In passing of Yazdani’s Zend, Mumbai has lost a master baker

“Get rid of your cough, eat my ginger biscuit.” The baker who kneaded such happy prescriptions into Mumbai’s gut via the blackboard of the iconic Yazdani bakery in Fort is no more. Zend Meherwan Zend, the jovial co-owner of the six-decade-old Irani bakery who said bread must have a bite to it and who did not let Parkinson’s disease keep him from sipping tea or relishing ice-cream at the cash counter, passed away at age 86 this past Sunday. Article by Sharmila Ganesan Ram | TNN With the departu...
Tags: Life, Mumbai, Bombay, Alexander, Fort, Parkinson, Colaba, Zend, Irani, Food And Beverage, Deepak Rao, Mantralaya, Kurush Dalal, Yazdani, Zend Meherwan Zend, Kalyan Karmakar

X1 Card is a credit card based on your income, not your credit score

There are many reasons why you could have a good or a bad credit score. But if you’re just entering the job market, you may end up with reliable income and a low limit on your credit card. X1 Card wants to solve that by setting limits based on your current and future income instead of your credit score. The company says some customers can expect limits up to five times higher than what they would get from a traditional credit card. And that limit can move up if you get a promotion at your job fo...
Tags: Google, Startups, Finance, Paypal, Credit Card, Max Levchin, David Sacks, Fintech, Levchin, Deepak Rao, Thrive, Natasha Mascarenhas, X1 Card, David -LSB- Sacks, Twitter COO Adam Bain Craft Ventures

Thrive gives loans to students based on summer internships and job offers

Thrive, founded by Twitter alumni Deepak Rao and Siddarth Batra, wants to fund student expenses by looking at job offer letters as a way to evaluate loans. Today, it launched its loan platform and is accessible to students on over 400 campuses across 31 states. The San Francisco company helps underfunded students, a group that isn’t typically accounted for by traditional financial institutions that issue loans based on credit score. According to co-founder Rao, Thrive is for people like “first g...
Tags: Startups, TC, Twitter, Stanford, San Francisco, Tech, Paypal, United States, Max Levchin, David Sacks, Affirm, Adam Bain, Rao, Deepak Rao, Thrive, Batra

Mobikwik gears up for lending, invests Rs 2cr in data science firm Pivotchain

Payments company Mobikwik has invested Rs 2 crore in a data science startup Pivotchain Solutions.  The Pune-based startup was founded in 2017 by Deepak Rao and Yogendra Pratap Singh. The company specialises in technologies like analytics, machine learning, cloud computing, math & statistical... ...
Tags: Travel, News, Investment, Payments, Lending, Pune, Deepak Rao, MobiKwik, Pivotchain, Yogendra Pratap Singh

Twitter Changes Timeline Algorithm, Launches First View Video Ad Unit

To stave off disgruntled investors and the general public, Twitter is introducing a change to its algorithm that reorders the top of users’ timelines with tweets it is betting will be most interesting and relevant. The criteria for selection include account interactions, engagement, user interests and network activity. “The reason we’re doing this is there is just so much happening on Twitter every day, and we know it is sometimes easy for people to miss great content,” Twitter VP Revenue Produ...
Tags: Twitter, Buzzfeed, US, Social Media, Social Marketing, Snapchat, Fox, Dave, Broadway, Jack Dorsey, William Shatner, 20th Century Fox, Adweek, Hamilton, Ad Units, Mike