Microsoft Co-founder Bill Gates' wealth has hit the $100 billion mark, making him a centibillionaire and the only second person besides world's richest person, Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos, with $100 billion wealth, Bloomberg said on Wednesday. Amazon's 55-year-old Founder is now worth $145.6 billion after adding $20.7 billion to his wealth this year. Microsoft's 63-year-old Gates gained $9.5 billion.

Homegrown ride-hailing startup Ola on Tuesday announced it has raised $300 million from Hyundai Motor Group's Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Motors in their biggest combined investment to date. The three companies will build India-specific electric vehicles and infrastructure. The investment is part of Ola's ongoing Series J round of funding, which is estimated at $1 billion.

E-commerce major Flipkart has deployed over 100 Artificial Intelligence-powered robots to sort customers' packages according to their location at its Bengaluru delivery centre, claiming that it's "India's first robot-based sortation technology". The robots help process 4,500 shipments an hour at twice the human speed with 99.9% accuracy. The modular, self-charging robots can work for 7-8 hours on a single charge.

A 42-year-old Airbnb host on Tuesday was jailed for 11 years after he admitted to killing a guest who could not afford to pay a $210 bill at his home in Melbourne in October 2017. Jason Colton was convicted of instigating the attack, for which two of his housemates are already serving prison time.

Delhi-based journalist Amrita Das on Tuesday accused an Uber driver of misbehaving with her and tweeted, "First he refused to turn on the air conditioner, then says 'If you're feeling hot...come and sit on my lap'". She added that this happened while she was with her husband. Responding to this, Uber Support wrote it was sorry over the incident.

Mumbai-based startup WebEngage's Co-founder and CEO Avlesh Singh through a post on Monday responded to an ex-employee's allegation of being a "sexual predator". He said, "There was no coercion or pressure on her to take the complaint back." He further said that the ex-employee started demonstrating "passive-aggressive behaviour" towards him when he decided to end their consensual relationship.

Congress President Rahul Gandhi, while addressing entrepreneurs in Bengaluru on Monday, said, "We're going to get rid of this tax (Angel Tax)...when we come to power". "I think Angel Tax goes counter to the philosophy of startups," he added. Last month, the government had announced a new definition of startups and widened the relief for Angel Tax.

Twenty-three time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams has said she'll serve as an investor in Priyanka Chopra Jonas-backed dating app Bumble's fund. Launched in 2018, Bumble Fund primarily backs startups founded and led by women of colour and underrepresented groups. "I've learned how impactful one woman's voice can be when given a platform to speak and be heard," Serena said.

World's richest person Jeff Bezos tweeted a video from a recent conference where he experienced a robot dragonfly, and captioned it, "[B]igger please, I want to get on!" Bezos credited the robot to German automation company Festo. Last year, Bezos had shared a picture of himself walking a robot dog, made by Boston Dynamics, at the annual conference.

Global crowdfunding platform Kickstarter Co-founder Perry Chen has stepped down as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) but will continue as the board Chairman. Chen had served as Kickstarter's CEO for the first five years and reassumed the role in 2017 for a then-planned duration of six months. Head of Design and Product Aziz Hasan has been promoted as interim CEO.

Noida-based digital payments platform Pine Labs on Tuesday signed a definitive agreement to acquire gift cards-providing startup Qwikcilver Solutions for about $110 million. On completion of the deal, which is subject to a few closing conditions, Qwikcilver Co-founder and CEO Kumar Sudarsan will join Pine Labs' leadership team. Bengaluru-based Qwikcilver is backed by investors including Amazon.

US-based home rental startup Airbnb is reportedly in talks to invest around $100 million to $200 million in Gurugram-based budget hospitality startup OYO in a bid to enter hotel business in India and China. Launched in 2013 by Ritesh Agarwal, the $5-billion startup recently announced an investment of around $200 million in its India and South Asia businesses.

Bengaluru-based ride-hailing startup Ola has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Telangana government to strengthen the traffic infrastructure of capital Hyderabad with smart solutions. Ola will share ride data and insights to help the government manage road traffic and congestion. The first pilot project under the MoU is the dynamic mapping of the major roads in Hyderabad.

