Fifteen Indian startups raised $133.9 million between 19 and 24 October, against about $302.85 million for 30 startups the week before, Entrackr data shows, a 56% fall. Four growth-stage deals brought in $86.2 million and ten early-stage rounds $47.7 million. Half the startups, less than half the money.
Read more at bharatfast.com →
360 ONE and TR Capital are among buyers eyeing stakes in Hector Beverages, maker of Paper Boat, in a deal valuing it at Rs 2,700 to 3,000 crore. A91 Partners and Sofina may sell partially while Sequoia Capital and Footprint Ventures look to exit. The juice is being bottled.
Read more at The Economic Times →
Kay Beauty, the cosmetics brand Katrina Kaif co-founded with Nykaa in 2019, has crossed Rs 350 crore in gross merchandise value, which measures goods sold and is not a valuation, a distinction the industry sometimes forgets. Its products now sell in Britain through luxury retailer Space NK.
Read more at Mint →
M&A and PE/VC deals in India's consumer segment totalled 353, worth $3.26 billion, in the first nine months of 2026, down 6% in volume and 53% in value. Investors now favour brands with a clear proposition and a path to profitability, criteria that were apparently optional before.
Read more at The Economic Times →
Gujarat spacetech startup SatLeo Labs launched TAPAS-1, described as India's first commercial thermal payload, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 on 1 October. The three kg payload orbits about 500 km up and takes high-resolution thermal images. It weighs about as much as a laptop with ambitions.
Read more at thehawk.in →A Union Bank of India report expects more demand for debt to fund India's AI data centres and computing infrastructure. It also flags fast GPU obsolescence, uncertain revenue models and evolving regulation, which are the reasons a lender might hesitate, listed by a lender.
Read more at EdexLive →L&T Finance has launched the second edition of Pitch Point, a competition for AI startups. Winners of the first edition, Arrowhead AI and SpoofSense, urged new applicants to treat it as a partnership opportunity rather than just a contest, which is what winners say.
Read more at m.thewire.in →
Chinese AI startup DeepSeek raised about 100 billion yuan, or $15 billion, in a round backed by Tencent and battery maker CATL, Bloomberg reported. It raised its target several times during talks, from 50 billion yuan to 80 billion and then 100 billion. Demand did the negotiating.
Read more at The Daily Star →
Tenstorrent's $1.5 billion Series E, at a $6.2 billion post-money valuation, made up about 85.1% of the funding announced across eight disclosed financings from 17 to 23 October. Whop's $200 million round, led by Sequoia and Shopify Ventures, came a distant second. The other six shared the rest.
Read more at en.cryptonomist.ch →
Pathos AI raised $237 million led by Bristol Myers Squibb at a post-money valuation of about $3 billion. It uses AI to pick drug candidates and patient groups, since only about 9.6% of drugs entering Phase 1 trials win approval, and 5.1% in oncology. The odds are the pitch.
Read more at en.wowtale.net →
AI video and image startup Higgsfield, valued at $5.4 billion in August, has extended its $400 million round with fresh money from Nvidia and growth equity firm TCV. It works across corporate marketing and Hollywood visual effects, two industries that have always valued a convincing image.
Read more at indiantelevision.com →
South African clinical AI startup Healthleap raised an $8 million seed round co-led by Sequoia Capital and First Round Capital, plus a $30 million Series A. Its software flags hospital patients who may have undiagnosed conditions, starting with malnutrition.
Read more at portalerp.com →Ghanem, a Saudi proptech founded in 2025 by Saleh Waheed Al-Ghamdi and Amr Essam, raised a $1.5 million pre-seed extension from real estate companies and angels, taking the round to $8.6 million. That is a large pre-seed. Earlier backers include Al-Romaih Group and Waad VC.
Read more at wamda.com →INVE, a Saudi startup offering personalised invitations and event management tools, raised $300,000 in pre-seed funding from Outliers Venture Capital. It will take its business platform, launched in August, to more companies and grow its consumer product beyond weddings, where invitations have always been taken seriously.
