Breaking startup & business news from India.
Here's your daily dose of Indian startup funding roundup and key business news for 1 September 2026. Yuma Energy raises $35 million, Unacademy closes its acquisition by upGrad at $200 million, and MS Dhoni joins SpeakX's cap table.
Two chipmakers strengthen their relationship in AI data center technology with Nvidia planning to invest $3.5 billion in MediaTek. Nvidia will purchase convertible bonds that can be converted into MediaTek shares and MediaTek will utilise Nvidia technology.
Gold and silver rates today in India, 1 September 2026. 24K gold trades at ₹152,790 per 10g and silver at ₹235,760 per kg, both falling sharply as Comex slides further. Check city wise rates and MCX data below.
upGrad has finalised its acquisition of Unacademy for slightly over $200 million, down significantly from Unacademy’s highest valuation of $3.44 billion during the edtech bubble of the epidemic era. The acquisition comes after the Competition Commission of India greenlit the deal.
ChatGPT, Reddit and Roblox have been classed as “Very Large Online Platforms” by the European Union under the DSA, which places harsher safety, transparency and accountability rules on them. The designation refers to platforms with more than 45 million monthly active users in the EU.
Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB) commenced the 8th edition of the Business Excellence Summit (BES) 2026, themed “Building Resilient Businesses - Navigating Risk to Shape A Sustainable Future.” The two-day summit brings together industry leaders, faculty, students and alumni to explore resilience, risk, technology and sustainable growth. The summit
OpenAI, the AI company, has attained a $1 billion annualised revenue run rate in its advertising business, a big milestone as the firm gears up for a potential IPO, and under pressure to justify its $852 billion valuation. ChatGPT ads are currently available in more than 40 countries.
Funding will scale xStep’s non-invasive neurorehabilitation platform for people with cerebral palsy, stroke, spinal cord injury and multiple sclerosis across India and beyond.
Sony Music and Warner Music sued Anthropic in federal court in California, saying the AI startup exploited copyrighted songs, lyrics and sheet music to train its Claude AI models. The publishers say Claude can reproduce copyrighted songs verbatim.
Kepler Aerospace, a Bengaluru-based space infrastructure and mission operations company, has raised $8 million in a seed round led by Blue Ashva Capital and co-led by Finvolve and India Accelerator, with participation from other investors. The round marks the company’s first external funding since its founding in 2018 and
Commercial traction and strategic investor backing to accelerate manufacturing, R&D and the next generation of indigenous power electronics products.
The fast-fashion giant, Shein, started trading on Hong Kong’s stock market on September 1 after a long IPO process, with its valuation falling to $26.5 billion from almost $100 billion in 2022, a report said. The Shein Hong Kong IPO comes amid additional US and EU tariffs.
With AI accelerating software development and enabling leaner engineering teams, Oppex AI is tackling the bottleneck that follows: managing and resolving issues once software is live.
Mumbai police have busted an alleged multi-crore food fraud involving tampering of manufacturing and expiry dates on packaged items of names like Lay’s, Kurkure, Maggi, Knorr, Hellmann’s, Thums Up and Limca.
🗞️ Funding Roundup
Welcome to StartupTalky’s 2026 Indian startup funding updates. This article provides a clear and easy overview of the latest startup funding news in India throughout the year. Our weekly funding tables, updated regularly, track how much funding each startup has raised, the sectors they operate in, the key investors
Oracle employees are apparently ready for another wave of layoffs, with September 1 – the beginning of Oracle’s fiscal second quarter – being a likely target date for cuts. Teams are more on edge after surprise “6 AM” termination emails in March.
One funding round closed on 31 August 2026, in the indoor air-quality space. Info Edge Ventures led the round. The raise is YOGa Clean Air's INR 20 crore Series A round, with Zomato/Eternal founder Deepinder Goyal among the investors. Away from funding, Groww AMC closed a INR
Gold and silver rates today in India, 31 August 2026. 24K gold trades at ₹155,430 per 10g and silver at ₹242,320 per kg, with gold extending its fall from record highs. Check city wise rates and MCX data below.
Zomato has taken a zero-tolerance approach on imitation paneer and substitute dairy products, eliminating reported listings from the platform and urging eateries to verify ingredient labels. The action comes in the wake of increased scrutiny of fake paneer in India.
Truemeds is in talks to acquire DealShare for about $90 million in an all-stock deal, 95% below DealShare's 2022 unicorn peak. The real story is how much Truemeds' own valuation had to inflate to make it work.
CHINI KUM has closed its pre-seed at ₹1.64 crore, entirely from individual angels, for a zero-sugar prebiotic drink. It is competing in the category PepsiCo validated by paying $1.95 billion for Poppi.
