Deal Talk: Govt may fund 100 startups for translation platform; Kissht may raise $60 mn

TechCircle brings you a round-up of technology investments and M&A deals reported from across newsrooms.

MeitY’s translation initiative

The ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY)  is planning to provide seed funding to 100 startups to develop and use its artificial intelligence (AI)-driven language translation platform.

The government’s national languages translation mission will provide a platform for enterprises and startups to offer services in local languages, The Economic Times reported.

The platform will also harness technologies like machine learning and its accuracy will increase with consistent usage, the report said.

The government also plans to use the platform to further its initiatives such as the translation of technical education lectures in local languages.

Providing speech-to-speech translation services is the ultimate aim of the platform but it will initially focus on text-to-text translation services.

The ministry is planning to engage educational institutions such as the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras to help develop the project.

Kissht

Private equity firm Multiples Alternate Asset Management is in talks to lead a $60 million funding round in Mumbai-based fintech startup Kissht. 

While Multiples is in talks to invest around $50 million, existing investors will pump in about $10 million, Mint reported. 

Existing investors include Singapore-based venture capital firm Vertex Ventures, Russia's Sistema Asia Fund, venture capital firm Fosun RZ Capital, early-stage investment firm Ventureast and investment fund Endiya Partners.

Kissht is a consumer credit startup founded in 2015 by Krishnan Vishwanathan and Ranvir Singh, former consultants at management advisory company McKinsey & Co. 

OnEMI Technology Solutions, which runs Kissht, raised over $7 million from Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal in a funding round in July.