Read more at techeconomy.ng →
Unacademy CEO Gaurav Munjal called tech journalist Ashlee Vance's view that Indian VCs are too cautious to back ambitious startups very dated and rage baitish, saying on X that India's startup ecosystem has improved massively. The debate continued on X, where nuance goes to rest.
Read more at The Economic Times →
Speaking at the NDTV World Summit, Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath said money flowing into AI still far exceeds the revenue it generates. He warned the imbalance could make the coming months particularly difficult for AI startups and their investors, who have been told.
Read more at the420.in →
A proposal by MEP Damian Boeselager to make European pension funds put at least 2% of assets into European venture capital failed in negotiations, preliminary committee texts show. Dutch funds keep the right to decide for themselves.
Read more at nltimes.nl →
Blackbird, Australia's largest venture firm, invested a record $297 million across 16 companies in the September quarter, fuelled by its later-stage portfolio and a surge in AI deals. It is on track to invest more than $1 billion this year, Capital Brief reports. Cautious investors are elsewhere.
Read more at capitalbrief.com →
Skift tracked 57 travel funding rounds in Q3, down from 75 in Q2, with AI-native rounds falling to 12 from 25. Investment totalled $1.38 billion, but a single $1 billion Adani Airports round did most of that. Without it, funding fell 25% from Q2.
Read more at skift.com →The UK government's entrepreneurship adviser will step down the day after the Budget, accusing ministers of treating the country's fastest-growing companies as a sideshow while prioritising traditional industries, Sifted reports.
Read more at Sifted →Samsung Next invested in robotics startup Eka Robotics and AI agent cloud Daytona, LG Technology Ventures in sodium-ion battery maker Peak Energy, and Bass Ventures in San Francisco robot model startup Dream Labs, Wowtale reports. The robots are attracting the most corporate attention.
Read more at en.wowtale.net →Qatar Development Bank is widening programmes to improve startup access to capital and attract foreign founders. Qatar's venture funding rose 81% in 2025 to QR214 million across 33 deals, according to a report by QDB and MAGNiTT. The bank reports that the bank's market is growing.
Read more at gulf-times.com →Andrea Romagnoli of Lazio Innova told Gulf Times that Qatari funds could find opportunities around Rome, where strong academic research and startup creation face a domestic capital gap that international co-investment can fill. The gap was explained to a Qatari newspaper.
Read more at gulf-times.com →Sure Valley Ventures' first realised gain came in December 2019, when the sale of AI company Artomatix returned about five times its investment in 14 months. Later exits included Getvisibility and Landvault, but losses elsewhere weighed on 2026 results. The first exit remains the favourite.
Read more at The Economic Times →
Jio Platforms' Rs 30,213 crore issue, which closed on 23 October, crossed one crore applications, a global first, Trak.in reports. It drew retail investors, institutional buyers and existing Reliance Industries shareholders, which in India covers most people with a demat account.
Read more at trak.in →Analysts say Jio Platforms' listing would give investors a clear benchmark for valuing Reliance's telecom and digital businesses. Any major re-rating will depend on Jio's post-listing performance, earnings growth and cash generation, which is to say on the business.
Read more at BW Businessworld →
MK Sons Fine Jewels' Rs 275.4 crore IPO, priced at Rs 153 to 162, opens on 28 October and closes on 30 October, with anchor bidding on 27 October. It combines a fresh issue of up to 1.36 crore shares with an offer for sale. Jewellery is sold separately.
Read more at indiaipo.in →
Netweb Technologies' September quarter profit rose to Rs 136.7 crore from Rs 31.4 crore, and revenue climbed to Rs 1,323.3 crore from Rs 303.7 crore, on demand for AI infrastructure. The firm sells the shovels in this particular gold rush.
Read more at BusinessLine →
Infosys reported steady revenue growth in the September quarter on strong AI demand and large deal wins, YourStory's newsletter notes, with AI revenue up 29%. It also reports that Apple's foldable iPhone was fully pre-booked in its first week. The newsletter covers a lot.