France-based doctor appointment-booking app Doctolib has turned into a 'unicorn' startup, with a valuation of over $1 billion after raising around $170 million in its latest funding round. The round was led by General Atlantic, with participation from Accel, Eurazeo and a few German healthcare entrepreneurs, among others. Founded in 2013, Doctolib has raised over $266 million till date.

US-based connected exercise bike maker Peloton has been sued by a group of music publishers for $150 million for failing to license songs it plays in its streaming exercise classes. Peloton has been accused of using over 1,000 songs from artists including Rihanna, Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber without a licence. "Peloton has great respect for songwriters...artists," the startup said.

China-based startup Insta360, which makes cameras that can film 360-degree videos, has raised $30 million in a funding round from Chinese investors including Everest Venture Capital, MG Holdings and Huajin Capital. Insta360 CEO JK Liu said that Insta360 is planning to file for an IPO in China next year. Founded in 2014, the GoPro rival has been profitable since 2017.

Parenting social network Healofy has reportedly raised $10 million in Series A funding round from investors including China-based parenting platform Babytree. The startup had raised $1 million last year from Omidyar Network, which was co-founded by eBay Founder Pierre Omidyar. The Bengaluru-based startup was founded by Gaurav Aggarwal and Shubham Maheshwari.

US-based internet satellite startup OneWeb has raised $1.25 billion for mass production of satellites, weeks after successfully launching its first six of the initial 650 satellites. The funding round saw participation from investors including SoftBank, Grupo Salinas, Qualcomm and the Rwandan government. Founded in 2012, the startup aims to launch 900 satellites for global internet connectivity.

Startups have to share the location by latitude and longitude, weather, and inside and outside pictures of their registered office with the government to verify they are genuine ones. The government also laid out detailed process on how to click and upload the pictures. The rules are applicable to all startups registered before December 2017.

The US SEC has said Elon Musk never sought pre-approval for a single Tesla tweet since he was ordered by a court to do so. Musk and Tesla had reached a settlement with SEC last year over his tweet about taking Tesla private. Recently, SEC asked that Musk be held in contempt for violating settlement by tweeting Tesla's production rates.

Elon Musk has tweeted a video of a test conducted on SpaceX's Starship space rocket's heat shields. Musk tweeted that the white-hot parts, seen in the video, reached temperatures of around 1377°C, similar to orbital entry temperatures. He added the tiles of the shields were hexagonal-shaped as that gives "no straight path for hot gas to accelerate through the gaps".

Daily fantasy sports startup HalaPlay has raised ₹40 crore in a Series A funding round from investors including mobile gaming company Nazara Technologies and casino gaming company Delta. In 2017, HalaPlay had raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Nazara Technologies and Kae Capital. HalaPlay was founded by BITS Pilani alumni Swapnil Saurav, Prateek Anand, Ananya Singhal and Aman Kesari.

New York-based alcohol e-commerce startup Thirstie has raised $7 million in a Series A funding round led by Queens Court Capital. It also announced its partnership with Drinkworks to power e-commerce experience for the cocktail-making machine created by Keurig and Budweiser's parent. Co-founded by Devaraj Southworth, Thirstie enables e-commerce on alcohol brand websites in a legally compliant way.

Singapore-based cross-border payments startup InstaReM has closed its Series C funding round after raising $20 million, taking the total to around $41 million. The round was led by Vertex Growth Fund with participation from South Korea-based VC firm Atinum Investment. Founded in 2014 by Indian entrepreneur Prajit Nanu along with Michael Bermingham, InstaReM has raised around $59 million till date.

Delhi-based diabetes management app BeatO has raised over ₹11 crore in a pre-Series A funding round led by Orios Venture Partners. The funding round also saw participation from existing investors Blume Ventures and Leo Capital. Founded in 2015 by Gautam Chopra, Yash Sehgal and Abhishek Kumar, BeatO offers diabetes management programmes to users via a smartphone app.