Zomato has laid off up to 250 people in its current round of workforce reorganisation, including close to 240 employees impacted by the shutdown of its Hyderabad Customer Delight operations, reports said. The corporation is centralising remaining in-house support functions in Gurgaon.
Ola Electric has received INR 95.8 crore in PLI incentives from the Ministry of Heavy Industries under the Production Linked Incentive scheme for vehicles and auto components. The recent permission comes on top of INR 367 crore in FY25 and INR 73.74 crore in FY24.
YOGa Clean Air has raised ₹20 crore led by Info Edge Ventures, with Deepinder Goyal joining. It is the first institutional money the company has taken, and its filed accounts already show a profit on about ₹13 crore of revenue.
Cashfree Payments unveils Relay, an AI-powered agent that helps merchants streamline payment operations and recoup lost sales. Relay may make retries on unsuccessful payments, follow up on abandoned carts, track failed subscriptions, disputes and validate cash-on-delivery orders.
Meta’s new US teen safety standards have reignited India’s discussion about age verification, child protection and social media regulation. The settlement also requires stronger age detection technologies and sets default limits on screen usage.
Apple may raise India’s share of global iPhone manufacture to 30-35% from about 25% in the next five years, adding to the country’s importance in its global supply chain. Apple’s suppliers and contract manufacturers are likely to be backed up by government incentives and long-term tax benefits.
🗞️ Funding Roundup
Welcome to StartupTalky’s 2026 US funding updates. This article offers a clear and structured overview of the latest investment activity in the United States throughout the year. Our weekly funding tables, updated regularly, track how much funding companies have raised, the industries they operate in, key investors involved, and
John Ternus takes over as Apple CEO on September 1, 2026. History says the CEO handoff itself barely moves the stock, what matters is the valuation and AI cycle he inherits.
Satvacart has shut down after twelve years, with 28 August its last day. It raised about $2.32 million across its life, roughly a thousandth of what Zepto has raised since 2021, and its founder says capital only ever came in small tranches.
Gold and silver rates in India for Saturday, 29 August 2026. City-wise 24K and 22K gold and silver 999 prices, weekly trends, MCX last-traded levels and the global cues behind the moves.
Industrial47 has closed ₹85 crore of a ₹150 crore debut fund to write pre-seed cheques into space, defence and fusion. The companies Rahul Seth backed personally before this have since raised about $189 million between them.
Most satellites do not die because they break. They die because the propellant runs out. The electronics still work, the solar panels still generate, the payload still functions, and the operator pushes the whole thing into a graveyard orbit because there is no way to put fuel back in. InspeCity
Edgeverse has raised ₹30 million, or ₹3 crore, from GVFL to put camera and radar based rider assistance on two-wheelers. Nearly half the people killed on Indian roads are on two-wheelers, and almost none of those vehicles carry the safety tech that has been standard in cars for years.
Six funding rounds closed on 27 August 2026, spanning space tech, spiritual wellness, logistics and electric vehicles. Speciale Invest, Ashish Kacholia, Singularity AMC and Artha Venture Fund were among the day's lead investors. The headline raise is InspeCity's INR 100 crore pre-Series A round to fund
ZiiP Foundation’s pioneering Women in Photography initiative follows its international debut in the UK and brings together diverse photographic voices from across India.
The company behind the LLM said an internal inquiry months before a hack on Hugging Face found hostile AI activity, with agents purportedly talking, creating notes and getting illegal internet access. The company said the agents took advantage of security gaps.
Nvidia is buying open-source AI platform Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, expanding its influence in the ecosystem of AI tools and models. Hugging Face allows developers to share, experiment and cooperate on AI models and tools.
Amazon to triple purchases of Nvidia GPUs amid AI demand surge Amazon has agreed to install a further 2m processors across its AWS data centers in 2027 and 2028, on top of tripling its orders for Nvidia GPUs. This is in addition to Amazon's earlier plan to deploy more than 1 million Nvidia GPUs.
Gold and silver rates today in India, 27 August 2026. 24K gold trades at ₹159,430 per 10g and silver at ₹240,910 per kg, holding roughly steady ahead of Rakhi shopping tomorrow. Check city wise rates and MCX data below.
