Fintech firm Cashfree Payments has reported Rs 135 crore loss in the financial year (FY24), compared to Rs 133 crore loss in FY23.

During this period, the company's income increased by 5 per cent on an annual basis from Rs 613.8 crore to Rs 642.7 crore.

The marginal increase in the company's income and increasing losses are attributed to an action taken by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Cashfree, under which the company was banned from onboarding new merchants from December 2022 to December 2023.

As per its annual financial statements filed with the Registrar of Companies, the company’s total expenses increased by 3.9 per cent to Rs 779.4 crore in FY24, against Rs 750 crore in FY23.

A major part of the company's expenses is material cost, which stood at Rs 426.6 crore in FY24. During this period, employee benefits increased by 23 per cent to Rs 245 crore.

The white-collar hiring activity in India saw robust growth in October with a significant 10 per cent increase (year-on-year), with sectors like oil and gas, pharma/biotech, FMCG and IT emerging as primary drivers of this positive trend, according to a report on Monday.

Artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) roles showed exceptional growth at 39 per cent year-on-year and 2 per cent month-on-month, according to data by The Naukri JobSpeak Index.

ML engineer roles saw a remarkable 75 per cent growth. Notably, hiring in IT sector showed positive growth in four out of seven months this fiscal, auguring well for balance of year trends.

India’s manufacturing sector growth accelerated in October, fuelled by faster increases in total new orders and international sales, leading to the creation of more jobs during the month, according to the HSBC data released on Monday.

The seasonally adjusted HSBC India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) compiled by S&P Global, rose from September's eight-month low of 56.5 to 57.5 in October, indicating a substantial and accelerated improvement in operating conditions.

The upturn in performance was boosted by stronger demand for Indian goods. Companies noted a quicker increase in order book volumes that was stronger than the average seen in nearly 20 years of data collection. Anecdotal evidence suggested that the introduction of new products and successful marketing initiatives helped enhance sales performances, the report states.

Sam Altman-run OpenAI has hired Gabor Cselle, former CEO and co-founder of X (formerly Twitter) rival Pebble, to work on a "secret project".

Cselle has been working with OpenAI since October. “Excited to share that I've joined @OpenAI! The talent density here is incredible. Learning a lot already. Will share more about what I'm working on in due time,” he posted on X social media platform.

He started working on Pebble, originally called T2, in 2022 with Michael Greer, ex-engineering head at Discord. Pebble raised funding from venture capitalists, including Android co-founder Rich Miner.

In 2023, Pebble announced to shut down. It had grown into a small but engaged community on its microblogging service.

Combined vehicle sales of Hyundai Motor and Kia in the United States climbed 17.4 per cent (year-on-year) in October due to increased demand for the automakers' hybrid models, the companies said on Monday.

The companies' combined US sales stood at 147,613 units last month, up 17.4 per cent from a year earlier, marking the highest combined sales for any previous October.

Hyundai Motor, including Genesis models, sold 78,705 units, up 18.3 percent, while Kia sales gained 16.5 percent to 68,908 units, reports news agency.

The new Apple chipsets are set to help a vast array of professionals — entrepreneurs, students, creators, data scientists, 3D artists, composers and developers — with far more power-efficient performance and advanced capabilities in the AI era.

All three chips — M4, M4 Pro and M4 Max — are built using industry-leading, second-generation 3-nanometer technology, which improves performance and power efficiency.

According to Apple, the CPUs across the M4 family feature the world’s fastest CPU core, delivering the industry’s best single-threaded performance, and dramatically faster multithreaded performance.

The GPUs build on the breakthrough graphics architecture introduced in the previous generation, with faster cores and a 2x faster ray-tracing engine.

From Maps to Search, Google has recently announced seven new artificial intelligence (AI) updates that offer more ways people can ask questions, search for information and get an AI overview across products.

Now, you’ll be able to ask Maps more complex queries, like “things to do with friends” to get answers curated with Gemini, quick answers to questions about a place — in addition to helpful review summaries when you don’t have time to read through each one, according to the tech giant.

“The latest AI update in Maps means that whether you’re traveling across town or around the world, you can get the most up-to-date information possible, when you need it. Make sure to also check out the new updates we’re making to Waze, Google Earth and our developer products,” said the company.

Meta-owned WhatsApp banned more than 85 lakh “bad” accounts in India in the month of September for violating its policies.

Between September 1-September 30, the company banned 8,584,000 accounts and 1,658,000 of these accounts were proactively banned, before any reports from users, according to the social media platform’s monthly compliance report under the new IT Rules 2021.

The popular mobile messaging platform, which has more than 600 million users in India, received 8,161 grievances from the country, and the records "actioned" were 97. The account "Actioned" means complaints where WhatsApp took remedial action.

In a perfect example of growing rural consumption, Amazon India on Saturday said it witnessed highest-ever 140 crore customer visits during its month-long festive sales, with more than 85 per cent of them coming from non-metro cities.

Almost 70 per cent of participating sellers hailed from tier 2 and beyond cities, and the e-commerce giant also witnessed highest-ever number of sellers (from tier 2 and 3 cities) receiving a sale compared to the festive season last year.

The online marketplace said it delivered over three crore products to Prime members across the country during the ;Amazon’s Great Indian Festival 2024’ within the same or next-day - a 26 per cent increase from previous year.

“We are committed to creating more opportunities that unlock greater value for our entire ecosystem of customers, sellers, and partners,” said Saurabh Srivastava, Vice President–Categories, Amazon India.

The festive sales saw over 70 per cent increase in sellers surpassing Rs 1 crore in sales compared to last year. Small and medium businesses, including women entrepreneurs, weavers, and artisans sold over 1,000 units every minute during the event, according to the company.

The Indian startup ecosystem has reached $12.2 billion in funding in the first 10 months this year, crossing the total amount raised throughout 2023 (about $11 billion), with two months to go.

Homegrown startups surpassed $1 billion in funding again across 119 deals in the month of October.

September saw the second-highest funding with $1.63 billion, behind the peak of $1.92 billion registered in June. In October, the growth and late-stage funding segment comprised 28 deals, contributing $846.2 million to the total funding amount, according to data by TheKredible.