Vauld, a Leading Crypto Trading & Lending Platform's Founders Feature in Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 List

Darshan Bathija (28), Sanju Kurian (29), Co-founders of Singapore-based crypto trading and lending exchange platform, featured in Forbes Asia – 30 under 30

SINGAPORE, June 2, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- On 28 May 2022, Vauld founders - Darshan Bathija and Sanju Kurian - were featured in Forbes Asia 30 under 30 list.

Founded in 2018 by Darshan Bathija and Sanju Kurian, Vauld, a Singapore-based global Crypto platform, provides a suite of products that focus on long-term wealth generation for its crypto investors, including fixed deposits and asset-backed lending and borrowing. Vauld is easy to use, intuitive, and also provides automatic investment plans that focus on wealth creation for its customer base.

Sanju Kurian, CTO & Co-founder of Vauld (left) & Darshan Bathija, CEO & Co-founder of Vauld 

In July 2021, Vauld raised $25 million in a Series A funding round led by PayPal founder Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures. The company has customers from 190 countries and average deposits per customer of $20,000. Vauld recently announced a multi-year partnership with F1 Team Alfa Romeo.

On being featured in Forbes, Darshan Bathija said: "We have great people working together as a team of high performers. We're looking forward to taking our learnings and providing new features and tools to help our investors realize their financial objectives."

Sanju Kurian said: "I have always been fascinated by finance and the field of cryptocurrencies excited me. With Vauld, we now aim to make it a neo-bank like any of the nationalized banks in India with the help of our very well-learned and knowledgeable team.

About Darshan Bathija, Co-founder & CEO

Darshan comes from a family background of 4 generations of financiers. He has worked as the Head of Partnerships at TapChief. Before TapChief, he worked at Piramal Capital, a real estate NBFC and facilitated loans totalling $100 million against assets.

About Sanju Kurian, Co-founder & CTO

Sanju built the technical team at Kings Leaning from the ground up, which served more than 20 million users across various platforms. He has led multiple teams across multiple domains, including Python/Django, native mobile development (Android IOS, KaiOS), AngularJS, DevOps, design, and analytics.

Website – https://www.vauld.com/

SOURCE Vauld

Chennai Based "Aquaconnect" Listed in Forbes Asia 100 to Watch List

India's leading aquaculture startup "Aquaconnect" has been listed in the inaugural Forbes Asia 100 to watch list. Forbes list spotlights notable small companies and startups on the rise across the Asia-Pacific region. The list features 2 aquaculture startups and other startups in 10 categories across 17 countries and territories across the Asia-Pacific region.

Aquaconnect mobile farm advisor app

Founded in 2017, Aquaconnect is the pioneer of data and tech enabled aqua farming in India. It is a full-stack aquaculture technology venture that works with shrimp and fish aquaculture farmers to improve their farm productivity through AI and satellite remote sensing technology. Aquaconnect aims to promote sustainable aquafarming among the farming communities and works with 35,000+ farmers in various states of India. The company is working towards creating market linkages, formal finance and insurance accessibility for the Indian aqua farmers.

Rajamanohar Somasundaram, CEO and Founder of Aquaconnect said, "I am thrilled to learn that we are one of few Indian ag-tech startups that made it to the prestigious "Forbes Asia 100 to watch" list. India is the second largest global aquaculture player with a market value of about $20 billion. Aquaconnect's technology innovations are aiming to improve the efficiency of India aquaculture value chain by bringing transparency, traceability and predictability across the value chain players. I believe Forbes listing is a great validation of our initiatives in making the Indian seafood industry sustainable and promoting responsible production & consumption."

"We support the Government of India's vision to empower the aquaculture sector with a data-driven approach. We have evidently increased the tech adoption among 35,000 Indian aqua farmers and driven sustainable farming practices in every culture operation to improve their productivity & income. Our mission is to drive sustainability and improve the value chain with responsible production and consumption practices," He added.

In addition to a farm advisory and an online shop for equipment and supplies, Aquaconnect provides financing, insurance, market linkage and a network for farmers to connect with potential customers. The company raised $4 million in July in pre-Series A round led by Rebright Partners and Flourish Ventures. AgFunder and 6G Capital also participated in this round, along with existing investors Omnivore and HATCH-Norway.

About Aquaconnect

Headquartered in Chennai, Aquaconnect was Co-founded by Rajamanohar Somasundaram in 2017. It is a full-stack aquaculture technology venture that works with shrimp and fish aquaculture farmers to improve their farm productivity and market linkage through AI and satellite remote sensing technology. Aquaconnect aims to promote sustainable aquafarming among the farming communities and works with 35,000+ farmers in various states of India. Aquaconnect is funded by HATCH-Norway, India's biggest Agritech venture capital Omnivore, Japan's Rebright Partners, & flourish ventures.

