a moment.

Encouraging you to stay focused and actually a great tool to find and stay in your flow state, the Most Dangerous Writing App is an awesome idea. Being forced to put a few words down every second means that the fear of the empty page melts away, and having to continue writing helps keep you on your toes.

In many ways, the app reminds me of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), where you need to bang out a 50,000-word novel. Or something. I can’t remember. Usually, I’d Google it to make sure I got the right word count, but I can’t stop because if I open a new tab I will lose what I’ve written so far in this article. Argh! But okay, the point is that it’ll both help you start writing and actually force you to finish a piece as well. Because, well, if you don’t finish it, you lose it. And I don’t want that. Nobody wants that.

It’s not exactly a very advanced app, but it is a surprising and fun way to force yourself to start writing and to keep writing. It made me think about how I write very differently. Incidentally, it proves that I am, in fact, able to write for five minutes straight as well, which is a pretty beautiful gift to be able to give to myself.

I am also sure that the TechCrunch editors will be delighted at me writing for five minutes straight before hitting publish, pausing for just long enough to add some links and a featured image, but without letting an editor fix my typos. Sorry, Henry.

Don’t stop writing, or your words will vanish off the page by Haje Jan Kamps originally published on TechCrunch

This year in tech, too much happened and very little of it made sense. It was like we were being controlled by a random number generator that would dictate the whims of the tech industry, leading to multiple “biggest news stories of the year” happening over the course of a month, all completely disconnected from one another.

I can’t stop thinking about a very good tweet I saw last month, which encapsulated the absurdity of the year — it was something along the lines of, “Meta laid off 11,000 people and it’s only the third biggest tech story of the week.” Normally, a social media giant laying off 13% of its workforce would easily be the week’s top story, but this was the moment when FTX went bankrupt and everyone was impersonating corporations on Twitter because somehow Elon Musk didn’t think through how things would go horribly wrong if anyone could buy a blue check. Oh, good times.

When I say it feels like we’re living in a simulation, what I mean is that sometimes, I hear about the latest tech news and feel like someone threw some words in a hat, picked a few, and tried to connect the dots. Of course, that’s not what’s really happening. But in January, would you have believed me if I told you that Twitter owner Elon Musk polled users to decide that he would unban Donald Trump?

These absurd events in tech have consequences. Crypto collapses like FTX’s bankruptcy and the UST scandal have harmed actual people who invested significant sums of money into something that they believed to be a good investment. It’s funny to think about how you’d react ten years ago if someone told you that Meta (oh yeah, that’s what Facebook is called now) is losing billions of dollars every quarter to build virtual reality technology that no one seems to want. But those management decisions are not a joke for the employees who lost their jobs because of those choices.

Where does this leave us? We’re in a moment in tech history where nothing is too absurd to be possible. That’s both inspiring and horrifying. It’s possible for a team of Amazon fulfillment center workers in Staten Island to win a union election, successfully advocating for themselves in the face of tremendous adversity. It’s also possible for Elon Musk to buy Twitter for $44 billion.

AI technology like Stable Diffusion and ChatGPT encapsulate this fragile balance between innovation and horror. You can make beautiful artworks in seconds, and you can also endanger the livelihoods of working artists. You can ask an AI chatbot to teach you about history, but there’s no way to know if its response is factually accurate (unless you do further research, in which case, you could’ve just done your own research to begin with).

But perhaps part of the reason why AI generators have garnered such mainstream appeal is that they almost feel natural to us. This year’s tech news feels so bizarre that they might as well have been generated by ChatGPT.

Or maybe reality is actually stranger than anything an AI could come up with. I asked ChatGPT to write some headlines about tech news for me, and it came up with these snoozers (in addition to some factually inaccurate headlines, which I omitted for the sake of journalism):

“Apple’s iOS 15 update brings major improvements to iPhones and iPads”
“Amazon’s new line of autonomous delivery robots causes controversy”
“Intel announces new line of processors with advanced security features”

Pretty boring! Here are some actual real things that happened in tech this year:

