New Delhi, Sep 29 (PTI) Fintech platform PhonePe on Wednesday announced the launch of a new feature to facilitate buying of silver coins and bars.

The latest offering is an industry-first that allows users to invest in silver coins and bars of the highest certified purity on the PhonePe app with the added benefit of best prices and safe insured doorstep delivery, according to a statement. Customers can choose from denominations of 10g, 20g, 50g and 100g silver coins or bars, and get them home-delivered, it added.

Also Read | Amazon Astro Home-Assistant Robot Launched; Priced at $1,450.

PhonePe has partnered with SafeGold to process payments for 99.99 per cent pure silver with quality certification from an NABL-accredited laboratory. The coins and bars come with guaranteed weight and purity and are sealed in international quality packaging with a unique serial number that ensures foolproof quality and traceability for the product.

"Silver has significant importance in Indian culture especially during festivals and other auspicious occasions. We are delighted to be the first payments platform to offer our 300 million-plus user-base the highest purity silver coins and bars," PhonePe Head of Mutual Funds Terence Lucien said.

Also Read | Flipkart Big Billion Days Sale 2021 Curtain Raiser Deals: iPhone SE 2020 Now Available at Rs 25,000; Check More Offers Here.

*

*

* PayU Finance elevates Piyush Gupta as chief data scientist

* PayU Finance, a digital lender and the NBFC unit of PayU, on Wednesday said it has elevated Piyush Gupta as the company's new chief data scientist, strengthening its leadership team.

Gupta's extensive knowledge and expertise will drive PayU Finance closer to its ambition of becoming a full-stack digital financial services platform to serve diverse financial needs of customers with data science and technology innovations at the forefront, a statement said. In his new role as chief data scientist, Gupta will lead the data science and artificial intelligence (AI) teams for PayU Finance to drive financial inclusion for the under-served and under-banked customers, it added.

His new responsibilities include creating and executing the overall data strategy for PayU Finance, and focus on building ethical AI algorithms to build consumer insights and avoid data-biases, especially in credit models.

"Piyush is a dynamic leader and an entrepreneur at heart. He has led the transformation of the credit business in the past year by bringing our products to more than 60 million pre-approved customers through innovative use of data and AI models," PayU Finance CEO Prashanth Ranganathan said.

He added that as the organisation moves towards becoming a full-stack digital financial services platform for consumers, ML and AI will be at the forefront of innovation.

*

*

* gradCapital launches USD 500,000-fund for women founders

* Student-focused venture capital firm gradCapital on Wednesday said it is launching a USD 500,000 fund (about Rs 3.7 crore), Entreprenher, for women founders.

In the next three years, the Entreprenher plans to deploy USD 500,000 equity-free capital to more than 30 women entrepreneurs each year through a programme where founders are paid a salary through Entreprenher's funds, allowing founders to focus on scaling up their companies, according to a statement.

The micro VC is building a safe space for women through mentorship and cohort-based training that inspires women to start the next set of revolutionary companies, it added. It added that currently, only 13 per cent of India's start-up founders are female, with 2 per cent of the capital raised and 4 per cent of funding rounds going to female founders.

All-male founding teams, in comparison, raise 92 per cent of capital from 85 per cent of rounds, it said.

*

*

* Mentza raises USD 400,000 funding

* Audio-based conversational learning start-up Mentza on Wednesday said it has raised a seed round of USD 400,000 (about Rs 2.9 crore) from Inflection Point Ventures and others.

The funds raised will be utilised in building a base of experts and curious learners, building an efficient translation of conversations into content and to broad base the platform regionally and across interest communities, the statement said. It has over 23,000 registered users and has already generated over 60,000 minutes of content. Mentza is building both B2B and B2C use cases, it said.

Users can build a portfolio of recorded conversations with highlights and snippets. The app is free to use for all and initial focus is to attract users (creators and listeners) from LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter, it added.

Mentza founder Anurag Vaish said, "Our mission is to get every growth-minded person to engage in at least one Mentza conversation every day, thus making learning effortless, continuous and social. IPV's investor community has CXOs who understand the need for continuous learning in today's challenging growth environments. Thus, making them the ideal strategic partners in our vision." HRS hrs

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)