Tech5: Truecaller's founders step down, InfoEdge backs Nexstem, Infinx centre in Madurai and more

Forbes India's daily tech news bulletin with five headlines that caught our attention

By Harichandan Arakali Forbes India Staff

Published: Nov 8, 2024 11:10:25 AM IST

Updated: Nov 8, 2024 05:20:12 PM IST

Nami Zarringhalam (left) and Alan Mamedithe cofounders at the Truecaller. Bengaluru. September 2024. Image: Nishant Ratnakar for Forbes India

Truecaller founders step down, board names Jhunjhunwala CEO

Truecaller’s founders are stepping down from running the company. CEO Alan Mamedi and Chief Strategy Officer Nami Zarringhalam announced the decision to leave their current operational roles to instead focus on their board duties and serve as strategic advisors, the maker of anti-spam mobile software said in a press release on November 6.

The board of directors has appointed Truecaller’s current Chief Product Officer and Managing Director of India, Rishit Jhunjhunwala, as Group CEO of Truecaller, effective January 9, 2025. Mamedi and Zarringhalam will continue to be employed by the company as advisors until June 30, 2025.

“After much reflection, we have decided to leave our operational responsibilities at Truecaller. Words cannot express how proud we are of how Truecaller has developed since we founded the company in 2009. We have a fantastic management team in whom we have immense trust, and we have a long-term strategy that everyone supports, and which has started to yield positive results,” the duo said in the release.

Rishit Jhunjhunwala has been employed by Truecaller since 2015 in the role of Head of Product and since 2021 he has also been the Managing Director of Truecaller India, the company’s biggest market. Jhunjhunwala was born and raised in India but is a Swedish citizen. In his current role he has overall responsibility for Truecaller’s product teams and for the two revenue streams—advertising and Truecaller for Business.

Mitsubishi’s Climaveneta to build Rs 400 crore plant near Bengaluru

Climaveneta Climate Technologies, a subsidiary of Japan’s Mitsubishi Electric, will invest about Rs 400 crore in a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Narsapura, near Bengaluru, to produce high-efficiency cooling and HVAC systems, the company said in a press release on November 7.

The plant, which will focus on products such as screw chillers, magnetic levitation chillers, and heat pumps, is poised to meet growing demand from India’s expanding data centre, healthcare, and commercial sectors. With an order book exceeding Rs 500 crore, Climaveneta aims to double its annual order intake over the next five years.

The facility, set to create 500 jobs, will also serve as an export hub. CEO Anil Dev highlighted India’s digitalisation as a key driver for growth. Mitsubishi Electric expects to be carbon neutral in its operations by the year 2050.

Infinx, backed by KKR, opens 700-seat centre in Madurai

Infinx Healthcare, which provides software solutions for patient access and revenue cycle management (RCM), has inaugurated a new delivery centre in Madurai, Tamil Nadu. The facility, the company’s eighth in India, will support US-based customers such as large hospitals.

Infinx plans to create 700 jobs over the next five years on the back of this centre, tapping the regional talent pool and education institutions. The centre will use AI and automation to improve RCM operations, reduce errors, and support decision-making.

Recruits will receive role-specific training that covers technical skills, processes, and methodologies required for healthcare revenue cycle management (RCM) via competency-based training modules.

Together Fund backs ‘Generative UI’ startup Thesys in $4M seed round

Together Fund, co-founded by Freshworks founder Girish Mathrubootham and Eka Software founder Manav Garg, has led a $4 million seed round at Thesys, a startup that helps small businesses quickly build AI agents. The investment, joined by 8vc, will help Thesys advance its research and development, and AI engineering capabilities, Economic Times reported on November 7.

The San Francisco and Bengaluru startup was founded in 2024 by Rabi Shanker Guha and Parikshit Deshmukh. It offers tools for designing, visualising, and prototyping AI applications. Thesys currently collaborates with 12 companies and plans a general release of its product in the next quarter, according to ET.

Its vision for “Generative User Interface” seeks to make user interfaces easy and elegant by making them adaptive and personalised, in line with the growing demand for AI-driven customer engagement across industries in India.

Nexstem raises $3.5 million for brain-computer interface tech

Nexstem, a Bengaluru startup developing non-invasive brain-computer interface technologies, has raised $3.5 million in seed funding from investors including InfoEdge, Zupee, Smile Group and Nikhil Kamath and Abhijeet Pai’s Gruhas.

This investment takes the venture’s total funding to $4.84 million, according to private markets intelligence provider Tracxn. Nexstem was co-founded by Siddhant Dangi and Deepansh Goyal about four years ago. The fresh capital will help them expand their product ecosystem and intellectual property portfolio, they said in a press release. They also plan to expand into the US and European markets.

Nexstem’s product suite, with brand name Instinct, uses an on-device compute module that supports analysis of bio-signals from the human body. This has applications in areas such as restoring lost motor functions to augmenting cognitive capabilities, the company said in its press release.

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