hi,
Merry Christmas! This festive season, India itself is a cost-efficient decarbonisation strategy.
The government is reviewing a decade-old $30 billion program that required coal-fired power plants to install equipment to reduce sulfur emissions, after government-backed studies found it had little effect on pollution control.
Instead, it is discussing using precipitators, which remove fine particles such as dust and smoke from emissions. And at a fifth of the cost of the previously required desulfurization system, that’s hard to pass up.
The stakes for emissions control are high, especially as climate emergencies such as wildfires become more common. But modern problems need modern solutions. And startups are now using everything from drones and satellite surveillance to artificial intelligence to come out on top in the battle against wildfires.
Clearly, the AI hype is set to roll well into 2025. Case in point: Elon Musk’s xAI recently raised $6 billion, bringing its total funds raised to date to $12 billion.
Between plans to train its models on data from Musk’s various companies, including Tesla and SpaceX, and provide R&D to Tesla in exchange for some of the carmaker’s revenue, Musk’s vision for xAI is ambitious, especially if it wants to connect with OpenAI and Anthropic.
AI racing is definitely not for the faint of heart.
Finally, we all know about the North Pole, but how does the South Pole celebrate its holidays? Scientists at various research posts in Antarctica are celebrating with crocheted wool baubles made from snow from the landscape, skiing trips, and Antarctic ice cream.
At least a white Christmas is a definite guarantee!
We will talk about it in today’s newsletter
- IndiQube files DRHP
- Building digital clones
- Automated sales with AI workers
Here’s your trivia for today: Which soda maker is believed to have cemented the rosy-cheeked, bearded Santa Claus associated with Christmas today?
IPO
IndiQube files DRHP, eyes Rs 850 Cr IPO
Workplace solutions provider IndiQube has become the latest company to file its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with markets regulator SEBI to raise funds through an initial public offering (IPO).
The proposed IPO includes a fresh issue of equity shares of up to Rs 750 crore and an offer for sale of equity shares of up to Rs 100 crore by the promoter-selling shareholders, Rishi Das and Meghna Aggarwal.
Capital:
- IndiQube intends to use Rs 462.6 crore of the proceeds for capital expenditure related to setting up new centers and Rs 100 crore to repay certain borrowings taken by the company.
- Founded in 2015, the company currently manages around 103 centers across 13 cities and has a client list of Indian corporates as well as startups like NoBroker, Redbus, and upGrad.
- The company’s DRHP comes at a time when flexible workspaces are becoming a growing trend in the commercial office market as hybrid work models become more common.
Startup
Building digital clones
Personate.ai is an Uttarakhand based startup that specializes in creating AI-powered digital personas and video content through a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform.
Co-founded by Akshay Sharma and his brother Rishabh Sharma during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021, it allows users to generate videos in minutes using simple text prompts. “You can start making videos even on mobile devices with just a few words,” says Akshay.
Key measures:
- Personate.ai has attracted a wide range of clients including corporates, government organizations and media houses.
- The company is bootstrapped, and the founders used their own funding and provided AI consulting services to corporates to sustain them in the early months.
- The platform is also working on expanding its library of avatars, currently at 10, to include different ethnicities and scenarios.
Startup
Automated sales with AI workers
Delaware and Bengaluru-based Floworks AI is streamlining sales by using AI-powered employees to handle tasks like prospecting, outreach and follow-up. The company says its solutions help businesses improve efficiency and increase conversion rates.
Good flow:
- Floworks AI’s flagship product, Alisha, is an AI Sales Development Representative (SDR) that automates the sales process.
- Currently, the startup’s customer base is mainly located in India and the US, with some in Canada. It is primarily serving software companies with SaaS and IT services in the mid-market and enterprise segments.
- So far, Floworks AI is serving 50 B2B customers, and by the end of December, the startup expects to have around 100-110 businesses using its solution, explains Srivastava.
News and updates
- Jumping: Apple has asked Google to participate in an upcoming US antitrust trial over online search, saying it cannot rely on Google to defend revenue-sharing agreements that send the iPhone maker billions of dollars each year to make Google the default search engine in its Safari browser.
- Grounded: American Airlines Group said a technical vendor error caused a short groundstop on all American flights on Christmas Eve, one of the busiest days of the holiday travel season.
- Domestic: Microsoft is working to diversify its flagship AI product, Microsoft 365 Copilot, from OpenAI’s current underlying technology and add internal and third-party artificial intelligence models to reduce costs.
Which soda manufacturer is believed to have cemented the rosy-cheeked, bearded Santa Claus associated with Christmas today?
Answer: Coca-Cola. In 1931, Coca-Cola commissioned painter Haddon Sundblom to paint an image of Santa for their advertisement and this is the basis for Santa Claus.
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