PictureTime digiplex raises Rs 25 cr

PictureTime, a mobile digital movie theatre start-up, today said it has secured Rs 25 crore funding from a group of HNIs led by Ajay Relan, founder Chairman of CX Partners.
This follows on the initial seed funding by the likes of Ashish Gupta and Sanjeev Agrawal of Helion Ventures, Asim Ghosh (ex-Vodafone India CEO) and Abhinav Sinha of Eight Road Ventures.
The fresh funding will be used to expand PictureTimes mobile digiplex cinema theatres to 100 operational units by March 2019, the company said in a statement.
Established in October 2015, PictureTime has created a mobile digiplex cinema theatre unit with a fireproof inflatable canopy that can accommodate 120 viewers. It currently operates 10 such mobile digiplex cinema theatre units and has showcased movies in villages of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

"Our aim is to use technology to not only provide high quality entertainment to rural India, but to also use our mobile digiplex cinema theatres as an outreach vehicle to generate awareness on educational and government schemes on initiatives around Digital India, Skill India and Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan," Sushil Chaudhary, founder and CEO of PictureTime, said.
************* 1Crowd closes maiden venture capital fund of Rs 23 cr *

1Crowd, an early-stage investment firm, today announced the first close of its maiden venture capital fund at Rs 23 crore (USD 3.5 million).
The fund has a target corpus of Rs 75 crore, including a greenshoe option of Rs 25 crore. It is largely sector agnostic and plans to invest in about 20 companies, 1Crowd said in a statement.

The fund seeks to invest roughly USD 500,000 in first round investments and will look to increase its stake in subsequent rounds for some of its investee companies, it added.
The firms investor base includes angel investors like Ganesh Natarajan (Chairman, 5F World), Aniruddha Malpani (IVF specialist), Krishnakumar Natarajan (co-founder and Executive Chairman, Mindtree) among others.
************* Twitter India rallies support for Womens Day with Hindi hashtags *
Twitter India today said it has launched a special emoji along with two Hindi hashtags -- Mahila Diwas and Humse hai himmat -- on the occasion of International Women's Day on March 8.

The golden emoji is the gender symbol for females and an ode to the modern woman who is confident and expressive, Twitter said in a statement.
The emoji will be active throughout the month of March, it added.
************* Knowlarity CEO Ambarish Gupta invests in HireXP *
HR solutions startup HireXP today said it has secured funding from Knowlarity CEO Ambarish Gupta, along with British partner, Marina Zoltoverkh.
The funding will also boost product sales in existing markets and will be used to open new markets by the end of 2018, HireXP said in a statement.
"We solve all the recruitment related issues faced by any size organisation and start-ups. The platform is already a success story with 50-plus reputed clients on board. All we need to focus on now is its market reach, extension and expansion," HireXP founder Vikas Kakkar said.