AI search firm Perplexity has made a surprising $34.5B bid to acquire Google Chrome, nearly double its own valuation. Backed by $3B in committed investments for Chrome and Chromium over two years, Perplexity promises no stealth changes and plans to keep Chrome’s team. The move aligns with its AI browser ambitions through Comet.

The Reserve Bank of India has provisionally approved Paytm Payments Services Limited to operate as an online payment aggregator under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007. PPSL must complete a full system and cybersecurity audit within six months. The approval comes as Paytm posted Q1 FY26 net profits of ₹122.5 crore, signaling a strong turnaround.

The Union Cabinet approved four semiconductor projects worth ₹4,600 crore under the India Semiconductor Mission, to be set up by SiCSem, 3D Glass Solutions, Continental Device India, and ASIP Technologies. Located in Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, and Punjab, they’ll create 2,000+ skilled jobs and include India’s first Silicon Carbide fab and glass substrate unit. Total ISM projects now stand at 10, with ₹1.6 lakh crore investments.

Ultraviolette Automotive raised $21M, with backing from TDK Ventures, Zoho, and Lingotto, to advance EV innovation and global expansion. The company is growing in India and Europe with its F77 Mach 2 and SuperStreet models. CEO Narayan Subramaniam stressed the boost to battery tech and vehicle systems. Competing with Ola Electric and Oben Electric, Ultraviolette saw FY24 revenue hit ₹23.9 crore, but losses rose to ₹61.6 crore.

Seeds Fincap raised ₹50 crore in a Pre-Series B round led by Z47 and Lok Capital, with Norinchukin Capital and Alteria Capital joining. Founded by Subhash Chandra Acharya and Avishek Sarkar, Seeds tackles India’s ₹30T MSME credit gap via tech-enabled lending. Having disbursed ₹1,000+ crore to 50,000+ MSMEs across 120 branches, the firm will use the funds to expand reach, grow its portfolio, and enhance infrastructure.

Elever, a wealth tech platform, raised $1.1M in pre-Series A funding led by Brand Capital, taking its total to $4M. Founded by Anshul Sharan, Karan Aggarwal, CFA, Ram Subramaniam, and Santosh R, the SEBI-registered advisor will scale its PMS business and boost investor engagement. Offering hybrid robo-advisory for goal-based investing, Elever targets ₹1,000+ crore AUM in two years.

Trackk, a Mumbai-based trading platform, raised $1M in seed funding from MGA Ventures, GSF Ventures, and others, following a $100K pre-seed round. With SEBI approval for NSE and BSE brokerage, it serves 150K users and facilitates 6,000 daily trades as an Authorised Person. Co-founders Vedant Gupte, Aryan Jain, and Siddharth Thakkar plan a user-friendly app with personalized insights, competing with Groww and Zerodha.

ELIVAAS secured $10M in Series B funding led by Vertex Ventures SE Asia & India, with Peak XV Partners’ Surge and 3one4 Capital participating. Founded in 2023 by Ritwik Khare and Karan Miglani, the luxury hospitality platform will expand into Southeast Asia and boost AI-driven tech. Listed on MakeMyTrip and Airbnb, it competes with Ama Stays and SaffronStays.

Fairdeal.Market secured $3M in Pre-Series A funding from Incubate Fund Asia and Waterbridge Ventures to boost tech, expand in Delhi NCR, and onboard D2C brands. Founded in 2022 by Prateek and Yash Bansal, it builds a data-led network to empower 100K retailers. Competing with Bizom and Intelligence Node, Fairdeal uses AI for delivery optimization. Bizom raised $12M; Intelligence Node was acquired by IPG.

Seciale Invest closed Fund III at ₹600 Cr ($70M) to boost India’s deeptech sector, targeting pre-seed and seed startups in spacetech, AI, and semiconductors with ₹7–10 Cr investments. Half the fund is for follow-ons. Founded by Vishesh Rajaram and Arjun Rao, the firm backs ventures with strategic autonomy and global standards. Portfolio includes Agnikul Cosmos and GalaxEye, aiming to grow IP in India for global markets.