Read more at YourStory →Inc42's FY26 tracker shows a growing number of Indian startups turning profitable or getting closer, after years of cost cutting to fit new funding realities. India saw 22 new-age tech listings in FY26, up from 13 in FY25. Profit has become fashionable again.
Read more at Inc42 →Ramco Systems' September quarter profit fell to $0.05 million from $1.47 million, and revenue slipped 5% to $19.2 million from $20.3 million as other expenses rose. Annual recurring revenue stood at $12.09 million. The Chennai software firm's profit is now best read with a magnifying glass.
Read more at BusinessLine →TechCrunch's running list of AI failures includes Relay, a Zapier alternative that shut in August after OpenAI and Google built similar automation into their own tools, and Character.ai, which filed for bankruptcy five years after launch. The biggest competitor is often the platform.
Read more at TechCrunch →
Air Company, founded in New York in 2017 by Gregory Constantine and Stafford Sheehan, first made vodka from alcohol produced with carbon dioxide and hydrogen. It later moved into synthetic aviation fuel and won a US Defense Innovation Unit contract. Vodka to jet fuel is a shorter pivot than expected.
Read more at The Times of India →
Kalshi co-founder and chief operating officer Luana Lopes Lara, 30, one of the world's youngest self-made female billionaires, told Fortune she still works 12 to 14 hours a day at the $22 billion prediction market platform. Her fortune, she says, has changed little about her routine.
Read more at Mint →
Shein will pay $100 million, equal to 44% of its second-quarter profit, to settle an FTC investigation into delivery delays and other complaints, Reuters reported. Consumers filed more than 12,000 complaints. The settlement, unlike some orders, arrived.
Read more at Mint →
Entrepreneur Arjun Vaidya recalled that Akash Ambani could have stayed in the US after graduating from Brown University in 2013 but came back to India to work on Jio. Jio is now behind a record-breaking IPO, which suggests the flight home was worth it.
Read more at ET Now →
At the NDTV World Summit, the Raymond chairman said he lost close family relationships protecting the company and the thousands whose livelihoods depend on it, and spoke about succession planning and governance in family-run businesses.
Read more at Mint →ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet told staff in a memo that employee feedback will help decide bonuses and long-term rewards for top executives, as the Dutch chip equipment maker tries to lift morale after a major shake-up, Business Insider reported. Staff now have a say. Executives have an incentive to listen.
Read more at Mint →Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark has brought his forecast for self-improving AI forward to 2027. He says AI research taste, the ability to pick experiments and read results, has roughly doubled every three months since December 2025 on TasteVal, a new benchmark from P-Zero Research. Taste now has a benchmark.
Read more at The Decoder →KFC US president Catherine Tan-Gillespie, 52, began working life washing dishes at 13. She told Fortune she never chased money or prestigious titles, choosing opportunities that let her learn, take risks and grow. The title arrived anyway.
Read more at Mint →indē wild founder Diipa Buller-Khosla told Storyboard18 that social media can capture attention, but long-term success depends on product quality, community and consistency, and on a brand that stands beyond the founder's own influence. An influencer recommends not relying on influence.
Read more at Storyboard18 →The Palantir co-founder turned venture capitalist told CNBC that his wife Tayler uses an AI agent at home and has nicknamed it the tradbot, a nod to tradwives, women who embrace traditional household roles.
Read more at businessinsider.com →An Entrepreneur contributor argues founders decide better by gathering enough evidence, testing assumptions and managing risk before committing big resources, then reflecting on outcomes and applying the lessons. Founders who have read this far may already be committing big resources.
Read more at entrepreneur.com →Startup roles in India first, then global and remote, checked today. Every listing links to the original posting. Equity is between you and the cap table.
Founder meetups and demo days coming up, each checked against its own page this morning. Bring a one line pitch, then shorten it.
It sits on your phone like an app and has never once asked for an update.
iPhone