In Brief: Hitachi Vantara acquires Containership; Entropik in talks for more funding

Hitachi Vantara, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Tokyo-based digital solutions provider Hitachi, said in a release that it has acquired the assets of Containership, a privately held vendor of software for managing containerised business software applications. Hitachi Vantara helps companies with digital transformation using internet of things, cloud applications, big data and analytics solutions.  Containership, which managed multi-cloud Kubernetes deployments, shut down its operations in October.  The companies did not disclose the financial terms of the transaction. 

Read: DataCore Software opens its second-largest R&D centre in Bengaluru

AI startup Entropik Technologies in talks to raise $10 mn

Artificial intelligence (AI) startup Entropik Technologies may raise about $10 million in a fresh funding round, The Economic Times reported. The Bengaluru headquartered company is in talks with several investors, including  New York-based hedge fund Falcon Edge Capital. Entropik uses its proprietary AI models and emotion recognition technology to help brands and advertisers conduct consumer behaviour research and measure their response by capturing cognitive and behavioural parameters. In July 2018, it raised seed funding worth $1.1 million led by Bharat Innovation Fund.

Indian Railways may lease land to etailers to set up warehouses

The Indian Railways plans to monetise vacant railway land parcels in small towns and cities by leasing them to ecommerce firms such as Flipkart and Amazon to set up their warehouses, The Economic Times reported. The Rail Land Development Authority, a statutory authority under the Ministry of Railways, told the financial daily that it is in talks with homegrown ecommerce platform Flipkart and will soon come out with a deal. 

Read: Amazon to use Indian Railways for transporting packages

Flipkart partners with Aegon Life for insurance solutions

Walmart-owned ecommerce platform Flipkart has partnered with Mumbai headquartered private insurer Aegon Life Insurance to provide instant digital policies to its customers. As part of the partnership, Flipkart will feature a number of life insurance policies from Aegon ranging from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 10 lakh with premiums starting at Rs 129 for Rs 1 lakh sum insured, according to a joint statement. The policy, they said, does not require medical tests or paperwork. The Bengaluru headquartered firm said with its new offering, it aims to sort out major pain points, such as trust, transparency and reliability, in the sector.

PhonePe integrates Swiggy app on its Switch platform

Digital payments platform PhonePe has integrated online food delivery app Swiggy on its Switch platform. The move will enable over 200 million PhonePe users to access Swiggy through the PhonePe app, the companies said in a statement. The Switch platform is a one-click entry point to several apps within the PhonePe app -- users can log in to these apps without downloading them separately. The Bengaluru headquartered company enables merchant partners to integrate their existing progressive web apps (PWAs) or mobile sites to the platform, giving them access to PhonePe’s user base.

Infosys acquires cloud consulting startup Simplus

Infosys has completed the acquisition of US-based cloud consulting startup Simplus. The companies did not disclose the financial terms of the transaction. Last month, the Bengaluru headquartered company had announced, in a regulatory filing, that it’s in the process of acquiring Simplus in a transaction worth up to $250 million. Simplus is engaged in cloud-based consulting, implementation, data integration, change management and training services for Salesforce’s quote-to-cash (QTC) applications. QTC refers to the integration and automated management of end-to-end business processes on the sell side. This acquisition will enable Infosys to strengthen its end-to-end Salesforce enterprise cloud solutions offerings.