Aquaconnect is recognized as World Changing Idea 2020 by Fast Company. The company is also an Innovator at Seafood Innovation Project and Hatch Accelerator, Norwegian Seafood Innovation Cluster. Aquaconnect is a platinum winner of Agriculture insuretech award by World Bank Group. 

With 3rd-Largest Donation, Ajim Premji Only Indian in Forbes List of World's Top 10 Private COVID-19 Donations

Forbes has compiled a list of 77 billionaires who had donated to different causes to do with coronavirus relief, till the end of April. And, while the top 10 of donations is dominated by U.S. billionaires, India's Azim Premji of Wipro is the only Indian on the list with 3rd spot in the list behihnd only Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Bill & Melinda Gates.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has pledged to donate $1 billion, one-quarter of his fortune. Bill Gates and his wife have donated USD 255 mmillion. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who is 7th in the list has donated $100 million so far.

The Azim Premji Foundation, Wipro and Wipro Enterprises together have committed an aid of Rs 1,125 crore for tackling the unprecedented health and humanitarian crisis arising from the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. Of the Rs 1,125 crore, Wipro’s commitment is Rs 100 crore. While Wipro Enterprises has committed Rs 25 crore, the Azim Premji Foundation is giving Rs 1,000 crore.

Other Billionaires in the list include Jeff Skoll of Skoll Foundation, a former eBay executive, and George Soros of the hedge fund Soros Fund Management, who is also well-known for his philanthropic agency, the Open Society Foundation.

Andrew Forrest of Australian iron ore producer Fortescue Metals have also made sizable donations.

Rohit Gajbhiye, Founder of School Fee Financing Platform Features in Forbes 30 under 30 Asia List

Rohit Gajbhiye, founder & CEO of Financpeer, a Zero cost EMI based school fee financing platform, has been featured in the 30 under 30 Asia list of 2020 released by the global media giant Forbes. Rohit is among 30 global entrepreneurs who received this prestigious recognition.

Every year young and dynamic entrepreneurs in various fields are featured in the list. This year, the Fintech entrepreneurs include those who aim to capture a big section of the business community that is typically ignored by the large providers of financial services and tech solutions.

Elated on the recognition, Mr Rohit Gajbhiye, Founder & CEO, Financepeer said “I am really grateful to Forbes team to have recognized this initiative as one of the much needed and impactful ventures that is creating a huge impact on thousands of lives and has a very big potential to create long term impact on millions of lives across the globe."

[caption id="attachment_144262" align="alignleft" width="246"] Rohit Gajbhiye[/caption]

The entire team of Financepeer, including each team member, investors, school owners, channel partners, lending partners, etc. is to be credited for this recognition. We have worked hard day-night to partner with more than 800 institutions and impact more than 8 million lives in over than 37 cities so far. We will continue our mission to impact lives and transform the education industry in India, he added.

During this testing period, the financing model of Financepeer comes as a facilitator for the schools as well as parents. The burden on parents will be reduced as they will not have to pay a bulk amount upfront rather in zero interest monthly instalments while schools will also be able to collect the fee without any delay.

Rohit Gajbhiye started Financepeer in 2017 with an aim to help parents in the middle and lower part of the pyramid to provide quality education to their kids without having to worry much about the price point, through Zero Interest & Zero Cost Fee Financing Solution. At Financepeer, the parents can repay the school fee in 12, 24 and 36 EMIs without any extra cost which helps in shedding off the burden of the school fee from the parents.

Financepeer has raised a funding of USD 1 million and is further in process of raising USD 2 million to expand its presence across India and overseas. Financepeer constantly strives to work towards innovating and adding new services for the education institutes and parents which includes free insurance for students, Ivy league module subscription to name a few.

An IITB graduate, Rohit Gajbhiye comes with a decade of experience in banking. Skilled in credit risk, commercial banking, liquidity risk and management, Mr Gajbhiye holds a certificate in Entrepreneurship/ Entrepreneurial Studies from Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He has also been UNGSII and World Economic Forum Speaker.

AI based School Fee Financing product with a vision to ease out School Fee Payments and boost the K-12 School/Education Ecosystem provides entire year fee collection upfront to the School at the beginning of the year (be it 1cr, 10cr, 100cr, etc) and collects fees from parents in monthly instalments that too at Zero Additional cost.

