Elon Musk has unveiled his new startup Neuralink's flexible "threads" designed to be inserted in brains to link them directly to computers. Musk said Neuralink, in the long term, is about finding a way to "achieve a sort of symbiosis with artificial intelligence." "We hope to have this in a human patient by the end of next year," Musk added.

American e-commerce giant Amazon has entered the edtech sector in India with the launch of an IIT-JEE exam preparation app called 'JEE Ready'. The JEE Ready app is currently in its beta testing phase and available only on Android devices. Amazon has reportedly partnered with coaching institutes to prepare 'All India Mock Test' to be offered in the app.

Gurugram-based billion-dollar logistics startup Rivigo has fired up to about 100 employees, mainly in its freight marketplace team, over the last few months. The startup had to withdraw around 50 offers from 10 premier campuses before joining dates, including IIT and IIM, among others. Rivigo Co-founder Gazal Kalra, confirming the firings, said they were over "performance and market dynamics".

Following Karnataka High Court's order that a fraud case of reportedly about ₹20 crore against Bengaluru-based co-living startup Homigo was a civil dispute, the Central Crime Branch is set to drop its investigation, Inc42 revealed. The HC had put an interim stay on the investigation. Tenants alleged Homigo Founders, IIT-Kanpur graduates Nikunj Batheja, Jatin Mitruka and Aakash Verma, were missing.

India's most valuable private hotel chain, Gurugram-based OYO confirmed it has acquired co-working space provider Innov8, reportedly for over ₹200 crore. OYO Workspaces is already operational across 10 Indian cities with over 20 centres, comprising Innov8, Workflo and Powerstation as its three in-house brands, OYO said. It added it plans to have 50 OYO Workspaces centres by end of 2019.

An Uber glitch on Wednesday charged riders in several US cities 100 times their normal fare for short trips. Riders in cities including Washington and San Diego took to social media to post about the hiked rates. Uber said the glitch was fixed and the fare would be corrected so riders are charged only the amount for their actual trip.

Flipkart Co-founder Sachin Bansal has invested ₹200 crore in debt papers issued by Piramal Enterprises, via non-convertible debentures (NCDs) route, Livemint reported. The NCD, issued at an interest coupon of around 9.5% and a repayment period of two years, would be used in Piramal's financial services business, the report said. Piramal Group is also reportedly in fundraising talks with SoftBank.

World's richest person and aerospace startup Blue Origin's Founder Jeff Bezos said he chooses to spend billions of dollars on space exploration because "we're in the process of destroying this planet." "I think it's important for the dynamism of the future generations," Bezos added. "Everybody who goes to space says...they realise...how small and fragile [Earth] is," he further said.

US-based online marketplace giant eBay has agreed to buy a 5.5% stake in Paytm's e-commerce unit Paytm Mall, reportedly for $170-200 million at a valuation of about $3 billion. This will mark eBay's third investment in Indian e-commerce space. It had invested about $133 million in Snapdeal in 2014 and had sold its 6.55% Flipkart stake after Walmart acquired it.

Washington and Pune-based technology startup Icertis has become a unicorn (achieved billion-dollar valuation) after raising $115 million in an advanced-stage funding round co-led by Greycroft Partners LLC and Wipro's Azim Premji's PremjiInvest. Existing investors including B Capital Group and Cross Creek Advisors participated. Founded in 2009, Icertis helps businesses manage contracts in the cloud.

The valuation of India's most valuable edtech startup, Bengaluru-based Byju's, hiked by about $2 billion since its last funding to $5.5 billion in its ongoing Series F round. The startup has raised over $460 million in the round so far, as per data intelligence platform paper.vc. Byju's had confirmed raising $540 million from Naspers, among others, in December 2018.

Jeff Bezos, at a recent interview with CBS, said his aerospace startup Blue Origin will be flying humans for the first time on its reusable rocket New Shepard this year. "Space tourism is going to start with a very short...11-minute ride up into space," Bezos said. "You'll be able to see how fragile this planet really is," he added.

Actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and her mother have invested in Bengaluru-based environmental intelligence startup Ambee. Investors including Rajan Anandan, Google's former Southeast Asia and India Vice President, together invested ₹3.22 crore in the startup. Founded in 2017, Ambee provides data about hyperlocal air quality which is accessible to developers, consumers, health researchers and media companies.

