What Indian VCs need; AI for the fashionable classroom

Hey,

Meet 2026’s first unicorn.

Funds infrastructure supplier Juspay raised $50 million in a Collection D follow-on funding from WestBridge Capital, valuing the corporate at $1.2 billion. 

The transaction contains each main and secondary investments, offering liquidity to early traders and staff holding inventory choices.

In the meantime, Zoho is doubling down on its make-in-India mission. The SaaS firm launched its ERP expertise platform, which can see a part of its product growth and different actions pushed out of Kumbakonam—a small city in Tamil Nadu positioned about 300 kilometres from the corporate’s headquarters. 

In different information, City Firm’s foray into the home assist sector has been a tad costly this December quarter. 

The house providers market noticed its quarterly income develop 32% on the again of Native RO vary and residential providers, whilst its loss widened to Rs 21 crore on account of heavy investments within the Insta Assist vertical.

If this yr’s CES improvements are something to go by, family robots from firms corresponding to LG and Clutterbot may quickly be the norm.

Hidden behind the extra flashy AI wave, a definite transformation is happening in robotics. A brand new class of expertise referred to as Bodily AI is starting to redefine how machines work together with the world—and Microsoft´s new choices are serving as a marker for this shift. 

In immediately’s e-newsletter, we are going to speak about 

• What Indian VCs need
• AI for the fashionable classroom
• Constructing a real multi-sport ecosystem

Right here’s your trivia for immediately: What well-known inventor proposed to his spouse in Morse Code?

Union Finances

What Indian VCs need

India stands on the shoulders of enterprise capital corporations that make daring investments and again passionate founders to ring within the subsequent startup success story. Final yr, Indian startups raised $11 billion—the bottom since 2020—with VCs writing fewer however bigger checks, signalling a cautious and selective strategy.

For this yr’s Finances, a few of their calls for embody tailor-made incentives for deeptech startups, predictable tax and incentive frameworks, in addition to continued funding in core infrastructure.

Key takeaways:

• Kunal Khattar, Founder at mobility-focused fund, AdvantEdge, famous that insurance policies needs to be rolled out to scale back reliance on overseas VCs, and that the federal government ought to create stronger incentives for insurance coverage and pension funds to put money into SEBI-registered AIFs.
• Moreover, VCs are additionally calling for insurance policies to encourage localisation of parts and exemptions on crucial uncooked supplies for startups. 
• VC corporations have additionally famous that the Indian startup ecosystem has reached a stage the place the foundations constructed over the past decade have given rise to constant and predictable institutional help. The main target now needs to be on creating globally aggressive firms by way of affected person capital and predictable insurance policies.

Prime Funding Offers of the Week

Startup: GreenCell Mobility

Quantity: $89M

Spherical: Mezzanine

Startup: Juspay

Quantity: $50M

Spherical: Collection D

Startup: Namdev Finvest

Quantity: $37M

Spherical: Debt

Startup

AI for the fashionable classroom

When colleges throughout the globe shut for the summer season holidays, an uncommon pattern emerges within the digital world. Site visitors on ChatGPT begins to plummet. This statement, famous by Peeyush Ranjan, CEO of edtech startup Fermi.ai, highlights an growing dependence on Gen AI instruments by college students.

Led by the previous Google and Flipkart government, Fermi.ai has launched its AI-driven schooling platform in India and the US. The platform goals to maintain college students engaged within the studying course of by way of reasoning and understanding moderately than offering on the spot solutions like typical AI instruments.

New studying strategies:

• The platform targets high-school STEM topics starting with arithmetic, physics, and chemistry.
• By offering stepwise teaching and deep analytical insights for each college students and lecturers, the startup goals to make sure that expertise helps considering moderately than changing it.
• The platform offers an adaptive real-time AI tutor which guides college students to the following stage of understanding solely when they’re genuinely caught.

Sports activities

Constructing a real multi-sport ecosystem

Jinisha Sharma is the director of Capri Sports activities, which owns the UP Warriorz WPL franchise. Celebrating each win, massive or small, validates the corporate’s fastidiously thought-out determination to again a franchise from Uttar Pradesh.

She is now charting her personal journey as she leads the UP Warriorz franchise with the bigger imaginative and prescient of investing in ladies’s cricket and creating purpose-led influence by way of sport. 

Information & updates

• Layoffs: Amazon plans a second spherical of job cuts subsequent week as a part of its broader purpose of trimming some 30,000 company employees. The corporate in October minimize some 14,000 white-collar jobs, about half of the 30,000 goal first reported by Reuters.
• Lawsuit: US President Donald Trump sued JPMorgan Chase and its CEO Jamie Dimon for as much as $5 billion, alleging the financial institution improperly minimize him off from its monetary providers. JPMorgan Chase informed Axios it believes Trump’s swimsuit has “no advantage,” and can battle the allegations in courtroom.
• Chipmaker: Intel shares plunged 14% Friday after the chipmaker issued lackluster steerage and warned of a provide scarcity. Throughout a This autumn earnings name with analysts, CEO Lip-Bu Tan mentioned the corporate wouldn’t have the ability to meet full demand for its merchandise. He mentioned manufacturing effectivity, or yield, can be beneath his targets.

What well-known inventor proposed to his spouse in Morse Code?

Reply: Thomas Edison

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