Three biryani shops in Uttar Pradesh are running at an annual rate of about ₹25 crore between them. That implies roughly ₹8.3 crore per outlet, or about ₹69 lakh a month each, and it is the number behind this raise. Biryani Bees has raised $1 million from the Vivek
Omega Seiki Mobility has raised ₹50 crore twice in six weeks. The second cheque landed on 20 August 2026, co-led by Abhishek Misra of SKG Asset Management and Unistone Capital, with the Sanjeev Agarwal and Brijesh Parekh family offices alongside. The first, in mid-July, came from Securocorp Securities, Sangeeta Pareekh,
Salesforce and Anthropic have announced the launch of Claudeforce, which will expand their cooperation to incorporate Salesforce CRM capabilities directly into the Claude AI. The interface allows users to view, edit and act on real-time CRM data without accessing Salesforce.
S4S Technologies was founded in 2008. It reached its Series B in July 2024. Sixteen years, building a food-processing business around women farmers, before a growth round arrived. That timeline is the entire argument behind TILT, the impact-first investment platform from The/Nudge Foundation, which on 27 August 2026 announced
Most third-party logistics contracts in India bill you for capacity. Trucks on the road, hubs on lease, people on shift, whether or not anything moved through them that day. OORJAA bills for units delivered instead, which means an empty truck is its problem rather than its client's. On
Meta has agreed to a historic $18 billion settlement with US states on charges that Facebook and Instagram fuelled underage social media addiction. The deal includes improved child-safety measures, such as default time limitations and the ability to turn off features like “like” counts.
AESL has bagged a INR 4,700 crore transmission project in Maharashtra to carry 4,500 MW of renewable power from Karnataka to key consumption centers. The Satara project would enhance grid connectivity, enable pumped storage projects and accelerate India’s sustainable energy transformation.
Spalba
As hotels, event venues and planners increasingly look for faster, more efficient ways to discover, evaluate and sell spaces, technology is beginning to reshape an industry long dependent on physical site visits and manual coordination. Spalba, founded by Naveen and his co-founder, has positioned itself at the centre of this
Bournvita producer Mondelez India, Amway and several other food companies have dropped or modified health and nutrition claims after action by India’s food safety regulator FSSAI. Mondelez pulled Bournvita claims and ads listed as misleading.
📊 IPO
Buried in Note 62 of Purple Style Labs' restated financials is a sentence most readers will skip past: as of March 31, 2026, the company's current liabilities exceeded its current assets by ₹255.12 crore. That is a working capital gap, and it sits right next to
Three funding rounds closed on 26 August 2026, spanning AI agents for small businesses, voice AI and pet care. Susquehanna Venture Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Peak XV Partners and TDV Partners led the day's rounds. The headline raise is Runable's $21 million Series A round to
Gold and silver rates today in India, 26 August 2026. 24K gold trades at ₹162,500 per 10g and silver at ₹244,610 per kg, both easing further as Comex slips for a second day. Check city wise rates and MCX data below.
Google launches Gemini Enterprise for Legal, AI-powered automation tools, specialist plug-ins and AI agents for law firms and legal departments. It’s a platform built to make legal workflows — contract review and negotiation, data discovery and more.
Deloitte has agreed to pay $21.5 million to settle a US government probe into its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices. Deloitte took race and sex into account when making recruiting and promotion decisions and had internal targets for diversity, the US Department of Justice said.
📊 IPO
When Purple Style Labs pulled its shareholder register on August 21, 2026, the BENPOS date behind its IPO filing, the list ran to thirteen names holding more than 1% of the company, led by founder Abhishek Agarwal's 26.09% stake. What stands out isn't who made
Air India’s losses are mounting as the airline continues its recovery and is said to be seeking about $1.5 billion in fresh equity capital from owners Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines. Air India and Air India Express together had a loss of $2.33 billion for the fiscal year ended March.
FMCG
Mamaearth's parent walked away from buying 58% of Fluence Pharma over an unmet closing condition it hasn't named. The company's stock is near a 52-week high and its profit just nearly tripled, so this reads as discipline, not distress.
Honasa Consumer has called off its proposed acquisition of 58% share in nutraceuticals firm Fluence Pharma for INR 135 crore as some critical closing criteria were not completed. Mamaearth’s parent firm is dedicated to growing its nutraceuticals business both organically and inorganically.
Purple Style Labs, the company behind luxury fashion platform Pernia's Pop-Up Shop, opens its INR 680 crore IPO on August 31. Here is the full snapshot, sourced from its Red Herring Prospectus.
The Bombay HC will again take up Volkswagen’s $1.4-billion customs tax challenge, after an earlier bench had freed the matter following a delay of 18 months in pronouncing its verdict. The disagreement relates to Skoda Auto Volkswagen India’s import of automobile parts for its Aurangabad facility.