Dashverse, an AI entertainment startup, raised $13M in Series A funding led by Peak XV Partners to advance AI tech and expand globally. Founded by Sanidhya Narain, Lalith Gudipati, and Soumyadeep Mukherjee, it evolved from AI comics platform Dashtoon to Frameo.AI for video content. Its microdrama app, DashReels, hit 5M downloads, driving 20M+ users. Funds will scale Frameo.AI and DashReels amid rivals like Reelies, Kuku, MX Player, and JioHotstar.

Manastu Space has raised $3M in an extended Series A round led by Capital-A, with IAN and others participating. Funds will launch its green propulsion and debris-avoidance system, and advance satellite refuelling, deorbiting, and life extension tech. Founded by Tushar Jadhav and Ashtesh Kumar, its MS-289 propeller delivers 50% better performance. India’s $77B-by-2030 spacetech sector is accelerating, with peers like OmSpace, SatLeo Labs, and Astrogate also securing funding.

Following GPT-5’s release, users criticized its performance versus earlier models. In response, OpenAI doubled Plus subscribers’ GPT-5 limit to 160 messages per 3 hours and reinstated GPT-4o access. Earlier models like o3, o4-mini, and GPT-4o had higher limits. Plus users retain a 32,000-token window, while higher tiers get 128,000. Sam Altman pledged to raise GPT-5 Thinking limits to 3,000 messages weekly.

RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra clarified that banks, not the RBI, decide minimum balance requirements. His remarks follow ICICI Bank’s hike for new savings accounts (post-Aug 1) to ₹50,000, up from ₹10,000. Semi-urban and rural branches now require ₹25,000 and ₹10,000, respectively. Malhotra noted wide variation across banks, with some waiving balances entirely, particularly public sector and Jan Dhan accounts, which often exempt customers from penalties.

eAppSys, a UK-based Oracle partner, has expanded its Global Innovation Centre in Hyderabad, increasing capacity for 400 professionals. The move will boost its workforce from 200 to over 500, focusing on Oracle Cloud, AI, ERP, and enterprise transformation. Inaugurated by IT Minister D Sridhar Babu, the centre includes innovation pods, secure zones, and hybrid setups, enhancing delivery to APAC, EMEA, and North America while reinforcing Hyderabad’s role as a global tech hub.

Truemeds, an e-pharmacy and telehealth platform, raised $85M in Series C funding led by Accel and Peak XV, with WestBridge Capital and Info Edge Ventures participating. Funds will drive non-metro expansion, team growth, and a Bengaluru office, aiming to triple reach. Founded in 2019, Truemeds offers affordable medicine alternatives, launched an iOS app, and plans diagnostics. FY24 revenue doubled to ₹315 crore, with reduced losses, competing with PharmEasy and Tata 1mg.

Eyestem Research, a Bengaluru biotech, raised $10M in Series B funding co-led by Raju Barwale and Alkem’s Sandeep Singh. The funds will back Phase 2 trials in India and an IND application to the US FDA. Founded by Jogin Desai, Rajani Battu, and Rajarshi Pal, Eyestem develops cell therapies for eye diseases like dry AMD. Its Eyecyte-RPE therapy replaces damaged retinal cells; Phase 1 data awaits CDSCO Phase 2 clearance.

JioFinance App has added a tax planning and filing module via a tie-up with TaxBuddy, with plans starting at ₹24. Features include Tax Planner and Tax Filing, aiding in regime selection and maximizing deductions under 80C, 80D, etc. Users get personalized deduction mapping, HRA evaluation, return status tracking, and refund monitoring. Hitesh Sethia says the move simplifies tax processes, expanding JioFinance’s intuitive, full-suite financial services platform.