Tony the Tiger made his debut as a VTuber.
Someone claimed to be a laid off Twitter employee named Rahul Ligma, and a herd of reporters did not get the joke, inadvertently meaning that I had to explain the “ligma” joke on like four different tech podcasts.
Three people got arrested for operating a Club Penguin clone.
One of the Department of Justice’s main suspects in a $3.6 billion crypto money laundering scheme is an entrepreneur-slash-rapper named Razzlekhan.
The new Pokémon game has a line of dialogue with the word “cheugy.”
Donald Trump dropped an NFT collection.
A bad Twitter feature update impacted the stock of a pharmaceutical company.
Elon Musk’s greatest rival is a University of Central Florida sophomore.
FTC chair Lina Khan said that Taylor Swift did more to educate Gen Z about antitrust law than she ever could.
Meta is selling a $1,499 VR headset to be used for remote work.
The UK Treasury made a Discord account to share public announcements but was immediately spammed with people using emoji reactions to make dirty jokes (and speaking of the UK, there have been three different Prime Ministers since September.)

These are strange times. If the rules are made up and the points don’t matter, let’s at least hope that if the absurdity continues into 2023, the tech news is more amusing than harmful. I want more Chris Pratt voicing live action Mario, and fewer tech CEOs being sentenced for fraud. Is that too much to ask?

This year in tech felt like a simulation by Amanda Silberling originally published on TechCrunch

If you’re a parent with young children, then you’ll probably hear this a lot on Christmas Eve: “Where’s Santa right now?” With tracking tools like the NORAD Santa Tracker and Google’s Santa Tracker, everyone can know when Father Christmas will arrive.

Here’s how to follow Santa’s journey this Christmas Eve.

Track Santa Claus with NORAD

NORAD (North American Aerospace Defence Command) had the first-ever Santa tracker in 1955. While it used to be just a boring animation of Santa’s sleigh and reindeer flying across a map, NORAD has added tons of features in recent years, such as fun mini-games, videos, stories and Christmas music.

Rather than a 2D model, the NORAD Santa tracker has a 3D visual depiction of Santa’s journey as the platform was built on Cesium’s open-source 3D mapping library. It also uses Bing Maps satellite imagery, making the globe look more “realistic.”

Along with the tracker tool, users can also see a “Santa Cam,” which has videos of Santa making his way around the world to deliver presents to every kid on the nice list.

NORAD’s website has Santa’s North Pole Village, which includes a holiday countdown, arcade-style games, kid-friendly music, an online library and various videos that can be watched on NORAD’s official YouTube channel.

NORAD Santa tracker is available on noradsanta.org, or you can download the official NORAD Tracks Santa app onApple’s App Store or theGoogle Play Store. The website is available in English, Chinese, French, Spanish, Japanese, German, Italian and Portuguese.

You can also track Santa through NORAD Tracker’s social media accounts, such as Facebook,Twitter andInstagram.

For a more personable experience, call 1-877-HI-NORAD (1-877-446-6732), and you’ll speak with a volunteer from the organization’s call center who’ll update you on Santa’s location.

Plus, through a partnership with Amazon, NORAD lets Amazon Alexa users track Santa. Users can open the Amazon Alexa app and go to “Skills & Games,” then search for “NORAD Tracks Santa” skill. Once enabled, you can ask: “Alexa, where’s Santa?” You can also say, “Alexa, call Santa,” and the jolly man will hop on the phone with you and your kids. There’s an option to leave a voicemail message for him as well.

Track Santa Claus with Google

Google’s Santa Tracker launched in 2004 and simulates the tracking of Santa. The website features a live map of Santa’s current location, his next stop, a live video feed of his route, and the estimated arrival time for each location. It also shows the total distance that Santa has traveled so far and the number of presents he has delivered.

Throughout December, the page operates as Santa’s Village, where users can play mini-games, take quizzes, watch animated videos and explore other interactive activities. For instance, players can build their own elf in Google’s “Elf Maker” game as well as host a concert with “Elf Jamband.” Kids can also learn how to code with easy and fun tutorials like “Code Boogie.”

Additionally, users can enlist the help of Google Assistant to learn about Santa’s whereabouts. You can ask, “Hey Google, where’s Santa?” or even “What’s new at the North Pole?” which lets you tune into Google’s North Pole Newscast where you can hear what Santa and his elves are up to that day.

Google Assistant also lets you call Santa himself. When you call him, Santa will be rehearsing for a concert and will ask for your musical expert advice.

And don’t forget to ask Google Assistant to tell you a Santa joke!

How to track Santa Claus this Christmas Eve by Lauren Forristal originally published on TechCrunch