Three Indian Firms Among Forbes' Most Innovative Companies

In a moment of immense pride for the Indian subcontinent, three Indian firms have found a place in the prestigious Forbes' list of 100 most innovative companies in the world. The three companies that have put India on the global innovation map are: Hindustan Unilever (HUL), Asian Paints and Bharti Airtel.

While Bharti Airtel at 78th position has debuted on the list for the very first time, HUL has moved up on the list from its 31st rank last year to 7th rank this year and Asian Paints has improved its ranking to 8th position from 18th position it acquired last time.

The 2017 list saw Salesforce.com replacing Tesla Motors on the top position with the prior numero uno settling for the second position. Ecommerce giant Amazon.com acquired the 3rd position, followed by Shanghai RAAS Blood Products at 4th, Netflix at 5th, Incyte at 6th, Naver at 9th and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals at 10th.

Forbes ranks companies on the basis of their innovation premium, which it explains is the difference between their market capitalisation and the net present value of cash flows from their existing businesses. The magazine considers that this difference is the bonus given by equity investors on the educated hunch that the company will continue its work on coming up with profitable new growth strategies.

The innovation premium for HUL was calculated at 68.59 per cent; Asian Paints at 68.28 per cent and Bharti Airtel at 41.4 per cent.

According to Forbes, the magazine only takes into account the industries that are into enthusiastically investing capital in innovation activities, and excludes those who have not made any measurable investment in Research and Development, which means banks and other financial services are automatically left out from the list. It also does not consider energy and mining firms, whose market value is dependent more on commodity prices and less on innovation. Besides this, in order to be included in the list, a company needs to have seven years of public financial data and $10 billion in market cap.

While two Indian companies (HUL and Asian Paints) improved their ranking and another (Bharti Airtel) entered the list for the very first time, three other Indian origin companies which had reserved themselves a place last year bowed out from the list. These were: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Sun Pharma and Larsen & Toubro.

Forbes annual 'World's Most Innovative Companies' list has come to acquire a prestigious reputation in the investment world as investors consider it as an important parameter for innovation.

Meet World's 10 Most Powerful Women

This isn't a generalization, but a sad truth of the society. Whenever a society, irrespective of where it is from, talks about women, majority of them prefer using adjectives like beautiful, pretty, sexy etc. to describe them while very conveniently skipping words like smart, strong or powerful etc. But, there are several women out there who are working every second to break this very image of women that the society is forcefully trying to project on them. Forbes annual list of world's 100 most powerful women is an effort towards recognizing those women and encourage them to keeping doing what they're doing.

Forbes determines the rankings on the basis of four main metrics: money, impact spheres of influence and media. The women appearing on the 2015 list are broadly from eight categories - politics, technology, business, billionaires, entertainment,finance, media and philanthropy.

Here in this article, we talk about the ten most powerful women that there are in the world right now.

1) Angela Merkel -

Retaining her numero uno position for five consecutive years now, Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel is the most powerful woman of the year 2015. Merkel has had a major contribution in helping Germany put up a good fight against one of the country's worst economic recession ever by taking several important measures. In the year 2014, she was bestowed upon the honour of being the longest-serving elected European Union head of state after she won a third four-year term.

2) Hillary Clinton -

A name which probably doesn't need much introduction given the recent scenario, but for the sake of it, I would still mention some of her biggest achievements and her stepping stones of success. Clinton has donned several hats in United States (US) politics- secretary of state, senator, first lady. Now, the 67-years old Yale Law School graduate is trying for the second time to fulfil her life-long dream of becoming a US President. She recently became the first female nominee for a major US political party. If Clinton does become the US president, Angela Merkel, in all probability, will have to say bye-bye to her five year first position title.

3) Melinda Gates -

One of the biggest names in the world of philanthropy, Melinda has reportedly given away a whopping $3.9 billion in the year 2014 and another $33 billion or more since the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation went live in the year 2000. Being the Cochair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Melinda pays important attention on investments being made by the women of the world around the world.

4) Janet Yellen -

A second position holder in the 2014 list, Yellen slipped to the fourth spot in the latest list. The 68-years old is the Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, United States and holds the laurel of being the first female head of the Federal Reserve. She is famous for being a hard worker and making her work speak for herself rather than the other way around. She is hugely acknowledged for helping in putting the Fed back on the right track.

5) Mary Barra -

Known for her drive and strength, this 53-years old is the CEO of General Motors. Initially, she did face difficult times being the head of the company, but handled it quite well due to her continuous hard work, dedication and sound business wit. It is due to this very reason that Barra made a jump from seventh position in the 2014 list to fifth place in the 2015 list.

