Electronics engineering and manufacturing startup Elecbits has secured $5.5 million in Series A funding, with Nexus Venture Partners leading the round. The raise also saw participation from SE Ventures Energy, the investment arm of Schneider Electric, and Singapore-based Riverwalk Holdings, marking a strong vote of confidence in India’s rapidly expanding hardware-tech sector. Founded in 2019 by Saurav Kumar Singh and Nikhil Rawat, Elecbits offers a full-stack platform that streamlines design, prototyping, manufacturing, and quality control for electronic products. The company is now gearing up to scale Elecbits XOR, its AI-driven electronics engineering and manufacturing platform, while expanding its engineering talent…
Author: Adarsh Kumar
Early stage investment powerhouse IAN Group has announced the final close of its $100 million IAN Alpha Fund, its second venture capital vehicle aimed at accelerating India’s next wave of tech-enabled startups. The fund will invest in early-stage companies developing solutions across AI, space tech, semiconductors, climate technology, healthcare, and other frontier sectors. The Alpha Fund has attracted support from a diverse pool of institutional and government linked investors. Key contributors include the Self-Reliant India Fund, SIDBI’s Fund of Funds for Startups, ACE Fund, and the Odisha Startup Growth Fund, alongside insurance firms and prominent family offices. IAN Group said…
AI-powered email startup Faraday has raised $0.2 million in a pre-seed funding round led by AJVC, marking a significant step in its mission to reinvent the traditional email experience. The investment, made earlier this year, has been channelled into team expansion, office setup, accelerated product development, and go-to-market execution, the company said. Faraday is building an AI-led, organised, and context-aware email client designed to reduce cognitive overload and transform how users engage with daily communication. The platform currently supports all personal and professional Gmail and Google Workspace accounts, with Outlook integration expected to launch soon. With explicit user consent, Faraday…
E-commerce unicorn Meesho delivered a blockbuster listing on Wednesday, beginning its public market journey with a sharp premium and reaffirming investor appetite for high growth internet companies. The Bengaluru-headquartered platform opened at Rs 162.5 on NSE, a 46% premium over its issue price of Rs 111. On BSE, the shares debuted at Rs 161.2, reflecting a 45.2% jump. Meesho’s Rs 5,421 crore IPO comprised a Rs 4,250 crore fresh issue and Rs 1,171 crore OFS, enabling early investors—including Elevation Capital, Peak XV Partners, Y Combinator and Venture Highway—to partially cash out. The offer, priced at Rs 105–111 per share, targeted…
Amazon has announced plans to invest more than $35 billion in India by 2030, reaffirming the country’s position as one of its most important global markets. According to multiple reports, the investment will be deployed over the next five years across e-commerce, cloud computing, logistics, data centres, and AI-driven initiatives. With this commitment, Amazon’s total investment in India will approach $75 billion, adding to the nearly $40 billion the company has already infused since entering the market in 2010. A significant share of the new capital will go toward expanding Amazon Web Services (AWS), strengthening fulfilment and last-mile delivery networks,…
Bengaluru-based cross-border payments platform Skydo has secured $10 million in a Series A funding round, led by Susquehanna Asia Venture Capital, with continued support from existing investor Elevation Capital. This latest infusion brings Skydo’s total equity funding to $19.7 million, building on the momentum from its $5 million raise in August last year. The company plans to deploy the new capital to expand its local collection infrastructure across 20+ additional countries spanning Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. This expansion aims to strengthen Skydo’s mission of simplifying global payments for Indian exporters, freelancers, and growing businesses. Founded…
In a major boost to India’s science-led startup ecosystem, IIT Bombay’s SINE (Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship) on Tuesday launched the country’s first incubator-linked deep tech venture capital fund — the Y-Point Venture Capital Fund — with a corpus of ₹250 crore. This marks a groundbreaking step in strengthening early-stage deep tech innovation emerging from India’s top research institutions. According to IIT Bombay, the fund has been designed to bridge the critical “lab-to-market” gap that deep tech startups often struggle with. By providing high-risk capital at the pre-seed and seed stages, the initiative aims to accelerate the journey of research-backed…
Vineeta Singh, the co-founder and CEO of Sugar Cosmetics, is one of India’s most admired entrepreneurs and an inspiration for millions of young women aiming to build something of their own. A graduate of IIT Madras and IIM Ahmedabad, she left behind high-paying job offers to follow a dream that many thought was impossible — creating a homegrown beauty brand that could stand tall against global giants. Today, Sugar Cosmetics is one of India’s fastest-growing makeup brands, but Vineeta’s journey is built on courage, consistency, and relentless self-belief. Early Rejections, Failed Startups & Unshakeable Determination Vineeta’s path to success was…
Eric Swider, director at Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), has announced plans to invest ₹1 lakh crore in Telangana over the next decade. The declaration came at the Telangana Rising Global Summit, where Day 1 investment commitments reached ₹2.43 lakh crore, highlighting the state’s rising global appeal. Swider said the majority of this investment will support “Bharat Future City”, Telangana’s ambitious 765 sq km integrated urban development coming up near Meerkhanpet. He praised the state’s rapid economic growth, investor-friendly policies and the leadership of Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, noting that Telangana offers the right environment for high-impact, long-term…
India’s flagship digital payments network, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), has achieved another historic milestone. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), in its June 2025 report Growing Retail Digital Payments (The Value of Interoperability), has officially recognised UPI as the world’s largest retail real-time payment system by transaction volume — a monumental validation of India’s digital transformation journey. According to the report, UPI now accounts for an extraordinary 49% of all real-time payment transactions globally, making India the undisputed global leader in digital payments. Supporting this, ACI Worldwide’s Prime Time for Real-Time Payments 2024 study also identified UPI as the biggest…