Five funding rounds closed on 25 August 2026, spanning aerospace, wealthtech, electric motorcycles, climate tech and spiritual tech. Greenoaks, Mirae Asset Venture Investment, Helena and Atomic Capital were among the day's lead investors. The headline raise is Airbound's $37 million Series A round to scale its
Gold and silver rates today in India, 25 August 2026. 24K gold trades at ₹163,400 per 10g and silver at ₹243,610 per kg, both easing as Comex slips from record highs. Check city-wise rates and MCX data below.
Sources say the chipmaker is mulling a stake in AI firm Perplexity that could value the company at more than $30 billion, more than 50% more than its prior valuation. Perplexity’s annual revenue has reportedly soared above $750 million.
Taiwanese research firm TeamT5 says Chinese state-affiliated hackers are increasingly employing DeepSeek and other open-source AI models to scale intrusions. The researchers uncovered AI tools for reconnaissance, vulnerability exploitation, developing exploit code and domain mapping.
Healthify and Berry Street to Team Up to Scale AI-Powered Metabolic Health Care in India and US. The combined business will merge Healthify’s AI nutrition platform, Ria assistant and meal tracking tech with Berry Street’s virtual nutrition services, clinician network and US insurance infrastructure.
Amazon and Flipkart have changed seller fees and penalties ahead of India’s Christmas shopping season, causing alarm among small and medium-sized enterprises. Amazon will increase the closure fee from September 7, citing increasing shipping and gasoline expenses.
* GobbleCube Incubator gives early-stage, founder-led D2C brands free access to dark-store-level intelligence across availability, pricing, and search visibility. * The programme closes a well-documented visibility gap for sub-₹20 lakh brands, with automatic upgrades built in as they scale. GobbleCube, the unified commerce operating system supporting 600+ enterprise and D2C brands,
Infineon Technologies will acquire Bengaluru-based C2i Semiconductors to boost its AI data center power management and semiconductor R&D capabilities in India. Formed by former Texas Instruments engineers, C2i makes smart power stage chips for high-performance AI servers.
Karnataka government has banned food licences of Amazon, Instamart and BigBasket after deadly datura fruits and seeds were identified for sale on their platforms, authorities said. Some of the products had FSSAI licence numbers and were stored as food items.
Five funding rounds closed on 24 August 2026, spanning coffee retail, skincare and physical AI. WestBridge Capital, RPSG Capital, Sauce and Endiya Partners were among the day's lead investors. The headline raise is Third Wave Coffee's INR 408 crore round from existing backer WestBridge Capital. Away
Gold and silver rates today in India, 24 August 2026. 24K gold trades at ₹164,730 per 10g, a fresh high, while silver holds steady at ₹247,900 per kg. Check city wise rates and MCX data below.
World Cup-winning former India captain and cricket icon Rohit Sharma joins LightFury Games as an investor and licensed eCricket player, as the game’s latest teaser clocks in sizable viewership ahead of its phased Closed Beta rollout in September 2026.
Be Clinical, an evidence-led skincare brand focused on clinically effective solutions for ageing skin, has raised INR 21 Crore in its Seed round, led by Sauce. The round also saw participation from V3 Ventures (Verlinvest SA) and a group of angel investors, including Mokobara founders Sangeet Agrawal and Navin Parwal;
TCS has agreed to acquire Porsche subsidiary MHP Management- und IT-Beratung GmbH for €320 million ($373 million) as it seeks to extend its automotive and digital transformation capabilities. The arrangement encompasses a five-year strategic partnership valued at €1.25 billion.
US-based AI wearables firm Plaud believes India is a huge potential opportunity and demand is surpassing its global expansion. Plaud launched in India in 2025 via Amazon and its website, but is now looking for offline retail partnerships and local support.
Godrej Industries Group has inked an MoU with the Haryana government to invest INR 20,000 crore in the state, reinforcing its presence across real estate, infrastructure and financial services. The investment is estimated to produce close to 40,000 jobs.
Urban Company has filed a complaint of defamation and disparagement against Kent RO Systems in the Delhi HC for allegedly using deceptive marketing targeting its Native water purifiers.
The Center has given in-principle clearance for leasing 11 AAI airports through five bundled public-private partnership concessions. The proposed 50-year leases will include airport operations, administration and development.
The FSSAI has stepped up its enforcement of food safety, sending over 150 notifications to big corporations like Nestle India, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola India, Mondelez, Red Bull and Ferrero for misleading claims, deceptive advertising and labelling violations.
KPMG Australia to axe 400 jobs, including 360 staff and 27 partners, due to sluggish consultancy demand, protracted economic woes and the aftermath from a confidential-information issue. Consulting revenue fell 17% to $632 million while the firm’s total revenue dropped 1% to $2.26 billion.
On Sunday, 23 August 2026, gold in India stands at ₹162,800 per 10g and silver at ₹247,520 per kg. Domestic exchanges are shut, so the MCX carries no fresh trades over the weekend. Prices are flat from Friday's close, with no change recorded on either metal.
Gold and silver rates in India stay flat on Saturday, 22 August 2026, as MCX remains shut for the weekend. Check city-wise rates, weekly trends and global cues driving prices.
India has ordered Google to erase hundreds of accounts and links hosted on Firebase that are suspected to be engaged in cyber frauds and financial crime. Law enforcement discovered fraudsters posing as banks who spread malware and stole sensitive financial information through dangerous connections.
No funding rounds closed on 21 August 2026. Instead, the day's biggest development came from public markets, with consumer appliance maker Atomberg filing its draft red herring prospectus for an INR 450 crore fresh issue IPO, as investors A91 Partners, Temasek and Jungle Ventures take a partial exit.
Gold and silver rates today in India, 21 August 2026. 24K gold trades at ₹161,030 per 10g and silver at ₹246,670 per kg, both hitting fresh highs as Comex surges sharply. Check city wise rates and MCX data below.
Deepinder Goyal’s Temple wearable is expected to be commercially launched by the end of 2026. The business claims their product to be the smallest wearable in the world by volume. The device is designed to measure brain function, tracking cerebral blood flow and other data.
TCS has refuted suggestions that it is deploying monitoring software to track staff actions on work laptops, calling the allegations "baseless and inaccurate." The IT firm stated its digital monitoring solutions are intended to improve network management, security, general performance etc.
Euler Motors is expanding its manufacturing facilities in Palwal to cater to the increased demand for electric commercial four-wheelers in India. The new plant will be able to produce models like the Storm EV and Turbo EV 1000 and will include comprehensive testing of critical vehicle systems.
Meesho is aiming to generate over 10 lakh seasonal jobs in its seller and logistics ecosystem over the forthcoming festive season. The e-commerce company expects to generate over 6.5 lakh opportunities from its seller network and over 3.75 lakh in logistics.
Ola Electric has offered an introductory deal on its Shakti Gen2 home inverter. The energy storage system that is powered by a lithium-ion battery is designed to run appliances during power interruptions. The inverter comes in 3 kW and 6 kW capacities and is being given at limited period discounts.
Australia has passed a new law that requires large technology firms to pay for local news or pay hefty taxes. Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft and TikTok can dodge the fines if they make deals with at least eight publishers throughout their reporting period.
TCS has launched out a Digital User Experience surveillance application on company given laptops used by close to 6 lakh employees sparking concerns about employee privacy, data collecting and workplace surveillance. The system can measure app usage and time spent on apps.
Four funding rounds closed on 20 August 2026, spanning babycare quick commerce, fintech payments, sneakers and healthcare infrastructure. Chiratae Ventures and Inflection Point Ventures were among the day's lead investors. The headline raise is Peeko's INR 67.4 crore Series A round, worth over $7 million.
Gold and silver rates today in India, 20 August 2026. 24K gold trades at ₹157,970 per 10g, a fresh high, and silver is at ₹238,360 per kg, as Comex gold rallies sharply. Check city-wise rates and MCX data below.
KARM BABA Ventures has raised ₹1 crore in strategic funding at a post-money valuation of ₹33 crore. The company plans to use the capital to expand its AI-powered SaaS products, engineering teams, media ecosystem and international trade partnerships.
PhonePe has tied up with MeitY to connect its PulsePro business intelligence platform with the PM GatiShakti National Master Plan portal. Using anonymised, aggregated transactional data, PulsePro delivers hyperlocal insights into market activity.
Hindustan Power has achieved financial closure for its 435 MWp/300 MW solar power project in Lalitpur district of UP with IREDA sanctioning INR 1,135 crore in loan financing. The project has signed a long-term PPA with UPPCL and is projected to contribute to the renewable energy capacity of UP.
India probes Oppo for alleged screen flaws in Reno 5 series phones after some consumers complained lines on the display. The DCA is investigating if the problems are a sign of a manufacturing fault and whether they could lead to repairs or reimbursement outside of warranty periods.
Urban Company has grown its footprint in the Middle East by extending its e-commerce relationship with Unicommerce to the UAE and Saudi Arabia. “Urban Company will use Unicommerce’s Uniware platform to manage inventory, fulfilment and replenishment of service kits and consumables in real-time.
India’s commercial satellite internet rollout is still delayed, with permissions for Jio, Starlink and OneWeb held up over security concerns. The government is also looking at hazards arising out of foreign satellite networks bypassing Indian gateways.