6) Christine Lagarde -

At 49, Lagarde is the Managing Director of International Monetary Fund (IMF). She is currently serving the last year of her term as the head of the IMF, an organisation that looks after 188 countries. Maybe, this is the reason that she slipped from the fifth position in the year 2014 to sixth position in the latest year.

7) Dilma Rousseff-

The President of Brazil has had seen a major fall in her position on the latest list. Having started with a mission of making Brazil a poverty free country, she was hit by a number of scandals which had a major impact on her popularity and credibility, and made her take a deep dive to seventh position from the third position in 2014.

8) Sheryl Sandberg -

A majority of us might be familiar with her. Being the COO of Facebook, she often makes appearances in Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook timeline. An ex-Goggle executive, Sheryl has made a major contribution in helping Facebook scale new mountains everyday. She had an important role in bringing digital revenue to Facebook. Further, she is a published writer with her book, "Lean In."

9) Susan Wojcicki -

At 46-years of age, Wojcicki is the CEO of Google acquired YouTube. After having played a crucial role in helping the tech giant acquire YouTube in the year 2006, she was finally bestowed upon the duty of heading the company in the year 2014.

10) Michelle Obama -

Her identity isn't just limited to being the first lady of United States. Over the years that her husband Barack Obama has been in the White House, Michelle has been actively involved in bringing light the importance issues like obesity, equality and girl education have in our 21st century through a number of initiatives. Her one of the recent initiatives is Let Girls Learn initiative focused towards education for girls. The initiative has gained much popularity all over the world.

More power to you, you strong, intelligent and smart 21st century women.

World's 100 Most Innovative Companies, TCS #40 ahead of Google at 47

Forbes, an American business magazine has published list of 100 most innovative companies in the world. Companies are ranked by their innovation premium that is - the difference between their market capitalisation and a net present value of future cash flows from existing businesses. As criteria to be in the list companies should have certain threshold for their R&D spending, seven years of public financial data and $10 billion in market cap.

Salesforce, a market leader in Cloud CRM softwares made it to the top of the list followed by Alexion Pharmaceuticals and VMWare all three companies are from US. China's search engine Baidu is on 6th position followed by Amazon at no.7.

As a good sign for Indian industries 3 companies from India made it to the World's most innovative companies in the world - Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) at no.40, Infosys at No.53 and Bajaj Auto at No.68. Notably here in the list TCS from India is 7 places ahead of Google which is at no.47.

Forbes has used data till August 2013, as a result Facebook could not make it to the list although it could have been in top 10 if Forbes have had used only 2012 data.

To everyone's surprise big online tech companies which are NOT in the List are -  Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, Samsung and Intel.

However as expected companies included in the list are - Amazon at No. 7, Google at No.47, Apple at No.79 and Yahoo Japan at no.38.

Below is the list of Top 25 most innovative companies in the world:

Rank	Company	Country	12-Month Sales Growth (%)	5-Year Annualized Total Return (%)	Innovation Premium* (%)
1	Salesforce.com	United States	32.1	21.6	72.8
2	Alexion Pharmaceuticals	United States	39.2	38.4	72.3
3	VMware	United States	16.3	19.0	63.7
4	Regeneron Pharmaceuticals	United States	128.3	65.8	63.1
5	ARM Holdings	United Kingdom	22.5	47.9	61.2
6	Baidu	China	44.6	32.8	60.6
7	Amazon.com	United States	23.0	31.0	60.2
8	Intuitive Surgical	United States	18.3	5.2	53.9
9	Rakuten	Japan	14.1	23.1	50.7
10	Natura Cosmeticos	Brazil	-3.9	14.5	48.5
11	Henan Shuanghui Investment & Development	China	5.2	16.8	48.0
12	Coloplast	Denmark	1.1	37.2	46.5
13	Cerner	United States	12.5	34.4	45.9
14	Unicharm	Japan	4.9	19.4	43.5
15	Estee Lauder Cos	United States	5.3	25.5	41.4
16	Jerónimo Martins	Portugal	8.1	19.9	41.3
17	FMC Technologies	United States	16.5	14.4	40.8
18	Tencent Holdings	China	52.8	39.6	40.7
19	Starbucks	United States	11.5	39.3	40.6
20	Pernod Ricard	France	-1.4	10.0	40.5
21	Beam	United States	8.8	9.6	40.0
22	Perrigo	United States	11.8	30.3	39.9
23	Essilor International	France	5.0	20.0	39.3
24	Beiersdorf	Germany	2.4	11.2	38.3
25	Grifols	Spain	4.7	9.8	38.2