New Delhi, Nov 26 (PTI) Venture Catalysts on Thursday said it led a Rs 8.5 crore funding round in STAGE, a dialect-based hyper-local OTT platform.

The funding round also saw participation from investors such as Sushma Kaushik (Partner at Aavishkaar), Sachin Bhatia (Co-founder of Bulbul.tv), Rohit Chanana (Sarcha Advisors), Ashish Tulsian (Co-founder of POSist) and Vishal Maheshwari (India Head – VIU (OTT)), a statement said.

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Other investors included Hetal Sonpal, Piyush Goel (Founder – Beyond Key Systems), Sawan Laddha (Founder – Workie), Janarthan Balasubrramanian, Nandi Mehta (CFO – KAAF Investments) and Abhishek Shah (Founder, ConversionX).

In 2014, Vinay Singhal, Shashank Vaishnav and Parveen Singhal had set up WittyFeed, and in 2019, the company pivoted to launch its dialect-based OTT platform 'STAGE'.

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"The investment will help us increase our rate of content creation and scale distribution in order to hit the next 2 million users," Singhal, founder of STAGE, said.

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* 17 mn merchants use Paytm for payment services: Paytm

Fintech major Paytm on Thursday said over 17 million merchants are using Paytm for payment services, and they can now receive unlimited payments through Paytm Wallet without any fee.

"Paytm has announced that merchants can now receive unlimited payments through Paytm Wallet at zero per cent fee, along with UPI and Rupay Cards. The move will benefit more than 17 million merchants who will enjoy a zero per cent fee on all their digital payments with direct settlement in their bank accounts," Paytm said in a statement.

The move will provide merchants with a single point of reconciliation for all their payments, it added.

"Merchants will no longer require multiple QRs at their counters. All they need is Paytm 'All-In-One QR' to accept payments from Paytm wallet, Paytm UPI, or any other UPI app," it said.

Kumar Aditya, Senior Vice President at Paytm, said the company is empowering its merchant partners across the country to accept wallet payments and get them directly into their bank account without worrying about the charges.

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* RazorpayX partners Visa to launch corporate cards, aims to onboard 50,000 entrepreneurs by Mar 2021

Fintech firm Razorpay on Thursday said it has partnered Visa to launch RazorpayX Corporate Cards that would have a higher credit limit as compared to other corporate and personal cards.

These bank-issued cards will help provide relief and stabilise the financial operations of severely impacted business owners of start-ups and SMEs, who are grappling with a chaotic economic environment, a statement said.

RazorpayX's Corporate Cards will empower founders to free up working capital expenses with zero personal risk and liability and a convenient repayment offering up to 45 days of interest-free credit, it added.

Razorpay, which had launched corporate credit cards for all businesses in November last year, said its new card offers exclusive features, specifically designed for small business owners to weather the pandemic impact.

"With RazorpayX Corporate Cards, we hope to solve the problem of access to finance for businesses owners and help improve their cash flows...We believe financing solutions like these will reignite innovation that can speed up the recovery of the Indian economy," Razorpay CEO and co-founder Harshil Mathur said

(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)