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Bengaluru-based Cropin Technology on Wednesday announced that it singed a Memorandum of Understanding with Amazon Web Services India to build solutions to address global hunger and food insecurity. The company says this will help it develop core data architecture, analytics, modelling and simulation components to aggregate global farmland data and climate intelligence into its solution. This is aimed at providing information to governments, development agencies and agriculture businesses. “We can analyse and identify changes in cultivation patterns at a country scale, spanning from sowing to harvesting. This includes examining weather parameters, moisture availability, and disease outbreaks at scale to understand their impact on crop health and yield. These insights are crucial for policymakers, enabling them to make informed decisions to combat hunger and ensure food security,” said Krishna Kumar, co-founder and CEO of Cropin, in a press statement.

Shadowfax has opened a new distribution center in Port Blair as part of its goal to expand its logistics reach to all pin codes in India by 2025. According to Abhishek Bansal, the CEO and co-founder of Shadowfax, opening the new distribution center in Port Blair is a major achievement for the company. "Port Blair is not merely the gateway to the Andaman Islands, but also a critical node in augmenting our distribution network's reach and efficiency. Its unique geographic positioning allows.

Harshvardhan Lunia, 42, has seen small businesses and their struggles from early in his life. A chartered accountant by training who comes from a business family, he saw the dearth of institutional financial support for such enterprises early in his career. This led to him founding fintech start-up Lendingkart along with his schoolmate Mukul Sachan, in 2014. Their aim: to revolutionise access to finance for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) through innovative tech solutions and cash flow-based lending.Business has been good over the past decade and while Sachan left the Ahmedabad-based firm in 2019, Lendingkart has grown from strength to strength. Under Lunia’s watch, it posted its highest-ever profit after tax (PAT) and total income in FY23. No wonder that it has emerged as the Best Fintech in Lending in the BT-KPMG Best Banks and NBFCs Survey 2022-23. Lunia recalls that initially, it focussed on direct lending. But, over time, it recognised the limitation of this approach in addressing the vast credit gap for MSMEs. “This realisation led to a strategic shift towards co-lending partnerships with banks and NBFCs to leverage their resources and expertise. Today, more than 80% of our business is through co-lending,” says the Co-founder and CEO of Lendingkart, which operates as a Reserve Bank of India-registered NBFC. The fintech has names such as Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, IDFC First Bank, Aditya Birla Capital, and U Gro Capital among its co-lending partners. Incidentally, in its latest report, RBI’s expert committee on MSMEs said the sector has an estimated credit gap of Rs 20-25 lakh crore.