Mumbai-based fitness and yoga startup Sarva has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Tamil superstar Rajinikanth's daughter Aishwaryaa R Dhanush. She will lead Sarva's yoga wellness arm Diva Yoga's growth in South India. Founded in 2016, Sarva had recently raised funding from celebrities including Malaika Arora, Jennifer Lopez, Alex Rodriguez, Shahid Kapoor and Mira Kapoor.

Investor Mark Cuban and tennis star Serena Williams have invested $3 million in Mahmee, a US-based startup that delivers data-driven care coordination and personalised support to new mothers. It provides online group discussions with other moms, connection to medical service providers and support from trained maternity coaches. It was founded in 2014 by Melissa Hanna, Linda Hanna and Sunny Walia.

New Delhi-based co-working space startup Awfis is raising about ₹90 crore in a mix funding round of equity and convertible debt from Bisque Limited and Link Investment Trust, regulatory filings revealed. The startup had raised $20 million in Series C funding in July 2018. Founded in 2015, Sequoia Capital-backed Awfis has raised over $43 million to date, as per Crunchbase.

IT services company L&T Infotech (LTI) has signed an agreement to acquire Bengaluru-based advanced analytics startup Lymbyc Solutions for ₹38 crore. This would be LTI's fifth acquisition since its listing in 2016, after having acquired India-based Ruletronics, AugmentIQ, and European firms Nielsen Partner and Syncordis. The company has committed over ₹340 crore across these acquisitions.

US-based cloud backup and data protection unicorn Druva has acquired data protection startup CloudLanes for an undisclosed amount. Founded in the year 2015, CloudLanes introduced a secondary storage platform built on public clouds with a hybrid cloud approach. Sequoia-backed Druva had achieved its unicorn or billion-dollar status in a $130-million funding led by Viking Global Investors in June.

Global payments technology provider Visa has invested an undisclosed amount in Indonesian ride-hailing and logistics unicorn Go-Jek's ongoing Series F round of funding. Go-Jek and Visa will be partnering together to offer payment solutions to Southeast Asian Go-Jek users. Founded in 2010, Go-Jek offers on-demand motorbikes and taxis, along with services like grocery delivery and mobile payments.

Cryptocurrency exchange Cryptokart has decided to shut down its operations after about two years. The RBI had barred banks from serving cryptocurrency exchanges and firms in April 2018. Cryptokart Co-founder Gaurang Poddar said that since this decision, the general interest in cryptocurrency in India has "tanked" and regulatory uncertainty "just makes any long term planning difficult".

Gurugram-based online grocery delivery startup Grofers has raised $10 million from Abu Dhabi's Capital Investment in its ongoing $200-million Series F round, as per regulatory filings accessed by paper.vc. The SoftBank-backed startup raised $130 million from its parent entity. Founded in 2013 by Albinder Dhindsa and Saurabh Kumar, Grofers has raised nearly $472 million to date, as per Crunchbase.

Singapore-based corporate travel startup Travelstop has raised $3 million in a pre-Series A round of funding led by Accel. The investment also saw participation from Strive and existing investor SeedPlus. Launched in 2018 by former Yahoo executives Prashant Kirtane, Vijay Aggarwal and Altaf Dhamani, Travelstop had raised seed funding of $1.2 million led by SeedPlus in August 2018.

Flipkart Co-founder Sachin Bansal’s co-founded fund BAC Acquisitions (BACQ) has committed a venture debt of ₹20 crore to Mumbai-based consumer electronics brand ‘boAt’. Founded by Aman Gupta and Sameer Mehta in 2016, ‘boAt’ is a consumer tech brand which manufactures electronics products including earphones and headphones, among others. The brand raised ₹6 crore from Fireside Ventures in May 2018.

Snapdeal Co-founder and CEO Kunal Bahl claimed the e-commerce platform's consolidated revenue rose by 73% to ₹925 crore while loss fell 70% year-on-year to ₹186 crore. Over the last two years, Snapdeal's loss was reduced by 96%, he said. "This makes us the proud exception in Indian e-commerce, where greater growth usually means greater losses," Bahl added.

Bengaluru-based premium tea-selling platform Teabox has raised undisclosed funding from Dubai-based NB Ventures, family office of Neelesh Bhatnagar, among others. Teabox has raised a total of $10 million as part of its Series A and B rounds from investors including Accel, JAFCO Asia and others. Ratan Tata, the Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons, had backed Teabox in 2016.