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Featured stories
Naiyya Saggi on building EDT
Naiyya Saggi, founder of consumer appliance and beauty-tech startup EDT (Everyday Design & Technology), is reimagining everyday products for Indian consumers. Founded in 2025 with co-founder Vyasateja Rao, the startup offers a range of devices for the home, kitchen and beauty segments. Its products include Luma, a programmable glass air fryer; Flow, a temperature-controlled glass kettle; and SUKI, a hair dryer designed to minimise hair damage.
Saggi, who previously founded parenting platform BabyChakra and co-founded the Good Glamm Group, says EDT aims to address market gaps by combining thoughtful design with technology tailored to Indian consumers.
Sarvam AI signs five-year agreement with Defence Ministry to develop AI technology
Indian AI startup Sarvam AI has signed a five-year agreement with the Ministry of Defence to develop artificial intelligence (AI) technology for the armed forces. The partnership aims to strengthen India's indigenous AI capabilities for defence applications and reduce dependence on foreign technology for sensitive military operations.
Founded by Pratyush Kumar and Vivek Raghavan, Sarvam AI develops AI models and tools tailored to Indian languages and contexts. Its defence work comes amid the government's push to build homegrown AI systems for military applications, including intelligence analysis, surveillance, reconnaissance, and operational decision-making. The collaboration could help integrate indigenous AI capabilities into India's defence ecosystem.
Funding news
Live2.ai raises Rs 130 Cr to expand AI-led social commerce platform
Bengaluru-based Live2.ai, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to connect social media intelligence with marketing and commerce, has raised Rs 130 crore ($14 million) in a pre-Series B funding round led by venture capital firm IvyCap Ventures. The round includes fresh capital to fund expansion and a secondary component that gives early shareholders partial liquidity.
Founded by J Venkat and Neha Suyal, Live2.ai helps brands monitor conversations across social media platforms, analyse trends, audit influencer content, publish campaigns and measure performance.
Maasi raises Rs 6 Cr to build a reliable nanny service for Indian parents
Bengaluru-based childcare startup Maasi has raised Rs 6 crore in a pre-seed funding round led by Better Capital, alongside Antler India. Angel investors, including Rapido veteran Rishikesh SR, Shadowfax’s Vaibhav Khandelwal, Xoxoday’s Sumit Khandelwal, Siddhant Goyal, and Sanjay Ramakrishnan, also participated. Following its public launch on October 20, the startup says it attracted a waitlist of more than 4,000 parents within five days and has served over 1,200 parents through a network of more than 500 caregivers.
Founded by Aashu Manchali, Gargi Pandey, and Reshov Roy, Maasi aims to solve the challenge of finding reliable childcare by offering verified, trained nannies.
Mochatrade raises $5.5M to expand US markets trading platform for Indian users
Mochatrade has raised $5.5 million in total funding for its US markets trading platform targeting Indian users. The funding was led by CoinFund, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Zero Knowledge Ventures and other investors. Earlier backers include Y Combinator and Pioneer Fund. The platform aims to make trading linked to US-listed companies such as Nvidia and Tesla more accessible to Indian users.
Mochatrade lets users fund accounts through UPI and track margins, profits, and losses in rupees. Its platform offers long and short positions through perpetual futures contracts linked to US company prices, without requiring users to open a US brokerage account or own the underlying shares. These contracts have no fixed expiry, and leverage lets traders take larger positions with less upfront capital, increasing both potential gains and losses.
CopperPilot raises $390K to build AI design agent for electronics hardware
CopperPilot, an AI-powered design agent for electronics hardware, has raised $390,000 in a pre-seed funding round led by Neon Fund, with participation from US-based angel investors. The startup also announced the release of the first version of its design agent, codenamed Epsilon, which is now available to hardware engineers. CopperPilot says its weekly active users have grown 25-fold since August 2026, and it has run more than 6,000 design tasks, or artefacts, on the platform to date.
The startup aims to simplify electronic circuit board design by automating tasks such as reading component datasheets, selecting parts, drawing schematics and routing circuit boards. These processes can take engineers several weeks and cost thousands of dollars before they have a first prototype. CopperPilot aims to reduce this timeline to hours, helping hardware teams accelerate product development and reduce engineering workloads.
Other news
Aleph appoints Medhavi Singh as India Country Head
Global digital advertising and fintech solutions company Aleph has appointed Medhavi Singh as its Country Head for India. The appointment reflects the company's focus on India's digital economy and the country's growing importance in the Asia-Pacific region.
Singh brings over 15 years of experience across digital advertising, retail media, quick commerce and revenue strategy.
She joins Aleph after nearly nine years at Criteo, where she most recently served as Country Head for India and helped grow the company's business in the market.
Before Criteo, she spent nearly five years at Google in account strategy and analytical leadership roles across India, the UK, and the US.
She holds a degree in computer science engineering and an MBA.
Protectt.ai acquires majority stake in Bosch-incubated AIShield
Cybersecurity company Protectt.ai Labs has made a strategic investment in AIShield, an AI security platform incubated within Bosch Global Software Technologies (BGSW), becoming its majority shareholder. The investment comprises a primary share issuance and a secondary purchase from existing investors. Following the transaction, AIShield will operate as an independent entity, AI Shield Private Limited (AISW), under Protectt.ai.
The capital will support AIShield's research and development, international expansion and development of sovereign AI security capabilities as organisations increasingly seek to secure AI systems against emerging cyber threats.
Skydo gets IFSCA authorisation to expand cross-border payment services
Cross-border payments platform Skydo has received final authorisation from the International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) to operate as a Payment Service Provider (PSP) at Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) International Financial Services Centre (IFSC). The approval follows the in-principle authorisation granted in May 2026 and enables the company to develop a broader range of cross-border payment products.
Skydo plans to introduce multi-currency accounts, merchant acquiring and collections, and payment infrastructure for exporters, investment platforms and trade finance companies operating in the IFSC. One proposed offering is a multi-currency account that will allow eligible Indian exporters to collect and hold foreign currency, use it to pay overseas suppliers, or convert it into rupees when required, subject to regulatory requirements.
TagMango partners with ClickFunnels to launch Backstage Pass for creators
TagMango, a Y Combinator-backed creator monetisation platform, has launched Backstage Pass in partnership with ClickFunnels, a sales-funnel platform whose users have generated over $11 billion in sales.
TagMango works with more than 10,000 creators and has reached over 15 million users, while ClickFunnels has a community of more than 150,000 customers. Unveiled at Funnel Hacking Live in Las Vegas, Backstage Pass will initially target the US market before expanding to India.
The platform aims to help creators engage and monetise their audiences directly, without relying on social media algorithms for visibility.