Graas.ai has raised $9M in pre-Series B funding led by Tin Men Capital to expand its Agent Foundry in India. The platform builds autonomous AI agents to solve e-commerce issues like customer acquisition and inventory, offering real-time insights and automated decisions for D2C brands. Founded in 2022, Graas.ai supports 2,000+ brands, processes $1B+ GMV, complies with SOC2, GDPR, ISO, and features agents Hoppr, Cartlyst, Chattr, Turbo, and Extract.

Bengaluru-based Neuralzome Cybernetic raised $2.4M in pre-seed funding led by 8X Ventures, with Turbostart and others participating. Founded in 2023, the deeptech startup develops no-code AI agents and offers Robot-as-a-Service via its NeuralPilot platform with RedPill simulation, cutting training costs and time. Funds will boost R&D in multi-agent autonomy, expand manufacturing, and support entry into North America and Europe.

The Ministry of Heavy Industries has extended the PM E-DRIVE scheme till March 31, 2028, focusing on e-trucks, e-buses, and testing agencies. Launched in October 2024 with a ₹10,900 Cr budget, it replaces EMPS-2024 to boost EV adoption. Subsidies for e-2W and e-3W end March 2026. Incentives cover 5,600 e-trucks (up to ₹9.6 Lakh each). Delhi’s EV policy is also extended to March 2026.

Cloudera and Bhavish Aggarwal’s Krutrim have partnered to boost analytics and data lake workloads for Ola and Krutrim Cloud. Cloudera’s infrastructure will be offered to other enterprises via Krutrim Cloud, enhancing analytics, customer experience, and AI training. Krutrim is building an AI-focused, vertically integrated cloud for India, covering text, voice, and video, to drive innovation across sectors.

Aadhaar face authentication hit 19.36 Cr transactions in July 2025, with a record 1.22 Cr on July 1. Over 150 organisations, including NSAP, use the AI-driven system, benefiting 13.66 lakh people. All 850 NMC medical colleges and central recruitment boards have adopted it. UIDAI logged 2.21 B total authentications (+3.8%) and 39.56 Cr e-KYC transactions, boosting welfare delivery and service access.

India’s defence production hit a record ₹1.51 lakh crore in FY25, up 18% YoY and 90% since FY20. DPSUs contributed 77%, while the private sector rose to 23%. Driven by policy reforms and Aatmanirbhar Bharat, exports reached ₹23,622 crore. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh hailed it as a sign of a strong industrial base.

Antfin Singapore Holding sold ₹4,097 Cr worth of Eternal Ltd. (Zomato) shares at ₹289.91 each, likely cutting its stake below 0.52%. This follows earlier exits by Antfin and Alipay from Zomato and Paytm. Eternal’s Q1 FY26 revenue jumped 70% to ₹7,167 Cr, while profit plunged 90% to ₹25 Cr. Market cap: ₹2,90,234 Cr.

NPrep, founded in 2024 by Prince Kaushik, Utkarsh Paliwal, Gourav, and Shrey Gupta, raised pre-seed funding from All In Capital, IIMA Ventures, and Chegg founder Aayush Phumbhra. The startup will expand courses, enhance its AI skilling platform, and boost placement ties to support nursing students with mock interviews and automated assessments.

Salesforce will acquire Waii, a natural language-to-SQL platform, to boost its Data Cloud. Waii’s metadata-driven tech translates plain language into accurate SQL queries, enhancing data access. Post-acquisition, Salesforce will integrate Waii into Data Cloud to power AI insights across Agentforce and Tableau Next, with completion expected in fiscal Q3 2026

Noida International Airport (NIA) has teamed up with Rapido to offer dedicated last-mile connectivity, featuring pick-up zones, real-time tracking, cashless payments, and 24/7 availability. NIA CEO Christoph Schnellmann stressed the goal of stress-free travel, while Rapido’s Rajiv Bhyri highlighted the tech-enabled, sustainable, and affordable transit experience. Using Rapido’s SaaS model, the partnership aims to ensure competitive fares, fair driver earnings, and seamless integration of app-based mobility within the airport ecosystem.