James Murdoch, Uday Shankar return with $1.5 bln Bodhi Tree; Starlink loses 40 satellites; Climate tech gets more money in India

James Murdoch, Uday Shankar return to India with $1.5 billion from QIA James Murdoch and Uday Shankar have launched a new company called Bodhi Tree, with $1.5 billion from Qatar Investment Authority, to focus on opportunities in India and Southeast Asia. Bodhi Tree would be “designed to invest in media and consumer technology opportunities in Southeast Asia, with a particular focus on India,” Murdoch and Shankar said in a statement, according to the LA Times. James, the younger son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, was previously making investments through his firm Lupa Systems, which also he had started with Shankar. Shankar built Star India for 21st Century Fox, the Murdoch family’s media conglomerate that was acquired by Disney in a deal that was completed in 2019. Climate tech gets more funding in India Climate tech businesses received $7 billion in equity funding in 2021, a 4X increase over the $1.87 billion in equity funding raised by all climate tech sectors in 2020, according to the ‘State of Climate Finance in India’ report, released by Unitus Capital on Feb 8. The bulk of the climate financing still goes towards renewables, with electric vehicles a distant second. Later stage rounds skew the funding that has gone into climate tech—the 25 Series C and beyond deals tracked by the impact investment firm constituted 86 percent of the $7 billion in funding. In early-stage financing, funding interest is expanding into other areas of climate innovation. Renewables were responsible for only 12 percent of the 182 deals Unitus tracked in 2021. Electric mobility was the largest segment with 68 deals. Agri and F&B sectors saw 52 deals spread across the value chain, although agri-tech needs more focus at the farm level, according to Unitus. Starlink loses 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm Starlink has lost 40 satellites that were meant to be part of its low-earth orbit constellation to a geomagnetic storm, the company said in a statement on Feb. 8. These satellites were part of the 49 launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Up to 40 of the satellites will reenter or already have reentered the Earth’s atmosphere, the company said. The de-orbiting satellites pose no collision risk with other satellites and will burn up in the atmosphere, so no orbital debris is created and no satellite parts will hit the ground. Xpressbees raises $300 million, becomes a unicorn Xpressbees, a third-party logistics services provider, has raised $300 million in Series F funding, led by private equity funds Blackstone Growth, TPG Growth and ChrysCapital. Existing investors, Investcorp and Norwest Venture Partners, also participated. With this round, the total amount of funds raised by Xpressbees exceeds $500 million. The Pune-based company will use the money to expand operations, invest in product development and hire more people. The latest investment makes the six-year-old startup a unicorn, co-founder and CEO Amitava Saha told Forbes India in an interview. Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds: https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds