Bellevue / Bengaluru · August, 2025 — Enterprise contract management leader Icertis has announced a major leadership transition. Anand Subbaraman, currently the company’s Chief Operating Officer, has been appointed Chief Executive Officer, succeeding co-founder Samir Bodas, who will move into the role of Executive Chairman. Bodas, who co-founded Icertis in 2009 alongside Monish Darda, has led the company through a period of rapid growth to become a global leader in AI-powered contract lifecycle management (CLM). Under his leadership, Icertis has built a customer base that includes more than one-third of the Fortune 100 and achieved an annual recurring revenue of…
Author: Aman Atulya
Delhi | August 8, 2025 — Raising capital may feel like validation. But buried inside every funding high is a term sheet and that’s where founders often lose control without realizing it. In 2020, two first-time founders of a promising SaaS company in Bengaluru celebrated a $2 million seed round. What they missed was a full ratchet anti-dilution clause buried deep in the term sheet. When their next round came at a down valuation, the clause kicked insignificantly diluting their own stake. They still ran the company, but no longer truly owned it. They’re not alone. What Is a Term…
Mumbai | August , 2025 — In one of the most significant downturns in India’s startup landscape, Reliance Industries has officially written off its entire ₹1,645 crore (~$200 million) investment in quick-commerce pioneer Dunzo. The investment, made through Reliance Retail Ventures in early 2022, had secured a 25.8% stake in the company. Dunzo’s collapse began with leadership upheaval when co-founder and CEO Kabeer Biswas exited in January 2025 shortly before the app and website went offline. Despite raising over $450 million, Dunzo’s fortunes declined amid relentless competition from Blinkit, Zepto, and Instamart, accompanied by mass layoffs, unpaid salaries, and stalled…
Mumbai | August , 2025 — Equirus Group, a leading boutique financial services firm, has received approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to launch its non-deposit-taking NBFC, Equirus Finance. This strategic move significantly broadens Equirus’ offering, enabling seamless integration between its wealth management, investment banking, and institutional equities operations. Equirus Finance will offer credit products such as: These will be tailored for high-net-worth individuals (HNIs), family offices, and corporate promoters, reinforcing the “One Equirus” experience melding advisory intelligence with capital execution. With an AUM exceeding $2.2 billion, Equirus now aims to build a diversified loan book of ₹3,000…
Hubballi | August, 2025 — Infosys has inaugurated its new Centre for Advanced AI, Cybersecurity, and Space Technology at the Hubballi Development Centre in Karnataka, joining its global “Infosys Living Labs” innovation network. The launch marks a pivotal step in establishing Hubballi as a regional tech powerhouse. With a local workforce now exceeding 1,000 employees, the facility underscores Infosys’s intent to deepen its footprint in North Karnataka. The centre specializes in cutting-edge domains AI, cloud computing, cybersecurity, engineering services, SAP, and space technology and caters to an array of industries globally, including manufacturing, financial services, retail, and healthcare. Local dignitaries,…
Mumbai | August, 2025 — After a decade of building one of India’s largest digital health platforms, Siddharth Shah, co-founder and CEO of Pharmeasy, is stepping away from the corner office. Parent company API Holdings announced that Shah will transition to the role of Vice Chairman and Director, effective August 27. The move marks a leadership shift just as the company prepares for a long-anticipated IPO. Stepping in as the new Managing Director & CEO is Rahul Guha, who currently leads Thyrocare, the diagnostics chain acquired by API in 2021. Guha will now hold a dual role heading both Thyrocare…
Bengaluru | August, 2025 — In India’s booming credit economy, one broken link often gets ignored collections. But DPDzero, a Bengaluru-based fintech, is changing that. Founded in 2022 by Ananth Shroff and Vivek Pandey, DPDzero just raised $7 million in a Series A round led by GMO Venture Partners, with participation from Blume Ventures, SMBC Asia Rising Fund, India Quotient, and Sinarmas Group. Funding Snapshot Debt collection in India has long relied on outdated methods manual calls, field agents, and opaque practices. Lenders face rising NPAs, while borrowers often suffer harassment. DPDzero uses a blend of AI-driven virtual agents and…
Mumbai | August 7, 2025 — When four college students saw friends breaking under pressure, they didn’t wait for permission. They built Tranquil AI an AI-powered mental health app that started as a college hackathon idea and is now quietly transforming how Gen Z deals with stress. Funding Snapshot Zero external funding. No VCs. No incubators.Just purpose-fueled code and a generation’s cry for help. JEE stress, COVID isolation, academic burnout India’s youth were silently spiraling. Yet mental health tech remained clinical, cold, or inaccessible.Tranquil AI changed that. With AI chat modes (listener, solver, philosopher), mood tracking, guided meditation, and journaling,…
Hyderabad | August 6, 2025 — TurboHire, founded in 2019 by Deepak Agrawal, Rakesh Nayak, and Gaurav Kumar, has raised $6 million (≈₹50 crore) in Series A funding led by IvyCap Ventures. The platform integrates deep AI into the hiring lifecycle, transforming recruitment into a strategic advantage for enterprises. From Automation to Agentic Intelligence TurboHire started as a recruitment automation tool. Today, it deploys agentic AI agents that collaborate with recruiters, interpret candidate data, and execute workflows autonomously. The platform connects deeply with HRMS systems like SAP SuccessFactors, Oracle HCM, and Workday, enabling seamless adoption without disrupting legacy enterprise systems.…
Bengaluru | August 6, 2025 — Co-founded by Harshil Salot and Priyanka Salot in 2019, The Sleep Company has raised ₹480 crore (~$55 million) in a Series D round led by ChrysCapital and 360 ONE Asset, including a mix of primary capital and secondary exits. Fireside Ventures partially exited through secondaries. Scaling Purposefully Not Just Rapidly The company is using the fresh equity to expand its manufacturing capacity, deepen its omnichannel retail footprint, develop new comfort-tech categories, and invest in innovation and hiring. Over ₹100 crore will go toward brand-building initiatives, including campaigns like the SmartGRID vs Memory Foam challenge and…