Addressing a long-standing demand of the homegrown startup ecosystem, the Centre has notified a revised definition of startups, which relaxes the framework for deeptech entities to be recognised as a startup. As part of its efforts to support long-gestation, R&D-intensive ventures, the central government said that deeptech startups will now qualify for recognition and benefits for up to 20 years. The centre also increased the turnover threshold to ₹300 Cr from ₹200 Cr currently. To qualify under the new regime, the startups must work towards innovation, product or process improvement, or operate a scalable business model with high potential for employment or wealth creation. The startups will be eligible to apply for tax benefits under Section 80-IAC of the Income-tax Act, subject to certification by an inter-ministerial board comprising representatives from DPIIT, the Department of Biotechnology and the Department of Science and Technology. Deeptech startups have been defined as entities working on scientific or engineering-led innovation, with high research and development expenditure, significant intellectual property (IP) creation. This is the first time that the Union government has defined the deeptech ecosystem. The notification also tightens compliance norms. Recognised startups must primarily deploy funds towards core business activities such as innovation,…  ​Read MoreInc42 Media

Union minister Amit Shah unveiled India’s first government-backed ride hailing platform ‘Bharat Taxi’, built on the ethos of shared ownership. During the launch event in Delhi NCR today, Shah said that the platform’s main goal is to empower the cab drivers. “There is going to be no commission for the drivers. Whatever fare will be shown on the app, the entire amount will be given to the driver,” he added. Shah added that this launch fuels the ambition of welfare for “Sarthis” (driver) community with a vision to expand from “Kashmir to Kanyakumari and from Dwarka to Kamakhya, across the entire country” within three years.  A month ago, Shah said that the new app will look to “free the country’s commercial vehicle drivers from (their) dependency on private companies”. Additionally, he also noted that the new service will enable drivers to keep full earnings from each ride.  Operated by Sahkar Taxi Cooperative Limited, Bharat Taxi will work under a cooperative model, making drivers the co-owners. To participate, the drivers will be required to buy a minimum of 5 shares (worth ₹500 total), earning stakeholder perks like dividends, health insurance, and pensions. The model will work across two-wheeler, three-wheeler, and four-wheeler…  ​Read MoreInc42 Media

Listed edtech major PhysicsWallah (PW) reported a 33.4% jump in its consolidated net profit to ₹102.3 Cr in the quarter ended December 2025 from ₹76.7 Cr in the same quarter previous year. On a quarterly basis, profit grew 46.8% from ₹69.7 Cr. Revenue from operations soared 33.7% YoY to ₹1,082.4 Cr during the quarter under review from ₹809.6 Cr in Q3 FY25. Sequentially, it rose 3% from ₹1,051.2 Cr.  The company recorded a 32.7% YoY jump in its total expenses to ₹979.9 Cr. Notably, PW had an exceptional loss of INR 23.6 Cr due to impairment of good will and tangible assets, IPO-related expenses, and the impact of the recently notified labour codes. The company’s adjusted EBITDA zoomed 40% YoY to ₹351.2 Cr during the quarter under review. Besides its results, the edtech company has disclosed an investment of ₹1.5 Cr to buy 50% stake in health and wellness company Kay Wellness. It said that the purpose of the investment is to support corporate requirements and undertake certain strategic initiatives. Founded in 2025, Kay Lifestyle offers services in fitness, yoga, meditation and nutritional products. Its FY25 turnover stood at ₹1.17 Cr. Besides, PW’s board also approved a proposal to acquire…  ​Read MoreInc42 Media

The agricultural sector continues to be the biggest employer in India, with over 46% of the population engaged in agricultural activities, a number that has surprisingly grown in the past few years even though globally India’s image is a tech services and products giant. At the same time, the average annual growth rate in the agriculture and allied sector over the past five years has been around 4.4%, according to the Economic Survey 2026. It highlighted that while AAGR has shown improvement, exceeding the global average of 2.9%, yields across several crops continue to trail behind global numbers. Enter: crop productivity. Several startups in the sector have been trying to optimise agriculture for the past decade through technology, providing farmers with everything from hundreds of data points to speciality tools they require to increase yields. However, most of them have failed to scale to a level that will actually make a dent on the highly fragmented ecosystem, particularly due to the nature of this business. “India as a country drives its growth based on agriculture, yet we haven’t seen very few unicorns or success stories in agritech based businesses. The primary reason is fragmentation, unique geographical problems and lack of…  ​Read MoreInc42 Media

One of the world’s hottest AI startups, Anthropic, stunned global technology markets with its latest AI launch, triggering sharp sell-offs across US, European and Indian tech stocks on February 4. In a single trading session, nearly $285 Bn was wiped off from the combined market capitalisation of software, legal tech, enterprise SaaS and financial services companies. To put that in perspective, the figure is roughly equivalent to the entire estimated revenue of India’s IT industry in FY2025, estimated at $283 Bn. This underscores the sheer scale of the market reaction. What Did Anthropic Launch And Why Did It Spook Markets? Claude-maker Anthropic introduced 11 plugins to its AI tool called Claude Cowork on January 30 to help automate business tasks. Claude Cowork is an AI assistant that moves beyond chat and autonomously executes multi-step workplace tasks directly on user’s computer. One of the newly introduced plugins focused on legal work caused a major stir in particular. These automations are said to directly impact areas that form a critical revenue backbone for both global SaaS and Indian IT services companies. Markets quickly interpreted this as a structural inflexion point, not just another incremental AI upgrade. The ‘SaaSPocalypse’: Ground Zero Of Panic…  ​Read MoreInc42 Media

The GST department has upheld a tax demand of ₹37.33 Cr against listed fintech major Pine Labs for a case dating back to FY20. The dues include non-payment of GST worth almost ₹14.9 Cr, on which accrued interest has climbed to almost ₹20.9 Cr. In addition, it is facing a penalty of ₹1.48 Cr. Pine Labs said that the order won’t have any “immediate material impact on the financial, operation and other activities of the company”. It is in the process of filing an appeal against the order before the Customs, Excise And Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT). According to Pine Labs, the unpaid GST originated from its acquisition of digital gift card company Qwikcilver Solutions Private Limited in 2019, which it merged with in 2022 to create a consolidated legal entity. Pine Labs had filed an appeal against the GST demand order, however, the joint commissioner of commercial taxes – Bengaluru upheld the tax demand. Pine Labs has been grappling with similar legal and tax issues for a few years. In August 2024, GST authorities alleged that it wrongly availed GST credits between July 2017 and March 2024, tied to co-branding activities, product listing fees on online platforms, and…  ​Read MoreInc42 Media

Which is the ideal location to set up a petrol pump? During his time at Jio-bp as a retail network planner and later at Accenture as a management consultant, Divyansh Raghuvanshi realised how often decisions like these still get made on patchy data and judgment calls.  That’s when he stumbled upon Kentrix, which offered an exhaustive dataset to identify the location that would make the most business sense for the new outlet. The dataset was built by Rahoul Anders, who spent years at AC Nielsen and Acxiom in Europe before deciding to focus on India. Anders realised that despite being one of the world’s largest and most complex consumption markets, India lacked a unified, credible, and protected consumer intelligence backbone. Working with Anders and the granular, household-level dataset he had built for India, Raghuvanshi applied it to some of Accenture’s most high-impact GTM work. Having seen what highly localised consumer data could unlock, he believed Anders’s dataset could change how Indian brands shape their go-to-market strategies. The conviction was so strong that he decided to let go of his full tuition sponsorship from Accenture for his master’s at Stanford Graduate School of Business and started to collaborate with Anders to…  ​Read MoreInc42 Media