What Indian VCs want; AI for the modern classroom
Hello,Meet 2026’s first unicorn.Payments infrastructure provider Juspay raised $50 million in a Series D follow-on investment from WestBridge Capital, valuing the company at $1.2 billion. The transaction comprises both primary and secondary investments, providing liquidity to early investors and employees holding stock options.Meanwhile, Zoho is doubling down on its make-in-India mission. The SaaS company launched its ERP technology platform, which will see part of its product development and other activities driven out of Kumbakonam—a small town in Tamil Nadu located about 300 kilometres from the company’s headquarters. In other news, Urban Company’s foray into the domestic help sector has been a tad expensive this December quarter. The home services marketplace saw its quarterly revenue grow 32% on the back of Native RO range and home services, even as its loss widened to Rs 21 crore due to heavy investments in the Insta Help vertical.If this year’s CES innovations are anything to go by, household robots from companies such as LG and Clutterbot could soon be the norm.Hidden behind the more flashy AI wave, a distinct transformation is taking place in robotics. A new class of technology known as Physical AI is beginning to redefine how machines interact with the world—and Microsoft´s new offerings… Read MoreYourStory RSS Feed
Andhra Pradesh Govt Mulls Ban On Social Media For Under-16s
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Urban Company eyes Q3 FY28 breakeven while doubling down on instant...
Consumer services platform Urban Company is looking to double down on instant services, expanding the Insta Help portfolio to its larger Indian consumer business. "Beyond Instahelp, for our core India consumer services business, wherever applicable, we want to move all of those services to become relatively instantaneous as well," Abhiraj Singh Bhal, CEO, Urban Company, shared in a post-earnings call with analysts. Urban Company plans to tap into the learnings from its Insta Help operation for its core business to accelerate its trajectory into becoming more instantaneous. It plans to bring forward fulfilment timelines for all its services, beauty services, plumbers, electricians, etc. These moves are likely to follow first in high-density micro markets, which are "moving towards becoming more instantaneous", followed by other geographies. More instantaneous services improve partner utilisation, leading to more profitable micromarkets. "So it's a win-win for all of us, for the customer because they're getting the orders faster, for the service professionals because stacking of orders is better, cancellation rates are fewer, and utilisation is better, and therefore their earnings are better," explained Bhal. The NCR-based company expects to break even at the consolidated level by the December quarter of FY28, as it expects its… Read MoreYourStory RSS Feed
Daily Indian Startup Funding Roundup & Key News – 23rd January...
SEBI clears IPOs of Infra.Market, Purple Style Labs
India’s capital markets regulator has cleared two companies' public foray, as construction-tech platform Infra.Market and luxury fashion retailer Purple Style Labs move closer to initial public offerings.Hella Infra Market Ltd., the parent of Infra.Market, and Purple Style Labs Ltd. have received approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India to proceed with their IPOs, according to regulatory filings.Infra.Market’s approval follows a series of pre-IPO fundraises aimed at strengthening its balance sheet and promoter holding. In September 2025, the Thane-based company raised Rs 732 crore ($83 million) in a Series G round led by Nikhil Kamath’s family office, NKSquared. Silverline Homes, linked to co-founder Aaditya Sharda, invested Rs 250 crore, while Tiger Global committed Rs 176 crore through its Internet Fund. Accel, Evolvence India and Nexus Ventures also participated.The round valued Infra.Market at about Rs 24,600 crore, reports said, and was partly structured to lift the combined stake of founders Sharda and Souvik Sengupta to nearly 30%, formally classifying them as promoters ahead of the IPO. Founded in 2016, Infra.Market operates an online marketplace connecting construction material suppliers with contractors and developers, while also running a large private-label manufacturing business.The company runs about 250 manufacturing plants across 55 cities and… Read MoreYourStory RSS Feed
Indian Unicorn Tracker: Funding, Investors, Revenue And More
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[Weekly funding roundup Jan 17-23] Capital inflow maintains upward trend
Venture capital (VC) funding into Indian startups grew in January boosted by a large number of deals along with higher value transactions.The total funding for the third week of January stood at $373 million across 40 deals. In comparison, the previous week saw VC funding of $229 million. The month so far has bucked the trend of January usually being a slow one for the ecosystem in terms of funding. The rise in VC funding can be attributed to the higher number of deals in this week when compared to the last: 40 versus 25. It is always the volume that matters. Also, transactions were spread across segments such as fintech, electric vehicle, and traveltech. This shows investors are willing to bet in several sectors. Debt funding saw strong growth this month, a good sign considering that investors provide debt to businesses with positive cash flow. Funding was consistent across stages—pre-Series A, B, and growth.During this week, an India origin AI startup —Emergent which is now headquartered in San Francisco received funding from Khosla Ventures and SoftBank Vision Fund 2. This is a positive sign as there are fewer number of pureplay AI startups in India and hope this number… Read MoreYourStory RSS Feed
