Tatas reappoint N Chandrasekaran as chairman; Freshworks crosses $100 mln quarterly revenue mark; UK regulators warn banks on AI

N Chandrasekaran has been reappointed as the chairman of Tata Sons for a further five years, the salt to steel conglomerate said in a statement after its board met on February 11. Freshworks crossed the $100 million quarterly revenue milestone in its fiscal fourth quarter ended December 31. UK regulators have warned the country’s banks on the use of AI for lending decisions. Tata Sons reappoints Chandrasekaran for another five-year term N Chandrasekaran has been reappointed as the chairman of Tata Sons, for a further five years, the salt-to-steel conglomerate said in a statement after its board met on February 11. Chandrasekaran, who was CEO and MD of Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest IT company, was tapped to lead Tata Sons at a time of turmoil for the $104 billion group, owing to a dispute with Cyrus Mistry, its second-largest shareholder, in October 2016. Chandra, as he’s popularly known within the group, took over in January 2017. This year Chandrasekaran was the only Indian CEO to be in the top 25 list of corporate leaders in Brand Finance’s index. Freshworks crosses the $100 million quarterly revenue mark Freshworks, which makes cloud-based help desk and customer service software, crossed the $100 million quarterly revenue milestone in its fiscal fourth quarter of 2021, the company said in a press release on February 10. Sales for the three months ended December rose 44 percent to $105.5 million from a year earlier. Freshworks went public in September 2021, listing on the Nasdaq, becoming the first Indian founder-led SaaS company to do so. On a sequential basis, Q4 revenue compares with $96.6 million in the September quarter of 2021. Losses came down to $56.4 million in Q4 from $140 million in Q3. UK regulators warn banks on the use of AI UK’s banking regulators have warned banks in the country that they must ensure that using artificial intelligence to approve loan applications will be allowed only if the banks can show that the AI won’t be discriminatory towards minorities, pymnts.com reports, citing news from the Financial Times, which is behind a paywall. Minorities already have trouble borrowing as it is, and watchdogs have been getting more stringent against the biggest British banks on how they’ll combat the issues with AI, according to pymnts.com. Swipe raises $2 million in seed funding from Y Combinator Swipe, a fintech start-up has raised $2 mln in seed funding led by Y Combinator. The start-up was incubated at riidl, Somaiya Vidyavihar University. Swipe is a simple billing and payments app for small businesses in India, the company said in a press release. Lost Ark hits 1 million concurrent users within a day of launch Lost Ark crossed one million concurrent players within 24 hours after launch, becoming the second most played game in Steam history by concurrent counts, The Verge reports. The MMO game (massively multiplayer online game) was launched over the weekend by Amazon Games which collaborated with Smilegate RPG to localise and translate Lost Ark and make it available in English. It’s now in second place on the top concurrent list behind PUBG. Lost Ark was originally released in 2019 in South Korea. It has millions of active players in South Korea, Russia, and Japan, according to The Verge. Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds: https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds